Terrorism Hysteria on the Net

[snow]

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 at suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow at crash.suba.com