Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.philosophy Subject: Re: The Principle of Non-interference Message-ID: <1782@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 00:44:08 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1782 Posted: Wed Sep 25 00:44:08 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 26-Sep-85 07:09:17 EDT References: <1652@umcp-cs.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 162 Xref: watmath net.religion:7758 net.philosophy:2695 >>>>Nonsense. It would seem that you must first show how my shirt (or any of >>>>the other examples I offered) "interferes" with you. [ROSEN] >>> It causes me to have experiences I do not wish to have, which I would not >>> have had without your actions. How do you define interference? [ADAMS] >>Certainly not that way. To use THAT definition would mean that everything >>in the world is "interfering" with me all the time. [ROSEN] > I should point out that christian morals ARE based on pricisely this > principle, on sound biblical authority. [WINGATE] Charles, this is perhaps the most ridiculous statement I have ever seen you foist upon us. The supposedly fundamental tenet of Christianity may be based on this principle (which is something I have said more than once, if you were listening), but the body of Christian morality (with its numerous "thou shalt not"s chosen at whim from the Old Testament) is much more restrictive than you indicate. >>As I mentioned in another article, the view of minimal morality/ >>non-interference seems to be viewed by some people in an egocentric way. >>"Don't interfere with ME, meaning anything I deem as interfering should be >>interfered with!" All you have done is to move the "interference" to >>another person (where in this case it may be real deliberate intervening >>interference and not just (what I consider the very babyish) "They're >>doing something I don't like; make them stop, mommy!" You have minimized >>interference to YOU, but maximized it to someone else. >>Necessary interference can only mean that interference >>which prevents people from harming others. > But but but there's no definition in there at all! And let's take the red > shirt example to a more serious form of interference: should you drink in > front of an alchoholic? Should you eat a slice of cake in front of someone > on a diet? It's unclear to me whether or not Rich's system says yea or nay. Do alcoholics wear signs that warn other people not to drink in front of them? Let's get serious here. How can you dare to call an act of normal human living "interfering" with you, be it eating, drinking, shirtwearing, dresswearing, or anything else you care to bring up that does not cause harm to other people. Perhaps (just a suggestion) you might want to define "harm" rather than "interference", since I think we're agreed (at least in part) that the difference between a "legitimate" act and an interfering one is that the interfering one causes harm. >>>>know what my best interests are?" Just thought I'd make it clear. >>>>You don't. > Oh really. How do you know this? Please, oh, please, Charles, tell me what they are so I can live my life the "right" way? >:-| > Well, in many cases this is quite obviously not true. People typically > operate under some delusions about their state of well-being. Were there no > such delusions, I could agree whole-heartedly with Rich's system. But in > fact there are. To take an extreme case, consider a man, a farmer, who > suffers a massive heart attack. Awakening in the hospital, he struggles to > leave. Can it really be argued that he is competent to judge his condition? > Are not the doctors justified in restraining him from killing himself as he > acts out the delusion that he is well? Certainly, this example is extreme. > The problem I see is that there is no clear-cut dividing line; situations > run from this all the way down to where things are better let to go wrong, > to where the good or badness of the situation is quite unclear. This may be the crux of the difference of our opinions. Yes, there are certain unclear lines. Your opinion is clearly that erring on the side of excess is better despite any indiscretions and ill effects this might have. Obviously I would rather err on the side of liberty, as I think most thinking people would do rather than suffer the abuses of power we witness. It boils down once again to losing sight of goals: is the purpose of the society more to provide a framework for each person to live to their maximal capable potential and freedom, or to willy nilly restrict people in the interest of those extreme cases Wingate cites. >>> All right. A family lives in a house which is about to be destroyed by a >>> forest fire. They do not wish to leave. The police forcibly evict them. >>> In my opinion, this action is justified. >>If a person wishes to stay and burn, who are you to tell him not to? Would >>you also forcibly prevent someone from committing suicide if you can't >>reason them out of it? It's quite another thing if the person is forcing >>others to die with him/her. > Because they emotionally are not competent to decide. My. I didn't know we had a degree in clairvoyant abnormal sociopathic psychology, Charles. How good of you to decide for them. I've witnessed you living out this philosophy right here on the net. You deliberately altered the Followup-to lines on your articles in various discussion-oriented newsgroups to cause followups to go to net.flame! Why? Because you "decided" for us that that was where they belonged. Perhaps we were not emotionally competent to decide this issue ourselves. Any article offering counteropinions to yours just HAD to be a flame, right? I dredge up this example for good reason. Because this is a perfect example of an implementation of the philosophy Charles espouses. People deciding for us what is best for us. Charles doesn't just think this is good in those "extreme" cases. Clearly it is "acceptable" and "useful" whereever and whenever power is available to do so. There is a lesson here. >>> Also, a person stands on the top of building a threatens to jump. He is >>> forcibly restrained. This I would also consider justified. >>Also, a person speaks out against our obviously good government and society. >>Obviously this person is insane and should be taken away and helped for >>his/her own "best interests". This I would consider justified. :-) > So what? All you've shown is that power can be abused. So what? "So what?" In the words of Richard Dawson, "Good answer!" You yourself are an example of how such power is abused AS A RULE. For this reason, constraints upon such power must be thorough, if such power is really necessary at all. Hell, you're willing to restrict the freedom of billions of people, why not also restrict those who would exercise such restrictive power? By not giving it to them in the first place. > Rich has made quite clear that his viewpoint on the world is quite different > from the average. So is mine. I also get the strong impression that he > believes that most everyone (including me) is massively deluded about the > truth of the world. Everyone but him. (This sort of abusive statement has become the status quo with Wingate of late. For now, it's best to let it pass.) > Well, maybe this is true. But it seems to me that this is a bit proud. This coming from the man who, a few lines ago, without a hint of pride (?), deemed other people not "emotionally competent to make decisions". > I am well aware of the fact that I quite often do not know what is best for > me. In many cases in am not aware, but others are. Then you *would* know what is best for you, knowing that you don't know it for sure yourself. What you are talking about is the very thing you dread when it comes to certain other discussions we've been having: objectivity. Third party disinterested analysis of the situation. It's funny because when I make statements about subjective belief, you (among others) jump on me and claim to know the truth as it sits inside of you. You, who, when accused of anti-Semitism for making a boldly anti-Semitic statement, denied it all and covered it up at all cost. Yet you claim you are "aware of the fact" that you may not know what's best, what's right, given your subjective make-up. Frankly, Charles, I wouldn't want you on the "Objective Third Party Police Force" deciding who is and isn't emotionally competent to decide. And you know what? I wouldn't want me on it either. I wouldn't want ANYBODY on it. > Rich seems to be taking a fairly extreme position on what > constitutes interference. As I see it, his principle would claim that it is > immoral for a university to require certain courses, for a athletic coach to > demand cooperation of his players, and a host of other minor interferences. > It seems to me that, accepting Rich's principle (and I do think it is > valid to some extent), the whole question of what consitutes interference > is quite murky. And I think the principle itself is questionable in the > light of some situations where the person being "interfered with" is clearly > not capable of deciding what his best interests are. The exact definition of "interference" may indeed be murky. Perhaps we are making headway here in defining it. But remember that I have always been speaking in terms of goals, goals we often seem to have lost sight of in the quagmire of making the bureaucracy (supposedly designed to reach that goal) a goal in and of itself. -- Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com