Charlie Stross wrote:
> >
> Are you completely mad, or just overdoing the drugs?
>
> Sorry. You just hit a hot-button of mine. You are *supposed* to be an
> extropian -- someone who is dynamically optimistic about the future.
>
> What the hell kind of optimism is it that goes on about "rebuilding the
> WTC with the bones of dead religious fanatics"?
>
> What _I_ want to do is to convert those religious fanatics to extropian
> ideals.
I'd like to convert psychopathic murdurers into peaceful loving citizens
too. How possible do you think it is going to happen while they are
killing you?
>
> > > It might
> > > seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam
> > > and the West, he's got a billion soldiers.
> >
> > Ridiculous! Muslims are ready to hand him over now, if the US asks for his
> > wretched ass.
>
> It's ridiculous, but it's what he believes. Do you really think that
> just because Hitler's beliefs were ridiculous, he didn't believe in them?
Hitler thought he could win WWII, yet analyses of the logistics of any
one of the three ally countries shows that each of them could have
beaten Germany on their own with enough time. Hirohito attacked the US
knowing that it would lead to Japan's defeat, yet Tojo was convinced
that they could win.
Should we have refused to fight just because Hitler and Tojo were
convinced they would win?
Do you think it is possible to convert bin Laden and his followers and
associates into happy extropes? I don't. I think we need to make the
world safe for extropy by weeding out the rabid entropic dogs.
>
> > > He's probably
> > > wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean
> >
> > "probably" wrong? Tamim Ansary: the new world's champion of understatement.
> > Yes, the west (spell that N - A - T - O) will definitely win, and it will mean
> > that we've proven that religious fanatics should all go to the imaginary
> > paradise that they so fervently believe in -- we're here to help.
>
> Er, you may have forgotten that Germany has a muslim population of seven
> million. The UK has a muslim population of three million. France is
> somewhere in-between. The US muslim population is a smaller per-capita
> proportion, but similarly measured in the millions.
The US muslim population is also 7 million. A little more than the
Jewish population.
>
> If the goal is to kick the Taliban in the nuts, take their territory away,
> and rebuild Afghanistan, most muslims in the west won't cheer, but they'll
> nod thoughtfully and go along with it. (The Taliban are to the islamic
> world about where Adolf Hitler would stand in relation to the US
> Republican party.)
On opposite ends of the spectrum?
> But if it turns into a crusade -- literally, a holy war for the cross,
> against islam, which is what Jerry Fallwell wants -- then what the west
> will have will not be a mere "terrorist problem"; it'll be all-out civil
> war at home.
I doubt that anybody beyond the typical hicks that follow Fallwell buys
into that sort of thing. His own people have already made him retract
his statements.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:48 MDT