From: Geoff Smith (geoffs@unixg.ubc.ca)
Date: Sun Oct 05 1997 - 19:43:27 MDT
On Sun, 5 Oct 1997, Michael Lorrey wrote:
> Whether you love him or hate him, that act or feeling indicates that you
> have been profoundly affected by him. Only those who have never seen a
> computer in their lives haven't been directly affected by him. Even they
> still have been affected by him indirectly by the changes in the people
> they deal with who have been directly affected by him.
I guess my definition of profound holds a little more weight... but, yes,
I agree, the majority of people have been affected(profoundly or not) by
Bill Gates.
BTW, I don't love or hate Bill Gates, I just seem to have frequent
problems with his company's software.
> >
> > > Absent actual physical coercion,
> >
> > Is a hypnotic or subliminal advertisement "physical coercion"?
>
> I personally think so, while others here do not. it could be said that
> your volunteering to expose yourself to subliminal coercion by using
> media sources that employ them is your own waiver of caveat emptor.
Well I definitely do not agree with the "others." What if your property
is surrounded by a bunch of hired hypnotists from Coke swinging
pendulums and chanting "drink coke, drink coke" (OK, that's kind of silly)
But still, if people own all the property around you, and you just happen
to look out your window... I think you have been physically coerced. The
only defense I can see for this in an anarcho-capitalistic society is for
some consumer organization to monitor companies that practice coercion and
organized massive buoycotts. Still, if Coke can hypnotize enough people,
why would they care about a buoycott? Maybe the consumer organization
should take more drastic action in this case...
I see an anarcho-capitalist society as being a bit violent, but certainly
more interesting.
> > What benefit are con artists to their victims?
>
> A victim of a con artist is merely a student getting an informal,
> involuntary, education that they obviously need very badly.
So are you saying that an "educated" consumer would never be scammed by a
con artist?
> > True, but it was for compatibilities sake. Microsoft's domination seems
> > to be an example of positive feedback: the more people have Microsoft
> > software, the more other people want to buy it so they can have compatible
> > software. Do you have any ideas on how this monopoly might be felled?
> > (which to me seems inevitable, but I'm not sure how)
>
> I can. If a company, like Corel, would sell competetive software that
> wasn't even more bug infested than Microsoft applications.
Maybe Corel is using buggy Microsoft products to compile their code? ;)
geoff.
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