Current stance, after a few weeks of contemplation. was Re: Why Do They Hate Us?

[Jeff Bone]

Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:

> mark it on your calendar: Jbone and GLM both agree ;)
>
> In general, people haven't a clue what they believe, or rather, they
> profess to believe one thing, but on examination of their behaviour,
> we find they believe something entirely different.  This is why
> opinion polls fail.  Whatever we _think_ we are doing, the only thing
> that matters is what we actually _do_.

Well said, and very very true.  Corollary:  getting people to recognize
the inherent contradictions in their own supposed beliefs and their
actual behavior --- especially by confronting them with fact and reason
and pointing out specific instances --- is a sure-fire way to get their
dander up.  Nothing tips harder than sacred cows about one's own
character.

;-)

> If someone commits a crime, then I say the full extent of the law
> applies; I'd love to see all those who perpertrated the WTC fried by
> the justice system. Where I have a _lot_ of trouble these days is in
> the notion of "preventative law enforcement" just as with
> "preventative medicine" --- while it is a definate risk most despots
> won't take, my experience and my observations (and, hey, my religion)
> say one is not guilty until _after_ the fact.

So here we both agree and disagree.  I agree that guilt cannot be judged
beforehand;  there is no thought crime, and the essence of crime is
action not intent.  However:  I believe the "punitive" parts of criminal
law exist to negatively incent criminal behavior, not to "punish" and
certainly not to "rehabilitate" criminals.  Clearly a lot of criminal law
fails to adequately discourage criminal activity;  IMO, it is not
punitive *enough,* indeed to get it through peoples' thick skulls and
truly discourage acts which civilized society *cannot* condone then
perhaps "punitive" measures must be outrageously disproportional.  This
applies at all scales of criminal behavior:  individual, organizational
(think Microsoft, if you like, or anti-abortion militants),
international.  And if we're willing to apply disproportional measures,
then it stands to reason that the scope of things which we call
"criminal" must be carefully constrained.

Where I have a lot of difficulty these days is with people who view
what's happened (WTC etc.) as an individual criminal event or series of
events which can appropriately be considered a matter for law
enforcement.  What we're dealing with is a new beast entirely.  The rule
of law just doesn't cover this;  the closest thing we've got is law
related to organized crime, and that covers thugs and teamsters, not
coldly ruthless mercenaries of supposed divine providence.  We don't have
a clue how accountability for this kind of thing should be apportioned,
or how we should approach dealing with it and preventing further
occurrances.  It is so far outside the ken of civilization as we have
known it lately that it is terra incognita.  For the first time ever, we
have a decentralized / distributed sub-national power with no diplomatic
ties, no populist / economic constraints, a totally alien viewpoint, who
are well-funded and equipped with unconventional weapons of mass
destruction, with none of the normal built-in constraints on wartime
behavior that we're used to.  These "people" have in essence declared a
war of annihilation against us and --- scarily --- are gaining broad
popular support for their position in many parts of the world.  All the
normal rules and expectations and processes and mechanisms for dealing
with belligerents are completely out the window.

The only way I can see to deal with this is to build a wall (diplomatic,
economic, impenetrable) between their world and ours and let their own
primitive fires burn themselves out.  The appropriate role of the
military in this case will be ensuring that the wall remains
impenetrable;  disproportionate retaliation for any acts of penetration
can provide adequate negative incentive.  Enough rational, moderate
people will be stranded unwillingly on that side of the wall that will
step up, take responsibility, and reign these nutcases in.  Or not, in
which case we have two worlds coexisting:  a modern, multilateral /
multicultural, secular one and an inevitably doomed one that is medieval,
feudal, balkanized, and theocratic.  That seems to be what they want
anyway, so perhaps the best thing to do is let them have it.

It occurs to me that it wouldn't hurt to leave a few people around
through / after the Singularity who might be in a position to try it
again in a few centuries...

;-)

jb


jb