From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 16:48:56 MDT
On Thu, Jun 27, 2002 at 05:53:09PM -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
> >
> > This seems to be view of China - freedom of speech, democracy and all
> > that are something that can be dealt with after everybody has got a good
> > standard of living. Maybe not as much as a crisis zone as Zimbabwe, but
> > I think the one step at a time approach is not the right thing to do
> > since it is essentially just saying "tomorrow, maybe" and postponing
> > reforms indefinitely. Culture and institutions can be shaped *while*
> > trying to stabilize the situation - often they are the stuff that helps
> > stabilize a crisis region in the first place. Education, pest control
> > programs and setting up food distribution networks go hand in hand.
>
> China is about the worst possible example. Doing it that way only
> teaches the people that they don't really need that stupid idea called
> freedom, that all they need is one big world government running
> things....
Exactly my point! Not everything the Chinese government is evil/stupid,
but one should always be careful about ideas one finds oneself sharing
with it.
Prime minister Göran Person told the media recently that he was all for
labour immigration, but only after all Swedes and current immigrants had
jobs. Which is a way of saying "never" that sounds nicer - but it is
still both a stupid and immoral policy. The same goes for most other
applications of "you can get X, but only after you have achieved Y".
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