From: tim@comphy.physics.orst.edu (Tim Mefford)
Subject: Re: Bush For (Ex)President in '92!
Keywords: I recommend that you increase the dosage.
Reply-To: tim@physics.orst.edu (Tim Mefford)
Organization: Oregon State University - Univ. Computing Services
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 04:48:38 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.212426.7393@cs.yale.edu> yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) writes:
>minch@lotka.stanford.edu (Eric Minch) writes about:
>>... peace and freedom and justice .... to be established as the norm of
>> international behavior ...
>
>and about how everything could be beautiful, if ... what?  I didn't quite
>catch it.  If you're going to argue that these things are achievable, have
>the decency to tell us how, rather than mumbling vague generalities.  Talk
>about something other than just the goals; I'm sure we all agree (*) they
>are nice ones but that doesn't excuse the act of pursuing them in a
>buttheaded way.
>(*) Except possibly Tim Mefford.
>--
>Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu

      I greatly appreciate you differentiating my position from 
the deluded optimism of the "Beta's"  It's better to be a "Beta,"
but only because ignorance really is bliss.  Peace, love, freedom,
charity, table manners.... all these things are nice, for robots.
If aliens came down from space and said, "Life is going to be 
beautiful from now on, because we're going to make you live by these
principles,"  things would be fine for a couple of days, then some 
guy would want to sleep with some other guy's wife, some Hatfield
would marry some McCoy's goat, some new Mosque would impede sewer 
access to some Synagogue's new atrium, some 100 million Chinese would
get sick and tired of eating rice, some rude group of teutonic types
would decide that they wanted to move a little closer to the wine and
cheese... you get the idea.  (Kind of like most parties)

      Maybe the aliens could keep everyone in line, but I'd be against it.
Why?  For the same reason mewling bunny huggers are appalled at keeping
dolphins in small tanks and making them jump through hoops(the dolphins).
It's unnatural.   It's just as cruel to make humans behave morally as
it is to train bears to wear muzzles and ride unicycles.  This is a 
dehumanizing suggestion in the most literal sense.  The only time the word
can be properly used, for that matter.  Human beings by nature kill, screw,
eat, and, in their spare time, behave rather like rhesus monkeys, but that
last is irrelevant to my point.  A morality through edict situation, would
give most humans a nervous breakdown within two weeks, just like the polar
bear kept in a tiny cage two weeks ago.  Kill, Screw, and Eat. (Do what
you do.*)  Am I right?  I have five million years of evolution backing me 
up.

* Harry Chapin, taken out of context in a particularly insensitive way.

    I support recent suggestion that net acquaintances provide descriptions
for the rest of the readership, but I would go beyond physical descriptions
right on into damning mannerisms and personal traits.  You might consider
slandering Curtis just to get things started.

     I started my day surrounded by brown, wilted, soggy lilacs.  It's going
to be a shitty week.  

ObBob: Cray

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
      Tim Mefford           |           "vidi, veni"      
  tim@physics.orst.edu      |    -Julius Caesar on Cleopatra
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