At 09:43 13-03-01 -0800, Christopher Gwyn wrote:
>Ronn Blankenship wrote:
> > At 18:06 09-03-01 -0800, Christopher Gwyn wrote:
> >> <chuckle> So? You have access to powerful digital equipment - that
> >> makes you a potential criminal in the eyes of the RIAA and MPAA, a
> >> criminal which their poor helpless profits must be protected against.
> >> ('their profits', not 'the artist's profits')
> > The same way that my having access to a firearm makes me a potential
> > criminal in the eyes of people like Sarah Brady?
> Yup! (Although 'potential danger' is probably a more accurate term
>in her eyes.) That I'm more in agreement with Sarah Brady than I am
>with you doesn't mean that the same sort of thinking is not being
>used. In both cases capability and probability is looked at and
>perceived as more important criteria for legal regulation than a
>variety of other possibilities are.
> For some capabilities, some probabilities, and some potential
>outcomes I think that this sort of reasoning is very reasonable - but
>for other combinations of capabilities, probabilities and outcomes I
>don't think that it is reasonable. Different people have different
>criteria for such 'reasonableness', criteria which may be right in
>some circumstances and wrong in others. Noticing the similarity of
>reasoning is very useful for trying to figure out good reasoning for
>good outcomes, but that the same shape of thinking is (apparently)
>used by both the RIAA and Sarah Brady doesn't demonstrate that both
>are right or that both are wrong. It does show us that even people we
>disagree with can 'think like us'....
> (how's that for a flame?)
Remarkably calm and reasonable for a flame. ;-)
-- Ronn! :)
