I understand that you prefer peaceful means to violent ones. I see both as necessary and have no trouble with the latter. But the most peaceful way to bring change is through scientific discovery, and like it or not, a free form of capitalism.

Now, what are the good things about capitalism that is worth getting behind. After all, we know the downside. The very high upside is that solutions to society’s ills can come from so many more directions, there is greater freedom to solve problems with the wisdom we have.

You can argue that capitalism has also caused a lot of problems. True, because of a lack of wisdom. You might say greed. True. And from this we learn that greed destroys wisdom. But those who are wise have room to help, much more so than in any other system.

I suggest you look at the work of James Burke, who shows that the real power to change society comes in the form of one person, not the organized group, through science, literature and philosophy, and this weird kind of fortuity that moves us towards enlightenment. There are plenty of Burke video clips on Youtube.

To 194, Gorby already decided in 1985 that Russia had to reform. And he knew how it had to reform. That’s the good news. That means that it was possible to talk to the West, to forge economic, cultural, and scientific agreements. The bad news is that you didn’t quite know which new enemies he made by making that decision, nor did you really know how much longer he would live. Russia, to this day, is not kind in political wars. The other bad news is that Russia became completely unstable–so the country itself was in a kind of pathology. They’ve wanted to join the western economy since Gorbachev, and it still hasn’t happened. That is, in the West the Ruble is no different than toilet paper.

Let me check one thing–okay, I was thinking that the Soviets allowing emigration was something, but the Reagan meeting was about nuclear arms, and didn’t go anywhere. Since Gorby, the political civil war has been intense, and Putin is busy restoring the old politburo.

To sum up, I suppose nothing was accomplished with diplomacy unless you’re aware of something. The emigration evidently was part of a general plan to restore population control with a severely weakened central government. That dynamic is a natural force of history.

Regarding 195–No doubt that you can talk to the successors, but you’ll accomplish very little. China wants Obama to be more economically conservative. What are the chances? Do you think Obama will get China to relinquish Tibet? Will it even come up? Hillary went to China and literally said that the US is going to overlook human rights issues because economic issues were so important. So once again, diplomacy fails in the area of human rights.

Diplomats have the personalities of movie stars, but are just so darned unattractive that they tend to crave power for power’s sake. Sad really.

None, no effect. I believe that capitalism is the enzyme that has improved the life of the average Russian. This is now being reversed. The same with China, the more capitalism the more human rights. China’s present internal conflict is reconciling capitalism and Confucianism. They don’t need anyone’s help, nor do they want it. It’s odd, but China is telling the US to adopt a more conservative capitalistic approach to our own economy, not the Republicans. This is weird, but that’s the way it is.

Diplomacy is well and good when you are not dealing with psychopaths. But there is a remarkably high correlation between mass murder and psychopathology. Saddam was a psychopath, as is Kim, as are so many world leaders. Castro, Che, Chavez, all psychopaths. Ahmedinijad, psychopath. Hitler, you know, Stalin, yep. And therein lies the real problem with diplomacy.

The great age of diplomacy was the 19th century–the diplomacy mostly consisted of secret treaties and secret clauses in treaties that basically lined up which armies were going to fight whom, when. So even in this great age, the diplomacy was ultimately about who is going to use military force under what circumstances, not establishing common ground. They just frightened everyone into peace. Ironic, or is this the way of the world? I think it’s the way of the world.

Now, for many years, the world has been trying your approach, and for the most part, failing miserably. The 20th century has been the bloodiest century in the history of mankind, and it got that way through the relentless belief in the power of diplomacy.

So that’s where I’m coming from.

If we can agree to this point, then HOW MUCH may never be reconciled because there are no existing metrics to measure such an effect on an infinitely divisible spectrum. The only alternative is crude descriptors such as “a lot” or “not very much,” etc., which are as useless as trying to measure the degree of socialism in an economy.

Practice what you preach.

And isn’t it funny, but I view your insistence on talking about Amnesty International as your attempts to avoid the issue of the vacuity of your own thoughts. How about that, Genius?