I kept out of Jay Hansons way for a long while now, especially since some
intelligent and very persevering people like Eva Durant answered him
sufficiently, but reading this just made my blood boil again.
One wonders if there is no ecological list where these same ongoing crazy
discussions are not overshadowing what is really important.
----------
> Van: Jay Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Aan: Michael Spencer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Onderwerp: Re: How hard is it to change opinions?
> Datum: zondag 21 februari 1999 19:12
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael Spencer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
jay> In all cases, when I use "rational", I mean in the sense of Homo
> economicus -- a Machiavellian calculator.
spencer> >About biology and survival: From the (hypothetical) point of view
of a
> >species, survival comes first. If rationality is available to the
>
jay> This is a misconception. Darwinian survival is the survival of the
> fittest "genes" -- not species or individuals. Rational actions from
> an evolutionary standpoint are those that tend to propigate genes.
But evolution is not rational, isn't it? Leaves the Machiavellian
calculator, who now is going to take the place of evolution and decide
what's right?
> >Is the only way to avoid global catastrophe to do evil? The Second
> >Law and biology may or may not tell us how to avoid catastrophe but it
> >surely won't tell us whether or not it's possible to remain humane and
> >civil persons if we do so.
>
> How about the "survival of civilization"?
Yea, save the planet, save civilization, like in every bad American movie,
> We know that if people continue to destroy our life-support system
> as they have, then our civilization will inevitably collapse (immutable
> 2nd law arguments).
What 'our' civilization will collapse? You could just as well say that the
way it's been going for the last century or two, western civilization has
been going completely the wrong way.
> We also know that if civilization collapses, then industrial supply
lines
> will breakdown and then, billions of innocent people will starve.
Boy, are you ethnocentric. Billions of innocent people are starving right
now, while our great civilization stands, and what is more, is mostly
responsible for this. What you seem to be so scared of, or scaring other
people about, is that the same might happen to the West, and the only way
to avert it, is "temporarily" turning off democracy, turning the world over
to the 'Uebermenschen', the elite of experts and scientists, who are at
this moment co-responsible for what's going on.
> Are billions of people to be condemed to death because of YOUR
> hundreds-of-years-old "beliefs" about "rights"?
So that's civilisation for you, doing away with everything valuable people
have died FOR in the past, like democracy for example, and indeed rights,
human rights, which the majority of this world is still lacking, and which
is actually one of the main reasons they are actually starving. So instead
of giving up those rights, that DO make up whatever civilisation we have
here, we should see they are extended to everyone else on this planet. This
would solve a lot if not all of the so-called overpopulation problems. Not
possible? Why would it be easier to sterilize the whole planet, as jay is
proposing in one of his crazy schemes?
Jan Matthieu
Flemish Greens
