Re: Terrorism Hysteria on the Net
At 07:21 PM 6/10/96 -0500, snow wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, John Young wrote:
"You bring me a select group of hackers and within 90 days I'll bring this country to its knees, " says Jim Settle, retired director of the FBI's computer crime squad.
Give me 15 well trained soldiers(near special forces level) and I can do it in less than 60 days. Without touching a computer. There was a blue print published by Omni Magazine in the mid to late 80's written by Henry Kissinger (IIRC). Give me 15 McVey's with the ability to follow orders and I'll have this country in chaos in 2 weeks.
It isn't that hard, it is just that almost everyone prefers the current system to total death & destruction chaos that follows a strong government collapsing.
Doesn't this statement represent something of a bias in favor of today's system? Is the "total death and destruction chaos" a function of the collapse of that strong government, or the immediate tendency of it to be replaced with dictator wannabes? In other words, if a "strong government" could be brought down with a guarantee that nobody would be able to even begin to replace it, might that not be an entirely different matter?
Society holds itself together in large part not because of the rule of law, but becaue most people want it to.
Doesn't this statement contradict the previous statement you made? If there's "chaos" perhaps that's merely because a small group of people is trying to take control. Most people want peace, but it can be disturbed by a minority. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com
On Mon, 10 Jun 1996, jim bell wrote:
At 07:21 PM 6/10/96 -0500, snow wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, John Young wrote:
"You bring me a select group of hackers and within 90 days I'll bring this current system to total death & destruction chaos that follows a strong government collapsing.
Doesn't this statement represent something of a bias in favor of today's system? Is the "total death and destruction chaos" a function of the collapse of that strong government, or the immediate tendency of it to be replaced with dictator wannabes? In other words, if a "strong government" could be brought down with a guarantee that nobody would be able to even begin to replace it, might that not be an entirely different matter?
Notice the use of the word "Collapsing" it was used to refer to a quick removal of rule/authority. I am no proponet of today's system, but no reasonable replacement has been suggested. Yours included. The problem I have with your system is basically the same problem I have with todays. Tyranny of the masses and a system where emotion can be drummed up to kill an idea (or person) where reason _should_ prevail.
Society holds itself together in large part not because of the rule of law, but becaue most people want it to.
Doesn't this statement contradict the previous statement you made? If there's "chaos" perhaps that's merely because a small group of people is trying to take control. Most people want peace, but it can be disturbed by a minority.
In the situation where a small group of people do something to throw the system into chaos, the rules that stop the minority from running amuck are no longer in place. In that situation, people get scared. Fear is condusive to rational thinking. When fear takes over people tend to react emotionally/instinctively. This would (I think, I haven't done the research to back this up) tend to cause people to back someone who promises a return to the previous stability (look at Russia). Petro, Christopher C. petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff> snow@crash.suba.com
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