FreeBSD Kernel Internals Documentation

Chip Camden sterling at camdensoftware.com
Tue Jan 3 22:07:41 UTC 2012


Quoth Chad Perrin on Tuesday, 03 January 2012:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2012 at 01:12:11PM +0100, Walter Alejandro Iglesias wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 03, 2012 at 04:41:10PM +1000, Da Rock wrote:
> > > New users are nearly always dismayed at the apparent difficulty of 
> > > things, and should be warned that they will need to do some work "under 
> > > the hood" in order to get what they want. The honesty can start 
> > > immediately, it doesn't necessarily have to be a goal.
> > 
> > 
> > When people think in freedom, think in rights.  And rights are
> > something that some "authority" give or steal.
> > 
> > Multinationals think in what is good to sell.  People like
> > "comfort" over all.  The taste of people is fantastically
> > represented in the Wall-E movie; to "arise and walk" is not
> > considered a right.  Futurist?, my father, thirty years ago, to
> > go to the corner to buy cigarettes, took the car; today he has
> > half body paralyzed by an hemiplegia, and perhaps one day to
> > arise and walk will not be a right for him.
> 
> You're confusing "capability" with "right".  These words are not the same
> because their meanings are not the same.
> 
> I have a right to speak my mind, but if cancer requires the removal of my
> jaw so that I can no longer speak, I no longer have the capability of
> speaking at all.  These are different things; a capability can be taken
> away, but a right cannot.
> 
> This is what is meant by "rights" in the context of ethics.  The law has
> its own jargon with its own definitions.  The way you use "right" here is
> very much nonstandard for any context of which I'm aware, which means
> that before you can have a meaningful discussion with someone that
> involves such use of the term "right" you need to get them to buy into
> your definition of their own free will and agreement.  Otherwise, the
> discussion will be nothing but disagreement and/or misunderstanding.
> 
> So . . . please start with the denotative meanings of words, consider
> your audience, and use words accordingly.  If you wish to use a term
> differently than how it is understood, make sure you clarify that fact up
> front.  If others refuse to go along with it, find a different term to
> use that can better convey the meaning you wish to convey.
> 

If everyone followed your advice here, Chad, then 99% of the arguments on the
Internet would evaporate.

-- 
.O. | Sterling (Chip) Camden      | http://camdensoftware.com
..O | sterling at camdensoftware.com | http://chipsquips.com
OOO | 2048R/D6DBAF91              | http://chipstips.com
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