From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon Jul 22 2002 - 19:14:27 MDT
On Monday, July 22, 2002, at 06:24 pm, Jeff Davis wrote:
> Extropes,
>
> --- Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> expanded
> on Samantha Atkins comment:
>
> "Religous is not necessary to meere authoritarianism
> rearing its ugly head to limit choice. Calling it
> "Talibandry" doesn't really help the problem."
>
>> Worse than that, it confuses the issue. Anybody who
> thinks that the Taliban, banditry, and bioethicists
> have anything to do with each other is just lumping
> everything they don't like into one category and
> calling it "bad".
>
> With respect Harvey, I disagree.
>
> The Taliban were a cabal, drunk on their own power and
> self-justifying piety, who found joy, freedom, and
> modernity repugnant, and who, when they gained power,
> lowered a cloud of darkness onto their people under
> the license of SUPREME (ie God's) authority. Their
> rule was based on 'ethics', as in Leon Kass's
> (bio)ethics of repugnance.
Don't change the subject. I know who and what the Taliban are. Your
calling "bioethicists" by the same term cheapens the word and denigrates
the memory of people who were really killed by terrorists. Calling
people who don't agree with your technology choices "Taliban" is just
disruptive hyperbole. It is ludicrous for you to try to defend this
usage of the term. Why not use terms correctly? Bioethicists may be
many things, but they are not involved in "Talibanditry". This is just
stupid.
>> This doesn't help resolve the issue.
>
> It could help.
>
> This business is entirely political. Now, one could
> approach this scientifically--as in political
> science--as in the science of emotion and persuasion,
> as in the science of crowd control. To counter the
> political influence of a given party, one needs to
> poison their support. To do that you need to send the
> proper message, a message which weakens them and
> strengthens their opposition. Success in politics
> ***IS*** success in emotional manipulation.
When you call someone a "Nazi", or nowadays a "Taliban" or "terrorist",
it doesn't make them look bad. It makes you look bad. You are trying
to piggyback your political agenda on the real suffering caused by real
terrorists. You debate with "bioethicists" is not a holocaust. Please
don't try this approach in the name of extropians! You will only make
people hate us.
> In this moment in history 'the Taliban' is a
> strikingly powerful meme equivalent for evil. The
> parallels between the Taliban's character and
> political power in Afghanistan, and the religious
> right's character and political power in the US are
> striking. The President and his 'bioethics' panel are
> our own little council of mullahs. They should be made
> to pay the political price of bearing up under that
> comparison. The price being a whole load of
> whoop-ass.
Yeah, and you're just the guy to do it. Big guy, calling people names,
inventing little insults, trying to make people look bad. You really
don't have a clue about how real public opinion and meme engineering
work, do you? I can't imagine that you think trying to call the
President and the Religious Right "Talibandits" is going to win you any
points. Seriously, I applaud your motives, but this is approach is just
so wrong on so many levels.
And again, I implore you, please don't connect your "campaign" with
extropy or extropians!
> So I see it as a bare-fisted fight for political
> power. These are not people to be reasoned with or
> appeased. That simply legitimizes them. Bad move.
> They need to be de-legitimized. A child's voice needs
> to be raised declaring the parade of would-be emperors
> as naked, stupid, venal, tyrannical, death-worshipping
> obstructors of progress. America is progress.
> Obstructors of progress are anti-American. Their
> vision for our civilization stands before us in the
> form of 'modern' Islam: tyranny, poverty, prostrate
> helplessness, and intellectual incompetence.
So that's your strategy? Throw reason out the window. Don't logically
present our viewpoints. Just go straight into name-calling and insults.
> Slamming them with these comparisons/criticisms,
> combined with a generous portion of ridicule and
> disdain, would be both just and politically effective.
You really believe this is the best approach, don't you?
> Because our system is strong, we don't need to
> thoroughly bludgeon them, just slap them down some
> until the next election cycle. Superstition and
> stupidity are abundant, but also flagrantly
> vulnerable. Predictions of dystopic doom may have a
> certain political resonance, but absent something bad
> to confirm those predictions, the resonance fades.
> The opportunists who ride that wave cannot long
> prevail in a system which retains political freedom,
> and consequently continues to deliver prosperity,
> strength/safety, and individual freedom.
? I don't follow this paragraph at all. I don't see how this argues
against reason or for insults.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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