From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 26 2002 - 20:16:53 MST
Since so many of the replies were less than germaine
to the question I raised, I've decided to restart the
thread.
To clarify matters, raising a question does not imply
a position on the part of the questioner, does it?
For those who somehow reinterpreted my original post
to fit whatever they felt like saying, I was trying to
bring up a specific, narrowly defined issue:
If Conrad's hypothesis is correct and those in power
in the U.S. understand it and agree with it, then what
alternative do they realistically have other than to
try to impose a worldwide U.S. hegemony?
Clearly the U.N. is not up to the task of trying to
police the world. Perhaps if the U.S. were
aggressively leading the U.N. in a real, full-blown
campaign to root out terrorists globally - which is
what it would take - then it could be accomplished.
The end result would be a true one-world state,
however it was configured.
Why would the rest of the world's nation states sign
on? Maybe because they are also under the gun? Maybe
to avoid being left out and ultimately losing their
remaining sovereignty under less pleasant terms?
In my reports on Westercon, I discussed Tad Daley's
911 discussion, in which he proposed an Earth
Federation, similar to that envisioned in Star Trek.
(Daley (sp?) is a liberal and was directly involved in
establishing the World Court that is specifically
targetted at people like Milosovic.)
As a libertarian anarcho-capitalist, the prospects I
have outlined as likely if the hypothesis is true are
certainly not to my preference. That doesn't make
them less likely, except to the degree that I or
others might be able to act to create some kind of
alternative.
I asked Conrad, when he first presented his
conclusions to me in that late '70's discussion,
~"Surely, since I know that you are also an
anarcho-capitalist, you are NOT advocating that the
STATE run this universal surveillance system."
His reply was ~"Certainly not. The state couldn't do
it effectively enough for reasons we both understand.
Only a self-corrective market system could. So, the
insurance companies would charge astronomical premiums
for someone who wanted to keep a nuke in their garage.
How would they know? They wouldn't insure you unless
you agreed to reasonable inspections - that's common
practice with insurance now. Secondly, they would
hire detective agencies to maintain a level of
surveillance likely to deter people who might try to
create dangers not covered by their premiums.
Finally, they could offer rewards to free-lancers who
found premium violaters, and write into their coverage
clauses for extreme penalties as well to pay the
rewards to the free-lancers."
Such a system is probably about as good as one can
reasonably expect. As for the monopoly state, one
question (among many) is always, "who guards the
guards?" Other proposed solutions that appeared on
this forum that involve advanced technologies, SI's,
etc. assume that the SI's, etc. won't be part of the
problem. We don't have those technologies yet,
anyway, and may not for a couple decades. The threat
is a lot closer.
We don't have the kind of system Conrad discussed,
either. So, making a radical assumption for a moment
that Bush and Co. are not in fact
crypto-anarcho-capitalists, then we have to assume
that they will use what they have.
The evidence for this hypothesis, BTW, is indirect,
but rather compelling. When my TV came on that
morning of 911, just in time to show and record the
first tower falling, my reaction was simply, "Ah, here
it is."
Those of us who work professionally in the security
industry and have access to the professional trade
magazines were only surprised at one thing: That it
too SO LONG to get here.
911 could just as easily have happened in the '80's,
or the '70's, even. The fact that no really major
terrorist event (and 911 is still far from as bad as
it could get, even using very primitive means) had
occurred up till then suggests two interpretations:
1. The perps weren't out there or motivated enough.
2. All the prior attempts were stopped behind the
scenes.
There could be a mix of both, obviously, but I really
don't buy into #1 very much. I suspect that a whole
lot of terrorist plots got stopped in their tracks by
well-planted, long-term moles, and a whole lot of
people - CIA, NSA, FBI, KGB, M5, Mossad - who worked
for long decades to stay on top of the problem.
In the long-term, they finally failed. One failure in
that business can be very bad. But, with the onrush
of Conrad's thesis, 911 gave them one thing they
didn't have before: a justification for pulling out
all the stops. Which is where we are now.
If that scenario is even close to being on target,
then we are in for some truly tumultuous years. The
real question is how we can preserve as much of our
freedom as possible while this goes down, and how we
can ultimately replace the top-down structure that may
be coming with something that can work long term, such
as what Conrad suggested.
BTW, Conrad was a co-developer of the theories that
ultimately came under the name "nanotechnology."
Conrad told me, in our most recent conversation a few
years ago (after I finally tracked him down after
twenty years), that he was responsible for forcing
Drexler to publish "Engines of Creation." Drexler,
according to Conrad, thought that the genie could be
kept in the bottle, known only to a select few in
positions of high power.
Forget all Drexler's arguments that if the good guys
didn't develop nanotech, they would end up blind-sided
by the rogues, etc. Recall that in spite of making
this argument re nanotech, Drexler then turned around
and made exactly the opposite argument re SI's!!
Keeping the lid on AI's is feasible? But not
nanotech? Come ON...
Anyway, Conrad threatened to publish if Drexler
didn't, or that's his story. You can believe who you will....
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