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Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 07:23pm May 15, 2001 EST (#3946 of 3948)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

let me review what I've meant by "disciplined beauty" -- and relate it to a notion of "evil" that I believe fits cases, and can be usefully analytically.

664: rshowalter 2/9/01 1:53pm reads in part:

Dawn Rilesy and I have worked out An operational definition of Good Theory in real sciences for real people. and it applies to good military doctrine (which is military theory, built to use.).

In "Beauty" http://www.everreader.com/beauty.htm Mark Anderson quotes Heisenberg's definition of beauty in the exact sciences:

" Beauty is the proper conformity of the parts to one another and to the whole."

SUGGESTED DEFINITION: Good theory is an attempt to produce beauty in Heisenberg's sense in a SPECIFIC context of assumption and data.

Goodness can be judged in terms of that context, and also the fit with other contexts that, for logical reasons, have to fit together.

I think evil leaders have a high degree of "disciplined beauty" that they have working in their heads, and can communicate to others, on the basis of terrible assumptions.

I think it would be helpful, thinking of these monsters - to assume that in their own terms they are (at the neurological level) "trying to be beautiful" and assuming that, ask

" what assumptions could make this behavior beautiful? "

I think that there will usually be answers, and answers worth thinking about.

rshowalter - 07:40pm May 15, 2001 EST (#3947 of 3948)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Illustrative "cartoons of assumptions" applied to the people I think of when I think "evil" ---

Alexander the Great -- at least approaching India

" It is right to spread MY culture, and it is fair to kill without mercy any who I can get to attack me, and it is beautiful for me to unite the world."

Atilla the Hun

" This land is beautiful if it is grazing land - and all these vermin Romans, and all their works, are wiped out."

Napolean

" I will unite the world under my power -- military conquest, and imposition of my culture, are worth whatever they cost -- and deaths of "untermenschen" barely matter."

Hitler

" There is an "ideal Germany" to be advanced at all costs, I am the person to conceptualize it and impose it, and there will be NO value being placed on any nation, group, or individual who do not fit my elaborate, philosophically ornate, arbitrary conception."

Stalin

Somewhat similar to Hitler, but with different "intellectual ideas" -- combined with a similar ruthlessness -- and eventually, from the records, pleasure in causing suffering and death of "enemies".

and so on . . . .

Conclusions:

at some levels, it may indeed be possible to "negotiate" with such monsters, and perhaps for some purposes, negotiation may be worth doing.

There are SOME idea systems - with bad enough consequences, that are worth resisting. Worth killing for and dying for (though I'd ask for arithmetical discipline here.) Some idea systems produce "evil" in the ways that matter to me, and matter to most people.

For at least some "in the thrall of evil" -- change on the basis of evidence, reasoning, and crossmatching may be possible.

Monsters may be very effective, rational, and even attractive people in some aspects of their lives. Ones who make it as leaders of effective groups are able people in many ways -- and have many subordinates who find their ideas compelling and beautiful in psychologically compelling ways.

rshowalter - 07:41pm May 15, 2001 EST (#3948 of 3948)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

comments, gisterme ?

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