Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uccba!uceng!dmocsny
From: dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Robots & free will (was Re: The limitations of logic)
Summary: Sending in the boys.
Keywords: Choosing thoughts.
Message-ID: <549@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 1 Jan 89 20:07:30 GMT
References: <3328@sdsu.UUCP> <43228@linus.UUCP> <539@uceng.UC.EDU> <2173@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati, College of Engg.
Lines: 34

In article <2173@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
> 4) I used to teach in a mixed school, where the girls could fight just
>    as viciously as the boys (true also of the Bigg Market in
>    Newcastle upon Tyne in England :-)).  Finally, Margaret Thatcher
>    sent the UK fleet to the Falklands, Golda Meier could send in the
>    boys too, and Nancy Reagan ordered the troops into Grenada :-)

I'm not saying women are incapable of aggression and violence. They
are, but killing on a massive scale has historically been an
exclusively male domain. Even when a woman happens to be the
figurehead in authority and giving the orders, she is making decisions
in the context of male-dominated political structure. After all, she
is sending in the _boys_. What's more, I think I could argue, perhaps
tenuously, that the 2.5 cases you cite might be responses to male
aggression on the other side.

Perhaps a society of women could spontaneously meld themselves into an
effective fighting force, and go forth to heap destruction on each
other without the help of men.  But as we have not the slightest
precedent for such, I think Occam's razor suggests we begin with the
male brain in our search for the roots of organized violence.

I have to side with Gilbert's views on the prospects for
super-rational machines of our invention guiding our affairs with
wisdom and benevolence.  To me this sounds like a long reach, to say
the very least. I think a more realistic approach, though hardly one
I'm going to bet on, is to understand and modify the mechanisms of
violent human behavior. At least we have a thin shred of hope: already
some people, in some contexts, live much of their lives without
_deliberately_ inflicting harm on their neighbors.

Cheers,

Dan Mocsny