From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Aug 31 2002 - 11:45:18 MDT
On Friday 30 August 2002 23:03, Lee Corbin wrote:
> Mike Lorrey writes
>
> >...
> My attitude is that a powerful democracy like the US should
> for it's own sake and the world's, establish a benevolent
> hegemony when there are Hitlers, Tojos, and Stalins on
> the loose. It's even possible that the US should establish
> a hegemony *anyway*, like the Romans did. We want peace
> and prosperity for everyone (historically speaking), and
> we want huge death tolls like in Africa now to subside, and
> we want as many people as possible involved in the Singularity.
...
>
> Lee
This is a thorny point. It's one thing to claim that we are doing it for our
own benefit. When there are warlords stamping around, we do need to protect
ourselves in some way, and techniques may be open to debate. What we can't
honestly do is claim that we are doing it for the good of the others. This
doesn't happen. Individuals may do something for the good of others, but in
an organization, the ones near the top, and in a stronger position to exert
control over policy, will exert that control to the benefit of themselves and
their allies, as they see it. And their allies doesn't mean the countries
allied to them, it means their fellow controllers. The guys they play cards
with and go drinking with. Don't believe that the intentions of countries
map to the intentions of the citizenry of the countries. Or to the public
pronouncements of the ostensible governors (who may or may not be the real
powers).
I don't know if there *is* a moral way for large organizations of people to
operate. Every surviving such organization that I have observed seems to be
schizo ... there are these goals that we want to achieve, and there are these
actions that we take... but this is easily understood when you realize that
the persons making the decisions are not the organization. They are people
with their own motivations and environments of action, and purposes. And
they aren't all the same person. So, perhaps, the delegation of decision
making to only a few persons is a measure intended to limit the schizzy
behavior. If only 50 people are making decisions, then there are only 50
personalities to the country. Well, if one of them makes all the foreign
relations decisions, then that aspect will look sane, and...
Perhaps people can't run a sane organization the size of a country... or even
the size of a corporation. I don't know of any way to test a corporation for
sanity, but I suspect that most of them would be "multiple personality
disorder with delusions of greatness and of persecution". But I still
wouldn't yet trust a computer with that job. No program that I've ever
encountered, anyway. But they aren't ready. Not this August. Not next
August, that is still too soon. But the year after that, or the year after
that...
And I hope that no fight is involved. But the singularity is a walk open eyed
into blindness, because the alternatives are worse. It isn't a promise of a
new dawn. The new dawn may occur, but we cannot see it from our vantage
point. We can only hope.
P.S.: Litterary reference, author unknown, taken from the beginning of "Not
This August" by, I think Kornbluth (and, perhaps, Pohl)
"Not this August,
You have this year to do as you like.
Not next August,
That is still too soon.
But the year after that,
Or the year after that...
They fight."
This appeared around 1960, and was a part of the nuclear nightmare during the
cold war. More hopeful, and earlier, than "On the Beach", or "The Seventh
Level". Those came later, as people began to understand more clearly the
true power of the weapons that had been created.
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