From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon Feb 19 2001 - 13:44:56 MST
At 2:13am -0500 2/19/01, Name Witheld wrote:
>
>Don't be ashamed to fight dirty as long as you can look cleaner than
>the other guy.
Nobody looks clean in a dirty fight. Such tactics taint everybody involved.
>Find the least charismatic of the lot and turn them into Hitler...
This is obviously unethical. If a person does something bad, then by
all means criticize them. But to target someone because they are not
charismatic is to choose a victim because they can't defend
themselves. To "turn them into Hitler" clearly implies that they
aren't as bad as they will be made to appear. These tactics are
disgusting and are likely to backfire. People investigating your
claims will find them to be lacking. People trying to collaborate
your claims will have to be as dishonest as you are. People who do
not play dirty will disassociate themselves with you.
>It's not even intellectually dishonest--
Yes it is. You believe that other people fight dirty, and you want
to do it too. How is this any less dishonest than the enemy?
>The struggle to survive inherently involves some unavoidable negativism.
We can react to negative events in a positive way. We do not have to
allow ourselves to turn negative. Such tactics eventually turn us
into the enemy we are trying to defeat.
Why stop with the enemy? Why not use such tactics against other
transhumanist groups to make sure our particular group survives? Why
not use such tactics against honest competitors to free up more
resources for our goals? Why not turn on each other to fight for who
gets to be the supreme spokesperson for our group? Why not steal
each other's ideas and not give credit, so we can amass these
resources and make sure our way (the right way) prevails?
How can anybody trust us if we use these tactics? Nobody will be
able to tell when we are playing fair or playing dirty. Everything
we do would become suspect. I find no compelling reason to adopt
these tactics.
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:05:58 MST