From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 11:38:15 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Subject: RE: A Libertine Question
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960730001300.008c4c28@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 06:19 PM 7/29/96 EST, jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca wrote:
>I suggest that it is more economical to provide for a minimum quality
>of life- if only as a form of insurance for myself. Think: Rawls. 
>
>The alternative is to have garbage collectors to "take care of" those that fall
>behind. Think: Soylent Green.
>
>Better twisted than bitter, as Tiny Tim Cratchet used to say.
>
>James

But many of us believe that coercive "solutions" to life's problems whether
right or wrong are no longer possible because technology is in the process
of making individuals and small groups "ungovernable" by force.  If this is
true, whatever the morality of coercive solutions, they will not be able to
be applied to the real world.  

Thus if we designed the Internet (Ver.6) rather than Louis Freeh, his
opinion of our design is meaningless.

Perhaps the communitarians in the audience will have to fall back on
disfellowship as the ultimate sanction (like the early Christians).  They
won't be able to apply any more advanced weaponry.

DCF