[MUD-Dev] Re: (no subject)

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

JC Lawrence <claw at under.Eng.Sun.COM> wrote:
>
>> Lesbians have been forced to leave smaller towns by
>> social exclusion. Etc.  
>
>Yup.  I actually find such capabilities in the system to be a Good
>Thing.  The problem is not that they are discriminated against, but
>that the discriminators are in turn not socially discriminated
>against.

The basic problem is that people mix up "this is a threat to me" and
"this is not normal".  Evolution is not optimal.  Concepts are mixed
in dysfunctional ways.  That's what makes philosophy important.

My "fascism" comment in another thread was meant to address this.

I think the only good solution is to allow people to carve their own
niche with their own set of rules and abandon the idea that there
should be one norm throughout the whole system.  Then you can get a
counter force. (In RL, you have the opposition working in exile)

>  Coventry is a very powerful social motivator, as any
>observer in a pre-school can observe when the tykes get "time-out".

I have no idea of what you are talking about.

>other kids for their swearing, and would then be gradually ostracised
>by the rest of the school as they continued to swear.
>
>  It was wonderful to watch, and very effective.

Wonderful?  Do you find instinct based "centroid ruling" to be good?
It's what makes democracy a peaceful dictatorship.

   The norm is "Gods existance unites the population"
   Person A: "God does not exist!"
   The rest: "Outragous, kill him!"

   (Expropriation is a good RL example. "We are going to turn down
    your house to build an arena")

I've yet to see a "centroid follower" growing into an intelligent
creative person.  Actually, most intelligent people (upper 10% at the
University) I know seem to have been outsiders.  I actually think such
"centroid following" is bad for the development of an intelligent
creative character with iniative, simply because such a character
can't follow the center of the dumb mass.  If you decide to follow the
mass then you have no reason to take initiative or think about what
you are doing, and if you are thinking then you have come up with
excuses for not following your own moral.

I view "centroid following" as mostly dysfunctional in our society, we
have machines to do the dumb things.

>As a good friend of mine was prone to say, "Man is prone to witch
>hunts."  The shame of the matter is that man is not prone to hunting
>witch hunters -- which may be Man's critical weakness in the survival
>game.

Witch hunters were trying to save the witches from hell. It was a
conscious act.  I think that is a different problem, although it is
grounded in the same attitude ("what you don't understand, don't do,
don't need and haven't been thought is probably bad")

>However, we're a long way from topic here.

Not really.  Because the main issue is whether the centroid of the
mass should be the determining factor for admin control. My view is
that whenever two persons freedom is in conflict, draw a line "in the
middle".  If freedom is not an issue, ignore it. (Being a lesbian does
not limit other people's freedom, ignore it.)

>> Another point, you should be able to break
>> away from your past, because if not, then you will have no reason to
>> reach for the "good". (Think about Jesus on the cross)
>
>Umm, no.  I disagree violently as it avoids or obviates the question
>of responsibility, but this is not the palce to go into that.

Does not. Taking responsibility means: rebuild, enable growth.

>past, or you can have nothing back there).  This is slated to be
>re-examined as I'm not happy with the limitation and I suspect that a
>few key changes could open some interesting efficiencies.

If you take the "logging communication" and slips issue seriously,
then I would suggest a separation of presentation and semantics.
(That is, allow for overruling of textstring contents if the output
will be fed to a human)

Ola.