From: Mark Walker (mdwalker@quickclic.net)
Date: Fri Sep 14 2001 - 11:54:16 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charlie Stross" <charlie@antipope.org>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Thanks for the interesting essay. Suppose we accept your analysis of the
etiology and your prescription for the ill, namely, a new age of
enlightenment in the middle east. I am not sure how you propose to get from
"here to there". You suggest that we take Japan as the poster child for the
sort of transformation that we would like to see, but of course the changes
in Japan were instituted by a foreign military dictatorship. If the parallel
is to hold, western forces would have to institute a military dictatorship,
at least for a while. Is this what you are suggesting? If not, how are we
supposed to get the mideast from where they are now to where we would like
them to be? In effect, I think you are saying that we know best what is best
for them. (If not this only exacerbates the problem). You might even be
right about this, but still there is the problem of instituting what we
think is best for them. After all, saying that they are ignorant in this
respect is part of what they do not like about the west in the first place.
Any thoughts and getting from here to there? Mark
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