On Internet and social responsibility

Mon Sep 17 19:28:24 UTC 2001

Just a little phiolosophy to ponder on:

Coflicts are generally of two kinds: one is conflicts for resources
(territory, access to water, etc), the second kind is "religious"
conflicts, caused by one or both sides having a belief incompatible with
other's and including imperative to kill "infidels".

Most conflicts seemingly of of the second kind are in fact conflicts of
the first kind, in disguise (with religious/ideologic rhetoric used to
justify actions).  The ethnic conflicts are never really a standalone
category (ethnicity is commonly and falsely used as a proxy indicator for
person's beliefs or affiliation).

The conflicts of the first kind are usually amenable to resolution by
negotiation, as soon as a commonly acceptable contract framework is found,
and can be effectively prevented by getting standards of living high
enough so that people are contented with what they have.

Conflicts of the second kind cannot be resolved by negotiation.  Simply
because negotiation does not remove the cause of contention - i.e.
incompatibility of beliefs.  The only way to eliminate such conflict for
good is to modify or extinguish the appeal of the idea.  This is done by
slowing down the distribution of that idea or by making posessing the idea
a very clearly poor proposition compared to having the competing idea.

(Note that, by definition, the other party does not _see_ the errors of
their ways; they have to be shown - and nobody changes their viewpoints
willingly without very good reason).

Achieving conversion of the other side to a mindset compatible with our
own requires either physicall killing of all carriers of the idea, or
careful propaganda war, combined with a system of incentives and
disincentives.

So it very much boils down to a pair of things abhorrent to the
libertarian mind - violence or speech control.

Make your choice.

--vadim