From: Kai Becker (kmb@cameron.kn-bremen.de)
Date: Fri Jan 31 2003 - 01:50:44 MST
Am Freitag, 31. Januar 2003 00:45 schrieb Lee Daniel Crocker:
> When, and only when, it rises to action can one morally act, other than
> to speak in return; otherwise you fall into the same counterproductive
> idiotic authoritarian nonsense as attempts to prevent drug abuse by
> banning needles or stop gangs by banning leather jackets, or stop
> violence by banning toy guns.
Okay, good point.
> >> Your contention that any kind of speech must be supressed
> > Ah, waitaminute. I said "unlimited lying".
> Yes, speech. Lying is speech.
Only true, if all speech would be lying - which is, according to my
observations, not true :-) Lying is a subset of speech. A rather useless,
if not counterproductive subset IMO. Or to put it in Ex-Speech: a meme
space polluting subset :-)
> Yes, that's exactly what I'm accusing you of--wanting to supress
> false speech about yourself with force, rather than with competition.
By the force of law and justice, because the power to win such a
competition is often not with truth, but with the budget. Similarities to
current political activities are not accidental...
> Likewise, you can only damage my reputation among those who prefer
> to believe you, and I am generally unconcerned about how I am
> perceived by them.
Even if your neighbors, your employer or your local authorities would
rather believe me than you? You could lose much of your competative power
before you could even start to defense, just because one evil meaning
person doesn't like your nose. Together with the imbalance of competitive
power mentioned above, I'd consider this a substantial threat for example
for minorities (like extropians).
> It wasn't new laws that took down McCarthy, it was good reporting by
> men of integrity and courage like Edward R. Murrow.
Then why are still people believing in the "real and present danger"
propaganda of Mr Bushs followers? Where is the good reporting about the
present situation and the complexity in the middle east?
Kai
--
== Kai M. Becker == kmb@cameron.kn-bremen.de == Bremen, Germany ==
"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Feb 02 2003 - 21:26:04 MST