From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Sat Aug 17 2002 - 17:52:55 MDT
> From: Harvey Newstrom
> Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2002 5:54 PM
<snip>
> Examples would be technology based, such as a missile defense shield,
> better intelligence, better security controls, better bomb
> sniffers at
> airports, better radiation detectors, better detection devices of all
> kinds, better foreign policy, etc. Endorsing any of these technology
> solutions would be more Extropian. Endorsing more terrorism is not.
<snip>
> The question *is* extremely realistic. I agree that there certainly
> must be an answer. Nuking innocent civilians and becoming
> the world's
> worst terrorists is not the answer. It would never fly in
> our political
> system, nor would it convince any terrorists to stop. We need a
> realistic answer.
Since I'm not getting much paying work done today and this *is* the
extropians list, I'll noodle some not-particularly-systematic thoughts
along the lines of what Harvey writes above, but perhaps in a more
aggressive vein. The examples listed in the first quoted passage are
certainly a start but, with the exception of "better intelligence" and
"better foreign policy" (both pretty general suggestions) are all
relatively modest goals, building only incrementally on the security
system we now have.
Assume for a moment that in fact the society that nurtures the values,
goals and lifestyles we enjoy has been targeted by an implacable
terrorist enemy (I happen to think this is self-evidently true) with
whom one cannot negotiate. Assume that only a relatively small number
of dispersed action cells are actually able and willing to carry out
effective large-scale terrorist action against our society. Now, rather
than responding to a nuked Manhattan, take your scenario to be just
developing extropian responses in general to such a threat.
The list of problems and challenges with which you begin your job is
daunting:
-- your foe speaks a language with which few in your society are
proficient
-- penetrating your opponent's actual active cell structure with
reliable agents is virtually impossible
-- members of terrorist action cells work in many countries and are
careful not to break host country laws or appear to be fanatical
followers of the terrorist ideology until they actually attack
It seems to me that addressing these problems *either* through the
traditional means of national military action or civil police activity
is doomed to fail. Rather, the only effective regime seems to be that
of espionage and covert state-sponsored paramilitary action. Yes, I'm
advocating circumvention of some of the rules of civil society, and
there is great danger in such a course, but I can think of no other
effective alternative. Somebody's going to have to get their hands
dirty, because the opposition uses the very openness of civil society in
the West and its guarantees of civil liberties against us.
There *are* ways to try to keep such unpleasant business within
relatively tolerable bounds. One of these is confidential oversight by
legislatures, an imperfect, but perhaps the best alternative that's been
developed by modern free societies that have had the need to employ
"meta force" of this kind. I think of such forces as a kind of "super
antibody" that holds the danger of attacking the very systems it is
designed to protect. But an effective immune system has to have
antibodies, and regulating them is just part of the game of life.
Now -- How would an extropian spy-chief and covert-ops commander go
about addressing this task? She'd pour resources into systems to make
both artificial language analysis and human language learning more
effective. She'd spur advances in micro-tech surveillance technology.
For better or worse, she'd probably give some long, hard thought to
employing intelligent "profiling" systems -- both human and artificial
-- in as many places as possible. And, sad to say, when these
intelligence efforts began to pay off, the targets that had been
revealed would have to begin to simply cease functioning -- as quietly
and quickly as possible.
If anyone can think of another, more effective way to actually *fight*
terrorists, please let me know.
Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www.gregburch.net
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