From: Joao Pedro (jpnitya@mail.esoterica.pt)
Date: Mon Sep 22 1997 - 19:56:42 MDT
Hi!
Many of you seem bothered and annoyed by my messages. Although that
wasn't my intention, I apologize and I would like to mention that this
will, hopefully, be my last message on this subject, this is an
Extropian list and this subject is not even directly related to
Exrotpism. I would still like to clarify a few of my positions that I
think were not well interpreted. To avoid any further messages, I won't
comment on any of your replies unless they are useful for my own
conclusions.
First, you were very surprised, perhaps even mad by my ideas about human
nature.
Anton Sherwood wrote:
> : Joao Pedro writes:
> : > .... You're talking of voluntary, unselfish actions
> : > from the same species that constantly kills, destroys and robs
> : > other members of the same species? ....
>
> Constantly? Speak for yourself.
I'm very aggressive and determined but I'm not a violent person. I'm
actually very peaceful. Anyone who knows me, claims that I am the
coolest, most calm driver on earth and since Portuguese drivers are
considered the worst in Europe, that's a big complement. I never engaged
in a fight and never picked up a gun in my life. Perhaps if I was in the
middle of Bosnia I would be violent, who knows, but as I am now, I'm not
violent.
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > Why don't people kill each others? Because there is a law against it,
> > make murder legal and you will see people killing each others.
>
> What a hideous, depressing view of humanity. I can't speak for you
> personally, but /I/ don't murder because /I/ personally find the act
> morally repugnant. I think most ordinary people are the same. There
> is always the occasional psychopath, but it is clear from history
> that the all the truly large-scale brutal mass murders are perpetrated
> by armies, under the auspices of a government, not by individuals.
You mention one important word, History. You want to see the conclusive
proof to my claims about human nature? Look at the human history of the
last 10'000 years. The human gene pool is roughly the same for the past
100'000 years which means that the gene pool of Canadians (the country
in the world with the best quality of life, according to my last
statistics) is the same of the ruthless troops of Napoleon or the
British army that destroyed villages one after the other in it's
imperialistic conquest. You want to see how life was with no penalies
for murder? I can write to you some stories of the Dark Ages in Europe,
you want to hear what was life for Portuguese farmers in the 14/15th
centuries or can you just imagine?. Do you think that the German people
have been genetically mutated since the holocaust? The genes are the
same, the difference is in education, in memes.
You say that armies are the mass murders and not individuals. You are
just telling me I'm right, murderers, just like peaceful persons are a
result of education and not genetic causes (with a few, sporadic,
exceptions). The German army had to work much to make it's soldiers to
kill the Jews, remember that the Germans had an education and the army
had to destroy the compassion German soldiers had in order to use them.
The pure human nature, without education can be seen in a state of
anarchy. Inform yourself about the Dark Age or about human life on Earth
when civilization was not yet established. Civilization prevents the
expression of the true human nature by education, by culture.
You can argue, most persons are not violent. I might even agree (most
women are much less violent than men) but even that only a minority is
violent in the start (let's imagine a sudden abolition of death penalty
in the US), the others would soon realize that this was the best course
of action (even the most peaceful ones!). I see people insulting
themselves for small reasons, I see men (yes, men are the main cause of
violence) fighting for practically nothing. As soon as the judicial
system falls, violence is a reality (except, perhaps, in Canada and
other nations with few social problems), just look at Rwanda. Mail me
privately and I'll send a dozen of cases (from peaceful Americans who
were 'carried away' during the riots, ex-Nazi soldiers, stories of the
conquest of America and the slaughter of natives, civil societies before
1 AD, etc).
I don't know (or knew) what negative feedback is, some of you also
disliked this, I still don't understand why, Anton Sherwood wrote:
> Be fair, `negative feedback' is a term of art that probably
> isn't in an English-Portuguese dictionary. I understood
> the principle long before I knew what the phrase means.
There is actually a phenomenon called feedback inhibition that occurs in
enzymes but from there to knowing what negative feedback is, with only a
few knowledge of economy, goes a long way.
As for economy, your arguments haven't convinced me that free-markets
are the best solution, on the contrary, they convinced me that
free-markets aren't a wise solution. Anyway, I shall not discuss this
subject again on the list.
Other thing that seem to have bothered was my lack of knowledge and my,
primitive, questions. Michael Lorrey wrote:
> Doesn't anyone read books anymore? Why do so many people on the net ask
> elementary questions which are much more satisfactorily answered by
> going to the basic literature rather than by a flurry of incomplete or
> sketchy net responses? Who wants to spend time typing in elementary
> introductions to basic libertarian thought?
I haven't counted all the replies I received but apparently some do.
> It all comes down to individuals taking responsibility for their own
> education, and respect for others. What do you think the secretary of
> state would say if you walked into a Cabinet meeting and asked a basic
> question about the Presidency?
First, the secretary of state would need, unlike myself, to know basic
things, that's his job, that's what he's paid for. Second, I sent a
simple message with a few questions, some persons had the time to answer
them. If you really think I shown no respect, I apologize but I don't
believe you've spent more than 10 seconds to read the start of my
message (where it was obvious that I had simple questions) and erase it.
If, in those 10 seconds, I made you lose some important business, some
great touchdown or your dinner got cold, I apologize.
On a personal basis, I don't mind talking about subjects that are
interesting to me for hours, I don't mind answering all the questions in
the world. Obviously some of you are different, once again, if I caused
any pain to anyone with my message, I apologize. Please note that this
only applies to my first message, the others are just responses to the
responses of persons who had time to answer my questions.
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> Joao deserves insults. He is not merely ignorant, he is willfully
> ignorant; he /has/ been pointed to sources of information (I pointed
> to some myself), and he chose to waste our time instead. That's not
> just ignorant, that's rude. I can respect someone who has spent
> some time studying and thinking about an issue who then argues with
> me, but not someone who doesn't want to learn, and who just wants to
> hear his prejudices validated.
My reply to Michael Lorry can be basically applied to you but I would
also like to add that insults usually don't make persons do what you
want. Well, at least that's my opinion but, probably unlike you, I'm not
used to insulting other persons so I'm also a bit ignorant in this
subject.
Thank you all for your replies,
--
Hasta la vista...
"Life's too short to cry, long enough to try." - Kai Hansen
Visit my site at: http://mithlond.esoterica.pt/~jpnitya/
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