From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Feb 06 2001 - 13:35:14 MST
"Terry Donaghe" <Terry@Donaghe.com> writes:
> What is the alternative(s) that these luddites teach? Do they want a green
> dictatorship where 3 or 4 billion of us die while the rest live in an
> agrarian utopia? What is their end goal?
If you ask Jeremy Rifkin et al I seriously doubt that would be your
answer. He would probably give you something about a nicer society
that is more in tune with nature, more socially responsible, based on
small scale technology rather than big systems etc. This fluff is
unlikely to hold any water, but it sounds good to many people who want
to be more in tune with nature, want to feel less exploited and
insecure, fear big business/technology and the ecocalypse that surely
must come. No mention - and I guess in many cases not even a thought -
that this would entail reducing not just standards of living but
populations and likely coercive means.
The problem for the greens is that they have rather few realistic
visions of a green world or how to get there. In specific questions
they often have definite recipes (which quite often end up being
statist), but the overall strategy is often expressed more in terms of
a change in public consciousness rather than practical action. While
we enlightenment-based XNTX people consider this a serious flaw, it
doesn't matter when it comes to convincing people: often passion and
an air of being moral is more encouraging than a barrage of numbers,
rationality and investment strategies. This is something we should
bear in mind when debating. Note that *we* actually have a more
likely scenario of a green world, but one based on advanced technology
rather than less technology. But we need to express it more clearly
and passionately.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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