Pieces of Flair

I've related an anecdote to more than a few folks that largely sums up the Middle East dilemma for me. To spare you the tedious details, the gist of it is that an arab said to someone in all seriousness, "The Americans invented dinosaurs to eat muslims." Up to now, I've taken this as a sign that rational and peaceful discourse in the Middle East is a little chimeric. Todd Seavey, having heard this anecdote, now causes me to reconsider everything:

"You know, as I age and grow more concerned with the concrete instead of the abstract, I find myself having conversations such as one with Julian Sanchez months ago in which I argued that (a) we must fight Islamism, (b) in the long run robots will replace humans, and (c) we can't wait for a gradual Hayekian process of evolution to occur if our enemies already have nukes, and I summed up the whole position by saying we need to take out the extremist Muslims so that they aren't the ones who program the robots. And since I fully expect we'll develop AI-possessing robots before they do, and since I was just telling someone else that (1) I expect scientists, in their wisdom and humility, to start immitating nature more when creating templates for complex robot brains and bodies and (2) I want the robots to be stronger and more durable than homo sapiens' bodies, I guess you could sum up my core political and cultural views these days in the slogan AMERICA MUST BUILD DINOSAURS TO EAT ARABS."

Awesome.