From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Fri May 24 2002 - 00:54:10 MDT
On Thursday, May 23, 2002, at 07:09 pm, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>>
>> Nice try, Lee. But this distortion of Anti-Extropian ideas under the
>> banner of Extropianism is the exact thing I am against. Whether you
>> are
>> trying to be sarcastic to make real Extropian ideas look bad, or
>> whether
>> you are trying to be serious and co-opt Extropians to a different
>> agenda, the result is the same. We must be careful to keep Extropians
>> focused on Extropy. Entropic ideas need to go find their own forum.
>
> And in the good liberal tradition (which says that a true liberal is so
> unpresumptuous that s/he will not even defend their own opinion)
This is typical strawman. You made a statement about liberals that no
liberal would say, and then proceed to argue against your own
statement. There is no sense in anyone responding to this, because you
are arguing against points no one has made.
> condemn
> those who seek to defend extropy against luddism for being
> 'anti-extropian' by doing so.
Assassinating people is not self-defense. Terrorism is not
self-defense. Killing infants is not self-defense. Racism is not
self-defense. Hatred is not self-defense.
I know people keep insisting that they HAVE to do these terrible things,
or else worse things will happen. But even if you end up preventing all
the other evils, in the end you find that the only one being evil is
yourself. There is no way this strategy can win. You are breaking the
very principles that you claim to be defending. You can't promote life
with murder. You can't defend the law with criminal activity. You
can't extend peace with violence. You literally become what you are
trying to prevent. You are replacing the evil coercive Luddites with
our coercive terrorist dictatorship that kills anybody who disagrees
with us. How does this promote extropy or prevent entropy. You end up
creating the very thing you fear most.
> History shows that those who take such pollyannish pacifist policies
> lose in the end, in EVERY case.
I thought history showed that coercive murderous governments that
suppressed dissenting opinions with violence lost out to peace-loving
democratic self-rule by the people. Besides, no one is arguing for
pacifism. You are arguing against your own strawman again. People are
arguing for trial before sentencing, warfare under rules of war, defense
rather than offense. If you want to discuss these topics, you may find
more responses to your debates.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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