From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 06:58:24 -0800 (PST)
To: bryce@digicash.com
Subject: Re: [NOISE] Re: Dr. Vulis
In-Reply-To: <199611050909.KAA00731@digicash.com>
Message-ID: <3280A752.2916@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Bryce wrote:
>  <hallam@ai.mit.edu>" typed:
> > Of course John was right to give Vilus the boot. Cypherpunks is a club
> > and like many private clubs occasionaly finds it necessary to give some
> > oik the boot.

> Yeah!  That was GREAT!  Now let's ban Dr. Hallam-Baker!  He's
> always pissing off the libertarianpunks and causing flamewars...

[snip]

> I have read (parts of) _On_Liberty_, and as I recall it was
> adamant in an ("unbalanced") defense of absolute rights of
> individuals.  The only exception I remember is an unexplored
> comment on rights-violations of ommission counting as well as
> rights-violations of commission.  (E.g. if you see a drowning
> man and you fail to save him you are violating his rights.)
> Perhaps that is what you see as "balance between the rights of
> communities and the rights of individuals"?  Or perhaps the
> book goes into detail on that subject in a part that I didn't
> read.  Again I ask not because I have a particular ideological
> axe to grind here, but because I seek accuracy in public dialogue.

Since we all start out as children, learning by imitation, and reasoning by comparison,
a valid argument can be made that our minds work best that way.  Certainly the wide
variety of opinion here shows that theory doesn't produce nearly the consensus that
real experience does.

Therefore I suggest that we look more at analogies, but try hard to make the analogies
more accurate.