From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Thu Jul 04 2002 - 19:46:45 MDT
"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
>
> Harvey wrote:
> > This whole controversy is an interesting question of individual
> > freedom. [snip]
> > Should we hide the truth from them because their fear
> > is unjustified?
>
> Hmmm... should our choice to allow "individual freedom" outweigh
> our desire to promote "rational thought"? We know that "irrational
> thought" can cause all kinds of problems (its presumably unextropic
> since it probably leads to chaos much more often than greater order).
Just whose 'individual freedom' are we talking about? The consumer has
the freedom to choose what product to buy based on what the producers of
various products print on their labels. Should a producer's individual
liberty to control the content of their own labels be confiscated so
blithely simply to allegedly 'expand' the choices that consumers have,
especially when the terms used in the forced labelling are already
politically loaded by disinformation, lies, and propaganda produced by
the competition?
Forced GM labelling is the food equivalent of being forced to sew a
yellow Star of David on your clothes so your neighbors will know that
you are nothing but the yellow bellied profiteering conspiring zionist
jewish pig that the Nazi party says you are.
So Harvey, just whose 'individual freedom' is being served here? What
will you argue when they decide to come for you? When the state decides
that you must wear a bumper sticker on your car identifying you as a
selfish greedy uncharitable scumbag extropian cryonicist who refuses to
give his body to his neighbors when he dies, will you be arguing for the
public's 'individual liberty' interest in having a right to know what
sort of person you are?
Robert will be forced to have in the national individual registry
database the information that he is a, no-god forbid, an evil DNA
splicing geneticist, a proponent of the destruction of the earth and
mankind by machine intelligences. His neighbors have a right to know
what sort of person he is, don't they?
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