--- On Mon, 8/10/09, Ted Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > > Martin Fick wrote: > > If they couldn't do this, to stay competitive, they > > would charge more money for everyone and you would > > suffer more. Cheap internet access and "serving" is > > not some inherent human right, so let's not complain > > about the price of gas here. ;) (unless it is to > > propose ways to make tor use less gas...) > > > > -Martin > > On the contrary, it was my impression that we are here > working on, contributing to, and using Tor because we > believe that internet access is a human right. This > includes end-to-end connectivity. Pricing a real > internet connection (what is being referred to as a > "business account" or the like) out of reach of > common folk is equivalent to the overt denial of this > human right.
A right is something someone should not be able to prevent you from doing, not something that should be provided to you. I believe that "you have the right to be a space tourist if you want to be", but, of course, that does not imply that I believe that you should be able to become a space tourist for $10 (unless someone offers it to you at this price voluntarily). The right to do something and the means to do it are two completely separate issues. Despite that fact that the term is commonly miss-used, if someone has to actively do something to give you something, it can never be properly labeled a "right". If you are stranded on an island somewhere alone (by no fault of others), it is illogical to suggest that someone or some organization can violate your rights without interacting with you are your island's environment. If you define something as a right which requires action on someone else's part, it obviously cannot be fulfilled without violating this principal. By violating this principle, a lone human survivor on earth after a holocaust would have his rights violated by the non-existence of others or a government to act. Clearly this is non-sense and illogical. If you think that something is a basic human right, perhaps you should reconsider if it does not play well with this logic. And, yes I do realize that this throws out many of the commonly accepted "rights" that many people believe should be "rights". This simply illustrates many of the common politically illogical (but potentially well meaning) beliefs. You are perhaps correct to assume that some here on this list and some of the developers share the larger desire that you express, but I do not believe that you could make the claim that this is what tor is about or attempting to achieve. If the tor project became so misguided that it attempted to achieve your expressed goal politically, (which is the only logical end point to your belief since you declared it a "human-right"), I would quickly drop support for it and stop running my relay since this would inevitably mean forcing ISPs to provide people with a service they are unwilling to pay for -> theft. But surely, as you do, I hope that people can get cheap internet access, this hardly means it deserves the status of "right", or a long pricing discussion here on or-talk. I am not suggesting that the topic is off-limits either, just that is seems inappropriate for long rants here... Of course, I am not related to the project, this is just my opinion. Cheers, and hopefully via technology, cheap anonymous internet to all, :) -Martin
