From: Eric Watt Forste (arkuat@factory.net)
Date: Tue Aug 20 1996 - 22:59:34 MDT
At 3:35 PM 8/20/96, James Daugherty wrote:
> As only a few on this list want to face, the Pentagon and CIA are
>pursuing vigorously every imaginable technology and will be the firstest
>with the mostest! Brain implants are more likely to be used to make
>docile slaves than open up possibilities for liberation of the individual.
I'll just concede your conspiracy theory at the outset, even though I don't
agree with it.
Surely the members of the conspiracy are capable of studying economics and
social epistemology and figuring out that free societies are vastly more
productive than slave societies. For their own selfish ends, the members of
the conspiracy would be better served by changing their ways than they
would be by attempting to enslave the planet. The unknown and unpredictable
results of research proceeding on a million different fronts at once is far
more likely to guarantee the members of the governing elite personal
immortality and vast wealth than a mass enslavement project would be.
And even if the governing elite is too lazy and stupid to study economics
and social epistemology, surely they make a practice of hiring expert
researchers, and some of the researchers they hire are informing them of
these facts.
In short, to hold up your argument, you need to show that it is in the
interests of the governing elite to enslave the population of the world.
Clearly, this course of action is *not* in their own best interest, though
I'd have to dig up a lot of Popper and Hayek to support my contention.
Eric Watt Forste <arkuat@pobox.com> http://www.c2.org/~arkuat/
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