From: mark@unicorn.com
Date: Mon Jul 06 1998 - 08:40:20 MDT
VirgilT7@aol.com wrote:
>Unless you plan on somehow completely and irrevocably isolating yourself from
>all of humanity, you better believe that someone intent on living forever
>should be concerned about the stability of governments.
Indeed; government is by its nature very unstable, and that's another good
reason for abolishing it.
>Many people will not leave because many people will lacks the means to
>leave.
Really? How much does a train or bus ticket cost these days?
>But what's further, I don't think that anyone should HAVE to leave.
Fine; you can think what you like, but reality doesn't give a damn about
"should" or "should not". If they wish they're free to stay there and
die in defence of their beliefs, but they'll die just the same.
>The idea
>of some psychotic idiot who happens to have a weapon of mass destruction
>forcing people out of the most important areas of their civilization strikes
>me as repugnant;
Again, the question isn't what you think, but whether you want to live or
to die because you refuse to accept reality. Up to you.
>and the idea of running from the problem and allowing it to
>exist strikes me as a surrender of some of our core values.
Who's running from the problem? Those who stay behind because they "shouldn't"
have to move, or those who move because they recognize that it's the only
solution? Politics will only make the problem worse, not better. And you
don't "allow it to exist"; it exists, whether you like it or not.
> To concentrate on reducing the motivational force for terrorism
>is simply a bad course of action.
Of course; much better to increase that motivation and stand behind your
beliefs that people shouldn't have to get nuked for it. They'll be real
happy up in the stratosphere.
>I don't think that we need
>to destroy privacy. We can design and build more effective devices to detect
>nuclear/biological/chemical weapons, as well as conventional explosives.
Uh-huh... and that won't destroy privacy? Being subjected to arbitrary
searches and scans by the cops, which will very quickly be expanded to
include anything else they can scan for? And what will you do when the
freedom fighters take that as an incentive to strike now?
> I
>thought that optimism was an integral part of the Extropian Ethic. Am I
>wrong?
Not your kind of "if we just ignore reality it will go away" optimism.
Mark
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