lgcdutra@terra.com.br (Leandro Guimar+es Faria Corsetti Dutra) wrote on 24.07.03 in <pan.2003.07.24.09.05.00.301892@terra.com.br>:
> On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:42:30 +0000, Dean McEwan wrote:
>
> > After recently reading Mr. Stallman's online *BLURB* at
> > www.stallman.org, specifically the diary entry on June 28th 2003, I
> > am disturbed
>
> Yes, that entry is disgusting. Furthermore, I think one can
> has good philosophical reasons to totally reject these views.
I don't think there are solid philosophical reasons to reject them. I do
think, however, that it is impractical to implement all of them.
It's not that he's completely wrong (though there are certainly details
there that aren't quite right), it's that many of the preconditions that
would make these things not particularly nice, but tolerable, are next to
impossible to ascertain - and thus, if these things are just plain
allowed, it's hard to prove that a particular occurrence really did (or
did not) follow the rules.
And as the ones *not* following the rules are stuff we particularly want
to prevent ... well, in practice this meens some of the stuff that *does*
follow those rules must necessarily also be banned.
Which means that absolute statements here are not really very helpful.
(Then again, rms is rather famous for making unhelpful public statements.)
It's much more interesting to look at current borderline stuff and ask if
the line should be moved a bit, and in what direction.
But then, it seems traditional in the US that only absolute statements can
be made about anything involving sexual ethics, and that "compromise"
isn't part of anybody's vocabulary.
MfG Kai
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