On Sat, 18 May 1996, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
an interesting thesis, quite revealing. "the mafia is fulfilling a valid market purpose. the killings & violence are just minor secondary issues." I believe in contrast I would define the mafia exactly the opposite. the violence and terror is the key part of the mafia agenda. the activities they involve themselves in are secondary to promoting the basic agenda of obtaining money in any way possible. how can you
Replace "mafia" with government, and "money" with power/control.
what amazes me about people who tend to have a warped mindset is that they think new technology, such as cyberspace, creates a new morality. suddenly murdering, violence, drug dealing, or whatever are supposedly thrust into some new reality in which old rules no longer apply. you and Jim Bell are unbelievably similar, as much as either of you would hate to admit it. its just a cloak, in my opinion, for trying to evade culpability. the ultimate utopia for some on this list would be a world in which they can be held accountable for absolutely nothing, by absolutely no one. "anarchy" is as good a word as our reality can come close to, although I believe such a reality would be far more sinister than that adjective connotes.
Who says a _new_ morality? Maybe it is just a wider expresion of an already extant morality. If you will accept the defination of Murder being "immoral killing", then most people really don't have a problem with killing. They just draw the line between murder and killing in different places. To me, killing is justified in 2 circumstances. 1) If the [man animal]s threat potential exceeds a certain limit (variable) or 2) food/warmth is needed and will be derived from said killing. To kill randomly or indiscrimantely, wether man or animal is Murder (i.e. immoral killing) to me this _does_ include trophy hunting, but not if you utilize the animal for food etc. Where humans are concerned, killing them for food is rarely an issue, but they often present some sort of threat potential. Certain pepole in government approach this threat potential. Thus, to me, killing them isn't immoral, but it could _legally_ (i.e. a different defination) be murder. As far as I am concerned there really is no difference between the government and the mafia. Both use the same threat to accomplish their ends, the Mafia is just more honest about it. Both suck. Out loud. The mafia just tends to be better run, and less invasive personally until you violate their rules.
think about it really hard, TCM. work out those difficult problems associated with trying to kill people and get away with it, using new sexy advances in technology and theory. you
Why do you need new technology? The old stuff works just great. You just need the new stuff to hide you from the feds.
maybe talk to Jim Bell some more. perhaps eventually you will perfect the method of perpetrating the perfect killing!! I really do admire you, because killing people without getting caught is surely a great unrecognized art, and one of the most unappreciated and misunderstood.
Happens all the time.
something that has only been a dream to the blighted wretches prior to our glorious new phases of cyberspatial technology, which makes human morality completely obsolete.
I am getting the impression that this last sentence was a little sarcastic? Petro, Christopher C. petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff> snow@crash.suba.com