weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) (11/14/88)
In article <426@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu>, bin@rhesus (Brain in Neutral) writes: >> Making theft possible only for those with the heaviest of hardware >> does more, I hazard, then teaching kids to "just say no" to stealing. >Well now, I'd say that this is mischaracterization of my argument >(something I know you don't like when you think others do it to you), >for the reason that enacting highly adverse consequences is not the >same as saying "just say no". I pleaded guilty here in a previous article, but on retrospect, I'm not so sure your re-explained version is going to be so different than my unfair version. > "just say no" would probably be a failure >in this arena just as I'll bet it will be in the public schools. From >what I hear from the kids I teach in my sunday school class, they're >taught to "just say no" (to, e.g., drugs, peer pressure), but not >especially WHY. These kids aren't stupid: you can imagine how much >respect they have for such teaching. Right. So far I'm with you. > It would be the same on the >Internet. A mandate requiring particular behavior which imparts no >comprehension of the reasons why or why not to engage in that behavior >will probably do little. I'd say my objections to "ethics" as an anti-viral measure boils down to this: I don't have much confidence in the teaching of ethics period. To cite an extreme example (not an analogy!): if you have to EXPLAIN to someone that murder is wrong, as opposed to knowing that said person understands instinctively that murder is wrong, then I would be afraid to be near this person. Moreover, I fear were such arguments, once digested, ever to become an institutionalized replacement for a true moral sense in the people who would be crackers anyway. The same mentality that can dig apart the source for sendmail and ftp and find holes can just as easily dig apart the reasons why activity XYZ is bad, and end up justifying activity XYZ by "superior" counter-reasons. Then again, maybe I've just read too many Asimov robot stories (ie, all of them). > But that is not to say let's throw up our >hands. People are not always fools, and often respond in reasonable >ways to societal consensus. Good luck. ucbvax!garnet!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720