I really don't like to answer this message, because I don't see a point. We speak now which ethics is better, but this is irrelevant, the developers (at least the ones who answered) expressed a wish not to mix ethics with software.
Anyway, it seems Dominik wants to talk about ethics, so I will show my point of view. It was evolved with years, I was pretty much maximalist, cosmopolitan and idealist in adolescence, anti-yankee too. Since then I decided it was mostly rubbish and there is a much more clean position - minimalism, that means try not to add anything you can't verify or feel yourself, like religion or ethics. Operate only on the ego basis if you don't want to be a hypocrite. Any universal ethics is bullshit designed to hide someone's ego as something more superior than others. On 29 Mar 2003 17:11:39 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > On Sat, Mar 29, 2003 at 12:50:00PM +0000, Mikhael Goikhman wrote: > > On 29 Mar 2003 11:24:01 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > > > Killing millions with nuclear weapons is equally unethical as > > > putting a knife in the back of a mass murderer. > > > > I can't agree. This may be true by your ethics, not by my ethics. > > (Read: by your ego, not by my ego.) > > > > You may only afford to be a humanitarian when you are not directly > > involved in a conflict. When you are involved, you should choose sides. > > That's the one big lie I always hear from people who do not even > want to consider if what they are supporting might be wrong. Do you know what is right and what is wrong? I don't know. By a chance, do you know what is right for me? I don't have such ethical problems about what is _right_ and what is wrong, I (just like everyone else) support only what is _good_ for me, pure egoistical. I know the regime you are indirectly supporting breaks human rights and kills innocent people in its own country. I know it used inconventional weapons in the past against other countries. I know the regime finances thousands of terorrists and their families. These same terrorists killed several thousand of innocent people (I may give their names if you like). I don't want this to happen to me. You would also not want this to happen to anyone, but unfortunately only after feeling all this on yourself. Please don't say you already don't want this to anyone, what you effectively do is quite an opposite. > At least I can afford to be a humanitarian, regardless of what happens > - as you see: I am attacked from all sides right now. I don't think anyone attacks you, really, we all love peace, it just that some people have another view of the situation. Anyway, expect to be attacked if you activelly fight against a natural people's wish to live in peace and prosperity without uncontrolled dictators. You simply don't know what people in all countries close to this war feel and want. > > > > To continue, think also about wars against the drug business and > > > > other mafias. What is more ethical, to kill several drug > > > > traffickers in a skirmish or to let them to break thousands of > > > > people? It's clear to me. > > > > > > Yes, for me too. Both is utterly unethical. A human life is a > > > human life is a human life. > > > > What is a human life? The god's creature, shrine? I am not religious, so > > this is not my ethics. Does the animal life is as important as the human > > life? If it is as important, you should fight against killing locusts, > > midges, cockroach and dosens of others. If it is less important, it is a > > human despotism. Since I believe that the basis of all ethical beliefs is > > egoism, I have no problem to state that a human life is more important. > > I am not religious either. The only 'definition' of morality I > have ever seen that I can agree with (although nobody can justify > it) is Kant's categorical imperative: Act only according to > maxims of which you can want that they become a common law. All > other attempts of definition i can think of eventually run down to > treating some people differently than others. Does this mean you never treat some people differently than others? If so, I think you would want to remove ETHICAL_LICENSE that treats a lot of people differently than others based on your criterion not even laws. > Regarding the "human despotism": I acknowledge there are two > fundamental aspects of human existence. The first is the human > being as a product of evolution, as an animal among others. As > far as I know, animals are not capable of considering ethical > questions. In so far it makes little sense to talk about ethics > in this sphere. The second is the human as a thinking being who > has an at least partially free will (if not, we can as well stop > talking now). In this sphere, it does not make much sense to > think about ethics in other than human matters. But then, both > spheres overlap in many areas, which makes talking about ethics > immensely difficult. Again, I don't have such ethical ambiguity. You make a distinction between humans and animals, this is pretty much how religious people describe things. For me it is still a human ego (or evolution whatever you call it). People don't kill animals for the sake of it, because it hurts the nature balance (means hurts people), but kill animals for self defence and for food (or shortly for survival). I am pretty comfortable with my minimalistic ethical basis. I would feel very uncomfortable with your ethical basis as you described above regarding humans and animals. > > Although I would egoistically fight for my own life and the life of my > > family, I don't see my life as something holy by itself. I believe in > > evolution. If I die, it is ok as long as the humanity in the whole > > prospers. Similary about the lives of others. Thinking otherwise is > > caprisious by my ethics. [...] > > > But that does not mean that ethics are a private decision. Quite > > > the opposite, if you accept that people choose ethics too their > > > liking, you must accept too if terrorists who kill people do it > > > because they see it as their ethical duty to do so. > > > > I fully realize a terrorist has his own ethics. Since our ethics are > > quite opposite (he wants to kill me in name of his gods), I prefer to > > fight him and kill him to live myself. > > Does this not run down to: whoever is stronger should kill his > opponent before the opponent kills him? Yes, exactly, if one opponent tries to kill another, it is likely only one will survive. Fortunately people don't usually want to kill each other, so there is usually a time for talks. The smarter both sides the smaller probability of conflicts. If one side is fanatical (not smart), no talks are possible. You don't really want to defend the fanatics, they don't know your ethics and may kill you without any ethical problem. Just because you are not currently on their way, does not mean it will not happen. > No, I believe that it is vital to not respond to a threat in kind. To > prevent falling back into barbarity we have to accept the same verdict > that you are deliver upon others. Did you ask yourself why democratic countries usually don't fight each other? Because free people would not allow this. They would change a leader (or maybe he would leave himself) if he is stupid enough not to prevent a war between countries that surely can solve conflicts with talks/resources, not wars. Only uncontrolled regimes may allow wars between countries and unjustified deaths of their own people. > Just consider this for a minute: If through some unforeseen > events the 'western' democracies became more or less irrelevant > countries, and the Arabian peoples came to control the world. > Wouldn't we (the citizens of the western democracies) all have to > fear for our lives, because we humiliated the Arabic peoples for > decades, claiming our way of life is inherently better than > theirs? > > That may be a purely hypothetical situation, but isn't that the > whole idea of ethics: do *not* do everything you *can* do without > having to fear the consequences, but acknowledge certain rules to > help maintaining a certain level of order. I know only facts. "Arabian peoples" is too much millions to throw into one basket. There are some democraties like Turkey. Most of the Iraq neighbour coutries are against this dictatorship, some activelly support this war, so please don't try to image the war as "western" against "arabical", this is bullshit. But I don't really want neither support nor condemn this war, I don't know all details. Just like we all. Democratic countries are more developed, free people are more effective. These are facts. In some non-democratic countries you have uneducated masses and poverty. Do you think people in these countries enjoy their situation? How do you know, did you ask them? If you want to be real humanitarian, you may consider to support increasing of the education level in these countries, not to speak about basic human freedoms. I do want all these countries to eventually become democratic (means rich, educated and developed), this seems to be the only effective way to win terrorism. No, wars are not solution, but any indirect support of the dictatorship regimes only hurts people in these and all other countries. Unfortunately the war protesters do not realize they hurt real people. Hmm, I don't believe I speak politics on this list. Shame on us both. Again, a question of supporting or not supporting some war is fully irrelevant when the developers do not want to go away from pure GPL. Regards, Mikhael. -- Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.fvwm.org/>. To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm-workers" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To report problems, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
