Friday, December 06, 2002

Good, Ethics, and Evil Donivan Bessinger, MD writes: The natural ethic is derived empirically from a study of natural systems, rather than conjecturally through reason alone. It takes life as a given, and asserts that it is good for the natural system to survive. One presumably could devise an ethics of non-survival, but it would be an anti-ethics, which would bear the same relationship to life in the real world as does anti-matter: mutual anihilation upon contact. The practice of ethics requires an understanding of what is good and what is not. That question has occupied thinkers in both philosophic and theological worlds for centuries. It would not be useful to research or review here the many terms and many shadings of technical and often tedious meanings assigned to them. However, it will be helpful to sketch some of the broad categories of arguments about the problem of good and evil. A prevailing view has been the dualistic view, in which good is paired as an opposite to evil, usually personified as God and Satan. The struggle between good and evil thus becomes a struggle between God and Satan. A major problem for systematic theology, however, is how there can be any doubt of the outcome if God is both all-powerful and all-good. If a good God is in control, why is there evil? How can a good God allow "bad things to happen to good people," as the title of Rabbi Kushner's book so well expresses it. For many people, the inconsistency of that model has been an insurmountable obstacle to religious belief.  (12/06/02) Global Gloom and Growing Anti-Americanism Despite an initial outpouring of public sympathy for America following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, discontent with the United States has grown around the world over the past two years. Images of the U.S. have been tarnished in all types of nations: among longtime NATO allies, in developing countries, in Eastern Europe and, most dramatically, in Muslim societies. Since 2000, favorability ratings for the U.S. have fallen in 19 of the 27 countries where trend benchmarks are available. While criticism of America is on the rise, however, a reserve of goodwill toward the United States still remains. The Pew Global Attitudes survey finds that the U.S. and its citizens continue to be rated positively by majorities in 35 of the 42 countries in which the question was asked. True dislike, if not hatred, of America is concentrated in the Muslim nations of the Middle East and in Central Asia, today’s areas of greatest conflict. ... Souring attitudes toward America are more than matched by the discontent that people of the planet feel concerning the world at large. As 2002 draws to a close, the world is not a happy place. At a time when trade and technology have linked the world more closely together than ever before, almost all national publics view the fortunes of the world as drifting downward. A smaller world, our surveys indicate, is not a happier one. The spread of disease is judged the top global problem in more countries than any other international threat, in part because worry about AIDS and other illnesses is so overwhelming in developing nations, especially in Africa. Fear of religious and ethnic violence ranks second, owing to strong worries about global and societal divisions in both the West and in several Muslim countries. Nuclear weapons run a close third in public concern. The publics of China, South Korea and many in the former Soviet Bloc put more emphasis on global environmental threats than do people elsewhere. (12/06/02) Welcome to Total Information Awareness, Mr. Poindexter John Gilmore writes: The SF Weekly's column by Matt Smith in the Dec 3 issue points out that there may be some information that John M. and Linda Poindexter of 10 Barrington Fare, Rockville, MD, 20850, may be missing in their pursuit of total information awareness.  He suggests that people with information to offer should phone +1 301 424 6613 to speak with that corrupt official and his wife.  Neighbors Thomas E. Maxwell, 67, at 8 Barringon Fare (+1 301 251 1326), James F. Galvin, 56, at 12 (+1 301 424 0089), and Sherrill V. Stant (nee Knight) at 6, may also lack some information that would be valuable to them in making decisions -- decisions that could affect the basic civil rights of every American. ... Public records can be manually searched and then posted to the net by people who happen to be looking there for something else.  Many Internet public records search sites also exist; try searching for "People finder".  (Matt Smith at matt.smith@sfweekly.com has offered to "publish anything that readers can convincingly claim to have obtained legally".)  Photographs and videos of the target, their house, car, family, and associates, can be made and circulated to demonstrate facial recognition techniques. ... Those with access to DMV and criminal records databases, credit card records, telephone bills, tax records, birth and death and marriage records, medical records, and similar personally identifiable databases could combine their information publicly to assist in the demonstration.  This is how TIA is intended to work -- the government would get privileged access to all these databases, access that the rest of us do not normally have.  But some of us have access to various of these databases today, and can demonstrate how the TIA system might work. People who associated closely with such a targeted individual, such as their families, relatives, friends, neighbors, protective secret service agents, and business associates, might find themselves swept up in the information dragnet.  Such a demonstration would graphically reveal the societal dangers of deploying such systems on a wide scale against a large number of citizens -- preferably early enough that such a deployment could be prevented, rather than reversed after major harm was caused.  (12/06/02) The Perpetual War Portfolio The Perpetual War Portfolio is an evenly weighted basket of five stocks poised to succeed in the age of perpetual war. The stocks were selected on the basis of popular product lines, strong political connections and lobbying efforts, and paid-for access to key Congressional decision makers. (12/06/02) 9:55:40 AM

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