Alex Future Bokov wrote:
>
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>
> On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
>
> > "J. R. Molloy" wrote:
> > >
> > > Just to get you started:
> > > Wishing you could die when you can't die is worse than death.
> >
> > I find it odd that so many people in the world think that living is the most
> > important thing, to the exclusion of all else. For me, liberty and intelligence
> > are more important than life, as I would fight and die to resist any attempt to
> > remove either from me.
>
> You cannot be free, and you cannot exercise your intelligence if you
> are dead.
I hear this from people, but they don't seem to understand the reason for my
statement. A person who desires to remain free in the face of one who would
enslave him/her must be prepared to deprive the opressor from any profit from
their actions (i.e. profit is your slave labor), as well as to add significant
risk to the actions of the opressor by the threat of violent resistance to
becoming enslaved. Smart opressors can make the cost/benefit analysis and back
down from their opression, and go looking for an easier mark. This is why peace
through strength works and appeasement does not (as has been so ably
demonstrated by history.)
> Furthermore, whether or not you guys or some SI holding me
> captive thinks escape or hope are possible, I can still contemplate
> escape and hope. If my faculties for thinking, remembering, or feeling
> anything other than the pain to which I am being subjected are
> temporarily switched off, there is still the faintest ghost of a
> possibility that some turn of events will get those faculties switched
> back on[1]. If they are permanently, irrevocably switched of... i.e.
> destroyed, making me nothing more than a pain-bot, then I suppose I'd
> be indifferent to being dead because as a sentience that limited I'll
> already be dead for practical purposes. So, I suppose that if you
> permanently destroy enough of my brain you'll eventually get me to be
> okay with getting killed... but that will happen a long time after
> you've already gotten me to be okay with the idea that the sun being
> made from Jell-o.
The Jews in europe thought the same thing. Only a small fraction of them
survived. Appeasement and acquiescence does not work with bullies.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:16 MDT