From: Jason Joel Thompson (jasonjthompson@home.com)
Date: Sun Aug 13 2000 - 17:00:34 MDT
> Jason Joel Thompson wrote:
> >
> > Mike quoted:
> >
> > > "A person who wants a society that is both safe and free, wants what
> > > never
> > > has been, and what never will be." --- Thomas Jefferson
> >
> > Ah, there's the rub. Why are so many people so mentally/philosophically
> > challenged at the prospect of negotiating a non-absolute line of
compromise
> > between these two concepts?
>
> Being free is like being pregnant. You either is, or you isn't.
You believe that freedom is an absolute? Don't you think, for instance,
that one can be free to do certain things and not free to do others? Can't
we be simultaneously free and not-free?
I think the insistence that one is either 100% free or 100% enslaved is
rudimentary and a poor model to describe the actual interactions of complex
individuals. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to describe a scenario
in which an individual is 100% free (which it appears one must be in order
to be defined as free at all by your interpretation?) I agree that we
cannot have a society that is both -100%- safe and -100%- free-- the two
qualities necessarily impose upon each other. The balance we need to strike
instead is of finding an acceptable compromise-- we pay for security with
the currency of our freedom.
The dilemma of massively destructive technologies is the need for
overwhelming security in the face of individual power. I do not relish the
prospect of an absolute police state.
--
::jason.joel.thompson::
::wild.ghost.studios::
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