Comments on: war and peace http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844 art, life, philosophy, architecture, literature, film, performance, and other stuff Sun, 15 Mar 2026 20:04:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: mitsu http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-619 mitsu Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:21:33 +0000 http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-619 (Fighting, dying, and killing are a kind of limit of ideas, and they precess simulacra into the real. It's why "reality-based" ideas turned out to be so much more prescient than what the Bush Administration ineptly tried to do in Iraq. But the answer in my opinion is not to eschew specific techniques (war, for example) in general, in a context-free way, but to recognize the entire embedded quality of the situation, which is to say, you take into account as much deep context as possible when deciding when and how to fight. The answer should be you rarely fight, but if you do, you fight with great force, as briefly as possible, while understanding who you are fighting as well as possible and ending it as soon as possible, etc. Rules of thumb, but they have their basis in this physicality I was talking about (physicality is information and information is physicality --- I don't mean to propose a dualism here). (Fighting, dying, and killing are a kind of limit of ideas, and they precess simulacra into the real. It’s why “reality-based” ideas turned out to be so much more prescient than what the Bush Administration ineptly tried to do in Iraq. But the answer in my opinion is not to eschew specific techniques (war, for example) in general, in a context-free way, but to recognize the entire embedded quality of the situation, which is to say, you take into account as much deep context as possible when deciding when and how to fight. The answer should be you rarely fight, but if you do, you fight with great force, as briefly as possible, while understanding who you are fighting as well as possible and ending it as soon as possible, etc. Rules of thumb, but they have their basis in this physicality I was talking about (physicality is information and information is physicality — I don’t mean to propose a dualism here).

]]> By: mitsu http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-618 mitsu Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:17:20 +0000 http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-618 Ideas are physical. They are embedded in our physicality, limited by it, and also connected to something not fully knowable through that. That means that, for me, fighting or dying is just another aspect of that physicality. Ideas are physical. They are embedded in our physicality, limited by it, and also connected to something not fully knowable through that. That means that, for me, fighting or dying is just another aspect of that physicality.

]]> By: magda http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-617 magda Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:15:50 +0000 http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-617 Things as in ideas or... Do you think ideas are worth fighting/dying for? Things as in ideas or…

Do you think ideas are worth fighting/dying for?

]]> By: mitsu http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-616 mitsu Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:16:51 +0000 http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-616 Anyone who believes that there are things worth fighting for should believe those same things are worth dying for. Anyone who believes that there are things worth fighting for should believe those same things are worth dying for.

]]> By: magda http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-615 magda Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:11:48 +0000 http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=844#comment-615 Would you go to war? Would you go to war?

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