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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: An Alternative to Limited Nuclear Wa - (nf)
Message-ID: <1506@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Dec-83 17:06:36 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1506
Posted: Thu Dec  1 17:06:36 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Dec-83 17:33:45 EST
References: <908@ucbcad.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 67

Well, at least Michael Turner read my article. I was wondering if it got out
there....

The problem with trying to settle the problems of the earth *before* we
get to space is that if it was that easy we would have solved them already.
Why do people have wars is a very good question and there are thousands of
answers, but they all boil down to:

	people are willing to do truly rotten things to each other

Right. Suppose we wanted to do something about this. Let us say that
everybody in the US, say adopted a moral stance that we would not do
rotten things to other countries. What would happen?

	There would be considerable argument as to what was a "rotten thing".

	There would be considerable argument as to whether you should allow
	another nation to do a rotten thing.

Doesn't this sound like what is going on NOW? If you abandon the stereotypes
and look at your neighbours, you are struck with the conclusion that it is
not that we are rampant "vehicles of evil" or even that "Ronald Reagan
and the Moral Majority are vehicles of evil" but that here are some people
who may be making horrible and rotten discisions but who still are trying
not to do rotten things to each other or to allow other people to do rotten
things to themselves and to each other...

Thus we are flawed. We cannot come up with a universal and good morality which
will be acceptable even in so small an area as the United States -- let alone
The USSR and India and Iran and China and all these other places where it is
so clearly needed as well if this solution is to work.

Is it any wonder? What harder questions are there than "what is good" and
"what is evil"? If they are not insoluable questions then they sure are
very tough ones --- and if we have not solved them over the course of
human history it is unlikely that we would solve them right now even though
they are desparately needed right now. (aside: every age probably felt that
they were desparately needed *right now*). 

Thus what we need is a way to avert nuclear war which is not based on knowing
"what is right" and "what is good" and "what is moral". Most especially we
must give up the self-centred and quaint notion that "If *I* were President
then none of these awful things...". The President is not some governmental
demi-god --- indeed there is not one of us who would not make a president
that many people would not approve of!

now something that human beings are good (not great, but better than 
at understanding good
and evil!) at is deciding how much something will cost. So far, the threat of
nuclear war has been deemed worth the cost. Whatever you or I may think about
this, they are still building nuclear weapons....

What you are facing is the destruction of the world as we know it (and 
perhaps as *ANYTHING* knows it) as a possible outcome. Still it has been
decided that it is worth the cost... Thus the basic human goods of 
freedom, home and property have been declared to be worth the risk. So
what we need to do is make the *gains* of war less attractive.

If you are *already* secure, and you cannot remove a menace and you know
that they cannot remove you why bother fighting? If people actually *enjoy*
war, then there is one reason but I am sure that we can accomodate them.
But if *nobody* wants nuclear war then what is really wanted is the security
that your way of life will continue. And if you have thriving space colonies
then that is satisfied -- so why bother protecting yourself?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura