From: hal@finney.org
Date: Sun Sep 16 2001 - 18:36:55 MDT
Harvey writes:
> I, myself, have been disturbed at how often people try to link racism,
> isolationism, initiation of force, sacrifice of innocents, benevolent
> dictatorship, censorship, shutdown of unpopular ideas, and the like with the
> Extropian Principals. A lot of people seem to support freedom, but only for
> their own ideas, not for someone else's ideas.
>
> Some recent postings seem to suggest that we should sacrifice innocents to
> speed up the development of technology in the name of The Extropian
> Principals. I do not think these ideas derive from the principals at all.
I agree, Harvey. This week has been an emotional time for all of us
and we have been struggling to see where our Extropian ideals fit into
the challenging new world into which we have been thrust.
I think the biggest problem is the idea that the end justifies the means.
We have a goal of an Extropian future. But what we are sometimes
forgetting is that how we get there is important, too.
I like Charlie Stross's hopeful suggestion that the Arab states and
especially Afghanistan may be able to move towards a more open society.
But is it proper to impose this social structure by force from the
outside, as we did in Japan? The end is justifiable, and at least in
the case of Japan I think the means can be justified, with the possible
exception of the use of nuclear bombs (please, let's not debate that
specific issue).
However, would it be right for us to go into Afghanistan, kill the
Taliban leaders, and then try to get some kind of parliament operating?
Even supposing this were possible? I don't know. The end is a good one,
but imposing it from outside is going to be costly. We can't neglect
those costs and just look at the hoped-for end result.
Hal
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