From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Final Reponse to Jim Spew? (Was: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 21:12:17 GMT

In article <1993Jan23.222305.11858@wixer.cactus.org> rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo) writes:
>> In
>>    particular, what is your basis for your belief that apartheid
>>    is "morally unethical", and what is the difference between
>>    that basis and the brand of pointless abstraction that Ken
>>    'n' Friends are apt to bandy about in this forum with such
>>    distressing singlemindedness?
>I believe apartheid is morally unethical because, like you, I've grown
>fond of the decadent pleasures of Western Civilization and think it's
>kinda nifty.

Fine, then.  I'll reword my references to "rights", a term I was never much
attached to anyway: I believe that it is possible to speak of actions on muds
as "morally unethical".

>>2.  You now say that you are not against ethics on muds.  Why
>>    is the project of trying to improve ethics on muds a target
>>    of your ridicule? 
>The project, as espoused by yourself, calls for 'forceful documents'
>to impose restrictions upon mud administrators' behavior.

I already asked auzzie if he meant what you think he meant.  He doesn't.

>The project,
>as espoused by Ken, is based on the fact that objective rights exist,
>and that they must only be better applied to the situation.

The important characteristic of these "objective rights" is that they exist
even though the victims are helpless, not that they apply to everything
including gazelles and lions.  Felix has already admitted that acts can be
"morally unethical" even though their victims have no recourse.  If "objective"
is the wrong word, I will gladly call them something else.

>One of you morons stated that muds are very much like amusement parks in
>civilized Western nations -- neglecting for the moment the fact that one
>pays to get into amusement parks, amongst other things.  Is it any wonder that 
>such pathetically illogical and insulting effluvium is laughed at?

Come on, I've never laughed at Felix.

Anyway, a mud with no players on it isn't very desirable to most gods.  The
player provides something--his presence--just as useful to the mud as an
admission fee is to an amusement park.  The god doesn't need any _particular_
player present, but the park owner doesn't need the fee from any particular
park guest, either.

>And if you're not comparing muds to hotels in western countries, you're
>comparing mud players to the oppressed blacks in South Africa.  I don't
>know what it is with you jarheads.

Repeat after me: comparing an argument for X to an argument for Y is not a
comparison of X to Y.

>Let me point out that improving the situation in South Africa means ...
>Let me go on to note that "improving the situation" in muddom has ...

South Africa comes up because Felix has used an overly general argument--
nothing is unethical if its victims are helpless--that really does apply to
South Africa.  It doesn't contain any qualifiers about applying to mild
situations like muds but not to more extreme cases.  Felix didn't say "nothing
is unethical if both 1) its victims are helpless, and 2) its victims aren't
hurt much".

>Further, I have provided a workable solution that guarantees that no player
>will ever be compromised again by anyone for any reason, and that the
>yammering rabble-of-two has only weakly ignored it.

It has been ignored because Felix misunderstands what is being asked for.

I'm not arguing for privacy, or against tinysex logs, or against "sexual
harassment", or for guarantees of any sort.  Needless to say, Felix's proposal,
addressed to an imaginary argument, gets ignored.

What I _am_ arguing for is that it's meaningful to _talk_ about such things.
That it is meaningful to call something unethical even if you can't stop the
perpetrator.  What acts, if any, actually _are_ unethical I will mostly leave
for others to debate.
--
"On the first day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Leftover Turkey!
On the second day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Turkey Casserole
    that she made from Leftover Turkey.
[days 3-4 deleted] ...  Flaming Turkey Wings! ...
   -- Pizza Hut commercial (and M*tlu/A*gic bait)

Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, arromdee@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.tiny,alt.angst,alt.romance,soc.women