From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Thu Aug 28 2003 - 22:24:20 MDT
On Thursday, August 28, 2003, at 09:17 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>> I hope you can see why this is unrealistic. In a world full of
>> cowards, evil brave people take advantage.
>
> ### A coward is a person who does not fulfill expectations it terms of
> the
> willingness to face danger, including a failure to perform according to
> previously assumed obligations. A world of persons who fulfill
> contracts
> would not be a world of cowards.
So according to you it's acceptable to be brave ONLY when fulfilling
contracts.
Will it be your (15th century) opinion that citizens have a contract
with each other implicit in their organization as a country by virtue
of their birth? Dusting off the REALLY old books, huh?
>> Only the honorable, genuinely brave people provide a reasonable
>> defense against the evil brave.
>>
> ### Only the calm, smart, relentlessly rational, long-term thinkers
> are a
> defense against the brave, the stupid and the good-intentioned.
Apparently not. Don't watch the news much, do you?
In any case, I'm not advocating stupidity, but bravery. Bravery and
cunning are both virtues of a warrior.
> Such people
> will assume risks according to a rational analysis of possible
> outcomes,
> design societies and themselves by recourse to game theory, ruthlessly
> destroy defectors and face death if needed - but only if needed.
Right, they'd be brave. Not only would the face death if needed, but
they would kill if needed. We agree, you just don't like to call a
spade a spade - These "calm, smart, relentlessly rational, long-term
thinkers" who are willing to "face death if needed" are just brave.
> The brave will run headlong into battle as soon as some manipulative
> politico pushes his "special cause" buttons - mostly tribal loyalty,
> and
> fear of the unknown.
Maybe it's a language thing. You seem to be thinking of the word
"Foolhardy" not "Brave".
> Death to the brave!
That's awfully hotheaded of you.
>> If you'd like a world in which people come together to jointly improve
>> their world, promote bravery and goodness.
>>
>
> ### No, I run scared of bravery and goodness.
>
> Whenever you project the outcome of "goodness" far enough into the
> future,
> it becomes either identical with self-interest (however defined), or
> else
> descends into incoherence.
Will you be giving a formal proof of this or do you have it on God's
authority? Well, you did leave "self-interest" open to be defined any
way you want so your statement here could be equivalent with "Whenever
you project the outcome of goodness it becomes identical with goodness"
which is clearly so, but not apparently what you're claiming. To give
this any sense at all you're going to have to define self-interest.
It's doubtful that you could do this without reference to goodness.
cf. Principia Ethica.
> Calm rationality, and a long-term outlook are all
> we need to make the best world there can be.
Doubtful. Calm rationality and long-term outlook has made this world
the way it is NOW. Is this the best world there can be? (in something
more than a tautological sense.)
Robbie
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