From: jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca (James Davis Nicoll)
Subject: Re: Somalia
Organization: University of Western Ontario, London
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 18:26:15 GMT


In article <JOHNCH.92Dec10141335@pongo.sun.com> johnch@pongo.sun.com (John Chandler [Contractor]) writes:
>In article <1992Dec9.190546.28201@julian.uwo.ca> jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes:
>   In article <JOHNCH.92Dec8175810@pongo.sun.com> johnch@pongo.sun.com (John Chandler [Contractor]) writes:
>   >In article <1992Dec7.171544.2368@julian.uwo.ca> jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes:
>   >   In article <DR5TB3N7@cc.swarthmore.edu> ment@cs.swarthmore.edu (Andrew Ment) writes:
>>> [...] we will be back in the situation where the US and USSR had enough 
>>>missiles pointed at each other to destroy the
>>>earth.
>>

	[I disagreed that humans could destroy the earth, while conceding
that the  cost of a nuclear war could  be high to humans, and could involve
large numbers of extinctions, putting it in context with the Cretaceous
extinction]

>   >I think you enjoyed the Cretaceous more than some of us did.
>
>	   Oh, I am  deeply  wounded by your  quip.
>
>	   Humans and their  interests  are not  the  world. As  a  human, it
>   is in  my  interests not  to die in  a nuclear war, and  to prevent  my
>   species from self-destruction, but I see no need to exagerate the global
>   importance of my concerns.  Lots  of species have  come and gone in the
>   history  of earth.  
>
>	   If all a particular war meant was the  death of a few dozen millions
>   of humans, and not the disruption of the planet, would its lack  of
>   destructive  'status' make it too trivial to worry about?
>
>No, and I said no such thing. I agree that humans and their interests
>are not the world, but in the current context, isn't this misplaced
>humility?  It seemed to me that your earlier post was drawing a
>distinction where there was, to a human observer, no difference.

	When I die, from my POV, the entire universe will cease to
exist. Should I then equate my personal, inevitable death in the
coming century with a universal destruction? If I had children, should
I treat their condition after my death as equivalent to being dead
from my POV? Humans are quite capable of distinguishing between degrees
of disaster, even when their personal extinction is involved: thus
the existance of institutions  like life insurance,  inheiritance
laws  and rules of succession.

>"Destroy the earth" is perhaps a glib phrase, but most of us would be
>unable to tell the difference between the annihilation of the human
>species and the destruction of the earth.  When evaluating foreign
>policy options, either outcome should be considered infinitely bad.

	Really? In the first case, one species is destroyed, but  the
possibility that the  niche  it occupied could be filled by another
species, given a few million years. In the  other, an entire series
of  successive ecosystems is terminated. I have no problem distinguishing
between the two. 

							James Nicoll 

Xref: sparky alt.current-events.somalia:613 alt.politics.org.un:185 alt.president.clinton:1156 talk.politics.misc:64684 alt.politics.bush:14671