From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Aug 13 2002 - 07:53:22 MDT
On Tue, Aug 13, 2002 at 09:25:12AM -0400, Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
> Anders Sandberg:
> >The interesting thing is that the White House doesn't seem to be
> >noticing the effects this has on the image of the US.
>
> Dr. Graps responded:
> <<I would say, instead, that the U.S. government don't care about its
> image abroad.>>
>
> Thank the singulairty, for that!
To some extent this is of course a good thing. The nation or person
who only acts in ways that improves its image to others will not be
able to do much useful stuff for itself or act according to its
morals. But ignoring one's image in politics will lose you
potential allies. Right now the US doesn't need any allies
politically, but what about tomorrow?
There is a huge missed opportunity here: right after 911 the US
government could have acted as a paragon of democracy, the open
societiy and human rights. It would have earned it further respect
and while not silencing the harshest critics it would have made
many moderates feel that the US acted justly - giving it greater
leeway and very likely not hindering the implementation of broad
anti-terrorist projects. But the erosion of the US moral image
that is happening today makes the rest of the world see it as
acting only from a position of strength, not one of justice. It
leaves the US without true allies, and may increase the
polarisation of the US vs. *everybody* else.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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