Dear John,
You wrote:
Things
would have been far better for the Afghan people, Pakistan,
the US,
the Russian people, and the entire world if Reagan and the CIA had done
nothing.
Yes, in generalized form, the conclusion I draw is
that organizations err on the side of doing too much,
especially as suggested by the ideas of Isaiah Berlin as documented by Curtis, and as supported
by the numerous examples which he shows.
So more generally, the consistently human error is in
doing too much when we think we
are in the right. That has held true for so many examples in history that
it can assumed that every organized plurality of people with a common self
interest will eventually go too far if not stopped.
The notion of checks and balances is sometimes thought
to limit just how far the organization can go. Jefferson
was the architect of the American system of checks and balances. In
Brittain, Cromwell hanged the then king for treason. There was a period
of time when England
did without a king, but the upper classes, I am told, wanted to cement their
roles as ruling class, and reinstated the royal line after Cromwell's
death. Britain's
political structure of parliament and elections were intended to provide checks
and balances there, I am told by historians.
Dictatorships of all persuasions seem to appeal to the
self interest of the dictator and those few forces that keep him in
power. The word "dictate" from Latin simply means to state,
much like dictation machines in the old technologies of the fifties. The connotation
is that the dictator has the power to make his statements become real. The
rest of the citizens can dictate until the llamas and camels come home, but
there won’t be a reality that corresponds to their dictations. Syria is the
most contemporary example I can think of.
Democracies spread the base of power somewhat by
letting citizens express their choice through voting within a limited set of
options. That means the self interest of the electorate has a greater
voice. But it doesn’t mean democracies are any less subject to Isaiah
Berlin's warning.
Athens warred
on other city states, forcing their own self interest to be realized. The
North invaded the South in the American civil war to enforce their economic
interests.
So the only concept of which I am aware that can limit
the power of any organization is some kind of well constructed set of checks
and balances, but even that is not sufficient. It is only a step in the
right direction until we can come up with a better way to limit organizations
more effectively.
But there will always be zealous advocates who
persuade organizations to do too much. Sad, but true. I don’t
see a way to stop said organizations from doing too much. But by modeling
self interest, we may be able to learn how to detect, perhaps even automate the
detection, of when the organizations are going too far.
JMHO,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 1:38 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self
Interest Ontology: Emotions in animals
On 1/3/2012 1:58 PM, Rich
Cooper wrote:
> But the very righteousness that drove the
revolutionaries,
> they felt, justified taking inhumane steps to
force people
> to be in line with their plans, since they felt
their plans
> would bring good. Instead, their
convictions turned out
> to be the cause of their downfall.
Fundamental principle: never trust anybody who
claims
to know the will of God or anything else that is too
complex for anybody else to understand.
> The Sandinistas, for example, which even Reagan
supported.
Reagan also funneled money through the CIA to support
Osama bin Laden in the fight against the Soviet Union
in Afghanistan.
He even sent money to the Taliban to
recruit and train more fighters against the USSR.
That was another example of people who thought that
they
were doing what was right. Things would have
been far
better for the Afghan people, Pakistan, the US, the
Russian people, and the entire world if Reagan and the
CIA had done nothing.
John
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