>
>The point is that the abortion debate is as altruistic as it gets. Few
>voters have anything to fear from abortions...
>
:-) - but...
This "altruism" often puts "interests" of God, "potential life forms"
and other questionable entities over the interests of people. Similarly,
I would not consider the idea of feeding people to worms altruistic, even
if it is shared by a human. Actually, I do not care who carries the idea,
and whether the carrier benefits from it. If *I* lose from it, I do not
like it. If at the same time nobody I care about would gain from an idea,
I would definitely oppose it.
> How do you like being part of the "stupid masses"?
I'd be delighted. I surrender my opinions to those of more competent
people many times a day - and let people produce things and services
for me. As the result, I get much better food, appliances or software
that I would be able to make on my own. I just want to make sure that
I like the results. I would volunteer my advice to the cook, the plumber,
the artist, the actor, or whoever ONLY if I think this advice could
be valuable - and this is not often at all. I would gladly surrender
my rights in organizing PPLs to David Friedman and Tom Morrow (well, maybe,
with a little input ;-) , hand over my voting rights on digicash security
issues to cypherpunks, etc. - and would take responsibility for this
delegation of control. I would entirely surrender my rights to control
the issues that do not touch me and that I do not understand - because
I have too little interest in them to justify the responsibility that
may follow out of wrong decisions I may make.
Many people may be - and are - inclined to surrender the rights to
control the manufacturing of social structures - as they surrender the
rights to control the manufacturing of goods - as long as they can pick
among the results for their personal consumption. They may also get a
better advice on how to lead their personal lives. And they can refuse it.
And then be accountable - to themselves - for the consequences.
- Stupid/incompetent in all areas of expertise except a few,
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Alexander Chislenko Home page: <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
Firefly Website recommendations: <http://my.yahoo.com> ---> "Firefly"
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