From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon May 24 1999 - 15:07:41 MDT
Since we obviously have a flamewar on gun control and another one on
libertarian states brewing (trust me, I have been on this list so long
that I can feel approaching flames in my mouse-arm :-), it might be
interesting to try to use them for something constructive.
When we become angry or just aroused, our thinking changes. We become
more reactive, use well-trained standard responses and overall modify
our behavior in a way that was quite suitable for physical threats on
the African savannah or before. Unfortunately these responses are ill
suited to "information threats" - when you encounter a view you
dislike or a complex technological threat the best response is likely
more rational thinking, more reflexion and creativity rather than
less. Speed is not as important as it was when a tiger was chasing
your ancestors.
This suggests that as a part in our self-transformation towards more
rational beings, able to function in an extremely complex and fluid
transhuman reality, we should learn to control the old flight-or-fight
response. If we cannot, the consequences might be bad both personally
and generally (imagine a Jupiter brain getting angry at somebody
sprouting silly religious fundamentalism - suddenly it is just as
silly as Jahve when it lashes out). One way of training oneself is to
expose one's sacred cows, those core views which may not be
questioned. They are often easy to detect by noting a rise in arousal
when they are questioned even implicitely. But it is usually just
these views that need to be questioned to make thought flexible and
rational. So once they are detected, it might be very healthy to try
to habituate oneself against getting upset about them; this can be
used to remove a lot of needless knee-jerk reactions and build the
foundations of a slightly more rational personality.
The reason I mention this right now is of course that the flamewars
are an excellent opportunity to both test these ideas and try to train
away needless reactions. I don't think this posting will get rid of
the flames, but I hope we can use them as learning tools too.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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