From: jgm@ais.org (jim miller)
Subject: Re: Essay Time for Felix  (Was: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights)
Organization: Ann Arbor Information Society -- Toledo Annex
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 13:31:12 GMT


ckincy@cs.umr.edu (Charles Kincy) writes:

>In article <C1Atys.BvE@ais.org> jgm@ais.org (jim miller) writes:

>>You're treading well-beaten ground.  People have a right to be
>>treated decently, whether it's in their own home, the shopping
>>mall, the neighbor's house, or even, gasp, the program of a
>>would-be autocrat running on a computer port.  Trivializing
>>muds to D&D games has been shown to be hazardous to your health.
>>You haven't been around the block yet, son.
>
>You're treading well-beaten ground.  There are no rights without
>responsibilities.  The responsibility that goes with the right
>to be treated decently is to treat the host decently and with some
>respect for the host and the host's property!!  Otherwise *you have
>no rights*.

Totally agreed.
And, conversely, which party has the greatest potential for neglect
of responsibility?  Which party reiterates over and over on a
public exchange that it indeed has no responsibility to the user,
their services are provided for free, that if you don't like
how it acts, you can go somewhere else?  With this kind of
atmosphere, why is it surprising to you that many people feel
it's time to get us all to recognize that people on both ends
are humans with feelings?

>And, I think that if more people kept this in mind, you wouldn't have
>all the stupid violence you see in America's cities.

Connection?  Relevancy to issue at hand?

>There are no rights without responsibilities, Mr. Miller.  Any
>person schooled in ethics knows this.

Who holds most of the power in the situation?

>And don't call me "son".  I don't have 23 of your chromosomes, and 
>your condescension is disgusting.

But you do deign to stereotype me as a "bleeding-heart liberal"
in your own, condescending manner.  And you so skillfully express
derision for any theoretical discussion that would even suggest
administrators are capable of acting incorrectly.

>>People who invite the public into a domain under their control
>>have much more than their continued popularity to think about.
>>That accountability thing, though, doesn't sit well with a
>>lot of people, that's evident.
>
>Look, if you don't like a way a god/wizard runs a mud, you can vote
>with your feet.  Otherwise, you will play it.  Your rights on a mud
>number two:  you have the right to connect and obey the rules of the
>mud, whatever they may be.  If you don't agree, you have the right
>to go elsewhere.  If you think that there aren't any muds that meet
>your specifications, then you create your own.  
>
>This is how the game works, Mr. Miller.  

Mud administrators have no responsibility, yes yes yes.

>Accessibility of muds all over the net adds a new spin to the equation
>that one doesn't see in real life.  It means that all this idle talk 
>about "rights" is an obvious result of overeducated philosophers
>having too much time on their hands!

Oh dear.

>cpk
>
>Oh, yah, what about a mud-owner's right not to be told what to do
>by a group of net.bleeding.heart.liberals?

Using your reasoning, I would suggest that said mud-owner exercise
his freedom to ignore the bleeding hearts and not read news.

And btw, my original article in this thread was a challenge to
Felix to follow up on some of his chains of reasoning which
have become quite involved over a long series of articles, not
an invitation for you to take us back to square one with
your indignant sputtering.  The Subject line often holds
valuable clues, read it.

-- 
"Consider a lion, sneaking up to rip an innocent gazelle into shreds.  Is
this morally wrong, should the gazelle get a fighting chance, should we
step in and declare that gazelles have rights too?  Of course not."
                      - Felix, on why mud users don't have rights
Xref: sparky rec.games.mud.tiny:1548 rec.games.mud.misc:2072 rec.games.mud:9247