X-Message-Number: 27015
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 10:33:14 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: to Peter Merel and David Stodolsky

Hello everyone!

Because it's past my bedtime here I shall try to be brief.

For Peter Merel:
Being nice to people is a very good idea. However it suffers from
one big problem: sometimes those you are nice to respond by being
cruel to you. This has even be tried in special psychological games.
Those who are always nice get clobbered. Those who are always
unkind get clobbered. The best strategy apparently is the start
out nice, but if the other party responds oppositely, you stop
being nice to that party yourself. Such a strategy is actually
more rational than being always nice.

For Dr.David Stodolsky:
Your discussion of the dangers of terrorism compared to other
dangers neglects some major factors. If you really think your
stats are correct, then you might visit Afghanistan or Iraq
and see what happens to you.

I would also be interested in a reference to the frequency of
terrorism, and where it's been occurring. When you say it 
was low before Iraq, just how was that measured? 9/11, you may
note, happened prior to Iraq. Various attacks on Western
embassies did also. Are they counted in the stats to which
you refer? 

Finally I will allude to my message above to Peter Merel. Only
one terrorist attack killing enough people constitutes a good
rational reason to take on those who did it. Not only that, but
I will note that this reason does not use any stats on the
total number of terrorist attacks in the world etc. As for the
attack on Iraq, lots of countries believed there was a good
reason for doing so before it was done. Those not personally
involved have now tried to become invisible and deny their
former opinions.

As for the other events such as the deathrate of children
in the "3rd World" from starvation, various groups are trying
to do something about it. I even personally think that more
should be done --- though I'm unable to give as much donation
as would actually solve the problem, and can only give a little.
How this problem relates to 9/11, however, is quite unclear to
me.

            Best wishes and long long life to all,

                 Thomas Donaldson

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