From: pchaston (pchaston@supanet.com)
Date: Sun Aug 18 2002 - 14:10:47 MDT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of
> michaelroyames@hotmail.com
> Sent: 18 August 2002 18:58
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: RE: And What if Manhattan IS Nuked?
>
>
>
> Lee wrote:
>
> > Well, I can't tell if you're an American, but if you are,
> > then all you have to ask yourself is how you felt last
> > September 11. Not surprisingly, however, a good many
> > Brits, other English speakers, and a few other Europeans
> > seemed not only quite personally affected, but so angry
> > that they wanted retaliation too.
>
>
> Canadian, actually... working in the tallest government building in my
> country's Capital on that day, and I imagined there was a giant glowing
> bullseye on it. I felt three things simultaneously: distress
> that people were
> dying, worry that I might be next, and hysteria that "someone's
> really gonna
> get it now!".
>
> > Or perhaps you've just evolved beyond having those
> > impulses that nature took so many millions of years
> > to develop in the rest of us.
>
>
> No. I've got impulses. But I have found that I don't *have* to
> act on them
> in a knee-jerk way. Well thought out responses often get me closer to my
> goals, and by analogy this will apply to nations also.
>
One of the issues neglected in the responses so far is the reaction of the
American electorate to such a catastrophe. The arguments have identified
initially "shock", a demand for vengeance, and from one contributor, the
eradication of the Muslim holy places (except for Jerusalem).
The US government would have to react, within a short period of time, and
with sufficient force to allay the public's thirst for action. This would be
in keeping with the timescale and the actions that we have already witnessed
in response to 9/11 and the implementation of teh 'war on terror' in
Afghanistan.
Past wars have demonstrated that electorates will demand a measured and
probably unequal response to any atrocity that they see inflicted on their
territory up to and including terror on enemy civilian populations. Liberal
or national democracies may well require such a response whereas
authoritarian, communist and theocratic regimes could be viewed as more
resistant to such popular demands. The comparable example is the strategic
bombing of Germany from 1943 onwards as the majority of the British public
supported such actions.
If Manhattan was destroyed in a nuclear explosion, there would probably be a
popular acceptance and expectation of the destruction of at least one
civilian target on the part of those held responsible, even if the
government was not complicit in the action.
One would therefore hope that this particular thought experiment is never
realised.
Philip Chaston
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