From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 12 18:48:17 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from shell.webmaster.com (mail.webmaster.com [209.133.28.73]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 15DAB14DF9 for ; Sun, 12 Sep 1999 18:48:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from davids@webmaster.com) Received: from whenever ([209.133.29.2]) by shell.webmaster.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-12345L500S10000V35) with SMTP id com; Sun, 12 Sep 1999 18:48:14 -0700 From: "David Schwartz" To: "Brett Glass" , "Jay Nelson" Cc: Subject: RE: FreeBSD Distributions: Leveling the playing field Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 18:48:14 -0700 Message-ID: <000201befd8a$0b0dcac0$021d85d1@youwant.to> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2377.0 In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19990912193601.04ad0da0@localhost> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > > At 04:57 PM 9/12/99 -0500, Jay Nelson wrote: > > > >Would you apply that statement to human beings in general? If > so, who is to > > >judge the "quality" of the human being? Or to say that he or > she should be > > >treated differently -- i.e. deprived of rights -- because he > or she is not of > > >sufficient "quality?" > > > >Jeesh, Brett -- stop the socialist propaganda. > > It's not "socialist propaganda." It's a form of argument known as > "reductio > ad absurdum," which shows that an idea is absurd by taking it to > its logical > conclusion. Actually, this is a pretty unique form of reductio ad absurdum. Normally, reductio ad absurdum is used to refute 'general principles' by demonstrating that there are extreme cases to which they don't apply. However, what Brett did is the equivalent of "Because David's argument isn't true about people, it must not be true about FreeBSD." That would be an absurd argument even if its premises were true. I would further point out that equating "treating people differently" with "depriv[ing] them of rights" is typical of socialist propoganda. That is probably part of what prompted the response you got. DS To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message