At 04:42 PM 1/8/98 -0800, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
good lord, no wonder Ayn Rand is so uninfluential.
Methinks you are either tweaking us or are ourselves some 20 years ago.. Assuming the latter. Howdy. Calm down. Everyone eventually considers the Faustian bargains one finds in one's environment, and realizes the bargains that others have made. And one chooses. The universe owes you nothing. Your goals and alliances are yours to choose. Everyone picks what they are comfortable with, and it ain't your business what they decide. No one is obligated to agree with you. And everyone is obligated to let you alone, unless you violate their right to be left alone. But you know this. If there are people w/ evil (and there are), well, stop tirading and deal with it. Route around the damage. You're not going to convince them, face it. Don't fill yourself with hate; mobilize. Run for congress; send spoofmail from the pres; write cryptocode; turn your grandma on to PGP; volunteer to lecture to impressionable youngsters. Once you get over the shock of realizing how much things are not what they are supposed to be, you'll be able to calm down, and think. I'm not an optimist but we have physics and mathematics and economics in our favor, to paraphrase. There *is* a reason to flame but flaming to the choir (or to the unbelievers, for that matter) isn't the solution. On secrecy, Saint Chas. Darwin sat on evolution forever, until he reviewed a paper that was going to scoop him, you know. later, David Honig honig@alum.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------- If we can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy. -TJ