[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Sounds good to me ;)

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Fri Jun 21 04:20:15 UTC 2002


On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Miller, Jeremy wrote:

> > However, the ability to control's one's own destiny is an inate need
> > in all people.  It's not the American Dream.  It's older than the
> > American Dream.
> 
> True.

[then]

> Yes, but I submit that I can still call it the American Dream.  
> Because Americans wish to attain it... holding it in common as a
> Dream.  (Well, maybe not all but I think you get what I mean.)  This
> makes the term accurate.  I don't think it implies that we had the
> idea first, or that we are the only ones who share it.

Well, what if you decided to call it "the Male Dream"?  Doesn't that imply
that women DO NOT share that dream?  Or that somehow the desire is
stronger in men?  Or, worse, that everyone who has that desire is trying
to be a man?

Substitute "American" for "man" or "Male" and "non-Americans" for
"women" and you see what I was trying to express (hopefully).

It's not INACCURATE, but it's fairly misleading.

> Because the Elbonian Dream can very well be the same thing.  As can
> the theoretical Anarctican Dream, Earth Dream, Mars Dream, the now
> long past Roman Dream, and I'll even go way out on a limb and say the
> Anarchist Dream.

Clearly you know very little about anarchism as a philosophy.

If you did, you would realize that saying self-determination and control
of one's own destiny is the Anarchist Dream is not going out on a limb at
all.  That is perhaps the fundamental principle of anarchism.

> I don't think they're mutually exclusive, or that calling it any of
> those things detracts from the fact that it can be shared by those not
> using the same name for it.

They're not mutually exclusive.  I don't think they are and I didn't mean
to imply that they were.  But it's misleading.

> But I'm just playing word games, I guess.  I'll stop. :)

No, it's fair.  I'm trying to tell you that I think your statements are
all technically correct, but have connotative meanings that you probably
don't mean to express.

As someone who has a great difficulty with accidental expression of
connotative meaning, I try to be pretty sensitive about that sort of
thing.

(I called the technical manager at my new office a "hobbyist" the other
day and said that the network services he'd deviced were a "barely
glorified home network".  I didn't mean these as personal insults, but
rather as descriptions of what I saw.  Needless to say, he was pissed.  
However, he acknowledged that he didn't really have any professional
standards in place.)

> > It is a dream that belongs to all people of all time.
> 
> Yep.

Phew.

> > I hope to see it become a reality on a massive scale.  But as long as
> > some have the ability to amass inordinate power and wealth, that will
> > not happen.
> 
> Human nature seems to dictates that that ability will always exist,
> simply due to the fact that not everyone is alike or thinks alike.  

There will always be personality conflicts and struggles with philosophy,
but I really believe we're improving.

I really don't think people took the concept of "improving the lot of
humanity" to heart until the Enlightenment really nailed the philosophy
down.  Now we're just having trouble with implementation details.

> And that no matter how we set a system up, it can and will be abused.  

That's why we need eternal vigilance.  Every system can be abused.  
Minimize the abusability while retain the key features that make it a
benefit to humanity.

> I like to think and hope it can happen anyway, in spite of those
> facts.

Aye.  I'm with you, brother.

J.
-- 
   -----------------
     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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