From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Aug 04 2003 - 23:42:44 MDT
Damien wrote
> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Damien Broderick
> Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 7:24 PM
>
> Because my sharp and immediate reaction to Robert Bradbury's `abstract
> consideration' of a `horrific suggestion' was the first off the block, and
> has been deplored in strong terms by Lee Corbin as nothing better than
> bullying, I should perhaps write a little more about that.
This is not so an unfair characterization of my charge as I
had thought. "Bullying" can include (1) cruelty (2) lording
power over others. I certainly was not accusing you of that.
But I have learned that in many instances the term need not
connote that, so as long as neither of these is meant, then
yes, that is my accusation. But a much better description
is that scolding in high dudgeon and moral rage/self-
righteousness, though it can be an honest reaction, is
not at all helpful. We all really should make an effort
to---however angry we are---restrain ourselves to rational
communication.
Because as I said before, one of the components in angry
attacks on posters is: Be Afraid.
Because not only are one's ideas being criticized, but so
is one's very character itself.
Now of course, inferences about someone's character are
always bound to be made, and no one can really stop
himself or herself from doing so privately. For example,
to some for a person to admit to atheism necessarily
reveals a personal character defect of no small proportion.
To others, for someone to advocate adult/child sex or
blatant child molestation will reflect very negatively
on the advocate's character.
But this is quite different from attempting to *intimidate*
the advocates of atheism or child molestation, or uploading,
or whatever else is the criticized project or activity, by
attacking the speaker's moral virtue. Let their advocacy
of an idea speak for itself! Please allow them to be condemned
---if that is what it is to be in your mind and the minds of
others---by their own words.
Speakers on a forum such as this, where the currency is in
ideas, ought not to have to suffer personal attacks, or have
their character besmirched for advocating capital punishment,
communism, genocide, pornography, infanticide, preemptive
nuclear attack, total personal responsibility, eugenics,
spirituality, Jew baiting, liberalism, or any other sin that
you can think of---even including listening to Pat Roberson.
The basic message behind attacks written in visible anger
is "SHUT UP" and "WE do not wish to hear about such things".
An even more sinister component is "you'll be sorry for
saying that" and "we will get you", which are conveyed to
the target at the subconscious level, and is meant to
instill fear.
I myself have suffered such personal abuse for daring to
admit that if I lived in a free country---i.e., one with
strong Constitutional protections of liberty, but one
in which people were free to do whatever they wanted so
long as it didn't literally violate the constitution
and freely enacted local laws---I would suggest to a
the people of my own small community that the laws
interfering in family matters be abolished, with the
consequence that polygamy or infanticide would be judged
not to be the business of the community at large.
For this, I was raked over the coals, and every manner
of exhortation was made to silence me. (I do regret that
it makes some people sick to hear of such ideas, and for
them, reading an idea-based forum such as this is probably
not healthful.)
Damien continues, and here I think we get to the heart of
the matter:
> What struck me instantly, aside from the horror and
> atrocity of discussing genocidal mass murder as a tool
> of `extropic' policy, was what might be termed the awful
> innocence or context-free character of what Robert
> proposed for discussion.
I agree. Reports such as Robert's should not be submitted
without due deference to traditional wisdom. He ought to
include a little respect for the memes that make us civilized.
But he tends not to, and that is why to some he comes across
as without normal human emotion, or without mercy.
> I regarded as blazingly self-evident the dire political and memetic
> sequelae to any genocidal attack of the kind posited. These were later
> spelled out by Emlyn, Anders and Eliezer, none of them notable for their
> drunken Romantic excess and evasion of reason. Quite the reverse.
Very well, and very good, so long, as I say, it does not
stoop to intimidation or name calling, which in several
instances it most surely did.
> But that still misses the deeper point: we might just as easily claim (to
> drag in the Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot card, which is never more appropriate
> than in a discussion of genocide as an option) that the ExI list is also a
> suitable venue to discuss the desirability of the liquidation of the Jews
> or the homosexuals or the stupid or the Kulaks or the black-skinned or
> indeed the extropians, and all of this, naturally, from a poised and
> cautious classical perspective of "rational debate". My reply is: the ExI
> list has to be the *last* place to discuss such mad atrocities as if they
> were rational or indeed human options.
"As if they were not extreme and stylistic", I would have
written instead. They *can* be rational (e.g., the atomic
bombing of Hiroshima, which I think most thoughtful persons
admit probably saved many, many lives). They can also,
obviously, be quite human. To characterize them as either
inhuman or "mad" gains none of the advantages of rational
criticism, and has all the defects that I described before.
> Such policy suggestions, especially on a google-archived
> list, are *incredibly* dangerous (and odious).
"Dangerous", you mean as in, for example, "Darwin's Dangerous
Idea?". Let's not descend to calling ideas 'dangerous' please.
And calling them odious achieves exactly what? (Even if to
many of us they are indeed odious.)
> But of course, as I believe Robert understands, my comments were
> not meant as `character assassination' or personal abuse.
How do you know what the effects would be of being labeled "autistic"
and worse, or to have people scream at you? You might be right in
Robert's particular case (after all, he does know you personally)
but wrong in general. Don't you think that you'd be affected in a
powerful way to really, really be afraid of mentioning your own
rational views around some people?
> It's a general point, and sadly one that has to be repeated from time
> to time on this list of INTJs. I approve of Lee Corbin's dislike of
> censorship, but he doesn't seem to understand that what I (and some
> others, I think) were complaining about wasn't the *voicing* of that
> detestable genocidal notion, but it's *being considered as a rational
> option in the first place*.
Wrong: I *do* understand that entirely. It may seem detestable to you
or to me. Quite different is the effect, however, is the *communication*
our feelings. Nothing is intrinsically or provably "detestable".
> Lee will be appalled at my saying that, of course, as if I were
> proposing `thought policing' or `thought death'.
No, of course not. Not for a moment did I think that you were
proposing either one. It seemed to me that you just didn't realize
the effects of denouncing people's ideas in the terms you and
others did. As I say, they can be scolded by accusing them of
"hyperrationality", of failing to pay heed to tradition and
moderation, and many similar things. We must stop short of
calling them insulting names, however, or yelling at them.
> But Lee and Robert don't seem to realize how pathological
> and unsustainable life would be (how Colombian, perhaps)
> if we routinely and `rationally' considered killing everyone
> we're frightened of or who gets in the way of what we, in
> our partial ignorance, estimate might be the optimal way
> forward for humankind.
Yes! I agree totally with that! Because here you use the
content and the tone that ought to have been used from the
outset.
Lee
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