[90049] in Cypherpunks
Re: Br'er Tim and the Bug Hole
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kent Crispin)
Fri Nov 14 17:54:37 1997
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 14:20:15 -0800
From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
In-Reply-To: <1f6c13f75e895afd9ec8f5d61ed19ff9@squirrel>; from Secret Squirrel on Thu, Nov 13, 1997 at 05:59:51AM -0000
Reply-To: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
On Thu, Nov 13, 1997 at 05:59:51AM -0000, Secret Squirrel wrote:
[...]
>
> "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty,
> or give me death." -- Patrick Henry
>
> What is life without liberty? Abject slavery. Any sane man would rather
> die than be a slave.
It makes nice rhetoric, but this is simply not true, you know. Most
people correctly evaluate that you have no chance for freedom at all
if you commit suicide, whereas a slave *does* have a chance.
But of course we know from game theory that being completely
predictable can be a weakness. So having a certain percentage of the
population who will behave irrationally is probably necessary for the
health of a society. But if too many people act irrationally,
society will disintegrate. (By "irrational" here I am referring to
behaviour clearly contrary to your own survival.)
--
Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html
