From: Miriam English (miriam@werple.net.au)
Date: Thu Sep 13 2001 - 11:13:40 MDT
At 07:32 AM 13/09/2001 -0700, Brian D Williams wrote:
>From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
> >If the US does do anything real, militarily, it will probably
> >involve more death and destruction than was caused by the
> >destruction of the World Trade Center, dozens or hundreds of bombs
> >instead of two planes, dropped on some dirt-poor country far less
> >capable of dealing with the disasters resulting from each and
> >every bomb impact, and the only real end result will be more
> >hatred of the United States. I don't expect that will stop the
> >United States from doing it anyway.
>
>We want the people who did this, plain and simple, and we will stop
>at nothing to get them. Anything or anybody who tries to stand in
>the way will be destroyed.
>
>But that's not all there is to it, we want to eliminate organized
>terrorism forever, period.
And if your violent solution basically guarantees the future of terrorism?
Like trying to stop insects by flooding the place with DDT. It may work
temporarily, but they bounce back with renewed vigour and this time all the
birds that previously controlled them are gone.
> >This is pretty much how I expected the future to go. If we're
> >lucky, we'll make it to the Singularity inside the decade and we
> >won't see weapons of mass destruction used on major cities during
> >that interval. But if we aren't that lucky, I won't be surprised.
>
>If we eliminate organized terrorism we may never have to face these
>scenarios.
>
>An idea worth dying, (and killing) for.
At this point you are sounding just like one of the suicide pilots.
I am not trying to insult you, I am just wanting you to look at what you
are saying. Please step back for a moment and see what the repercussions
are two or three moves later.
Eliminating terrorism is a laudable aim.
The best idea on this that I have read so far is of forming a think-tank on
using very unconventional means to reach that end. Weapons won't do it.
Education almost certainly will. The trick is how do you get information to
areas such as those? How do you lift people out of such poverty that a
fantasy of fucking 72 virgins forever looks like a good option instead of
the mind-warp that it is? My next-door neighbors are islamic. Very nice
folk... ummm except for the mother... she won't allow the kids to read any
of the books I give them. The father seems a nice enough guy, but the
mother is full-on. The kids are totally charming.
If the US lifted all sanctions tomorrow and showered the fundamentalist
extremist states with food, knowledge, luxuries, and wealth, without
pushing the American culture, the extremists would be screwed and the
violence would end -- not instantly, but it would end.
It won't happen though. People love hatred too much.
- Miriam
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Q. What is the similarity between an elephant and a grape?
A. They are both purple... except for the elephant.
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Virtual Reality Association http://www.vr.org.au
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