RE: botched diplomacy

From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Tue Nov 26 2002 - 05:55:40 MST


[written before the first cup of coffee . . .]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org] On Behalf Of Amara Graps
> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 12:37 AM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: RE: botched diplomacy
>
> Also, I ask to put to bed the expat thing, here. I'm not sure
> if I should be insulted or not. I would hope that a person
> can criticize a government, especially if she/he has some
> decades experience living under that government, wherever
> he/she is located, and not have to manufacture other reasons
> why he/she thinks such things.

Can't find a personal email address for you, otherwise I'd write an
explanation of what I meant offlist (maybe with that cup of coffee, I'd
be able to find the address ...) Anyway, I know you've got lots of
close ties to the States. My point was not that you were cut off from
information about events in the US, by any means, but that your
perception of the information you were getting might be affected -- one
way or another -- by the fact that you've been observing events from
abroad.

Sometimes, the most acute observers of domestic events are expariates.
But some things are hard to understand without "ground truth," as they
call it. My observations were about two things I know as ground truth,
the justice system and the fact that the TIPS thing never seemed to have
happened or to have had any real impact outside the media.

It's hard sometimes to tell whether a keeled-over canary is a harbinger
of our own illness -- or just a sick canary ... That was my only point.

[In hindsight, adding the comment about the European press probably made
you think I was saying your view was limited to what you saw through it
... Bad editing on my part]

(Maybe I shouldn't write when I don't have time to make myself more
clear ...)

Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www,gregburch.net



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