Say it's in self-defence, then. Sometimes, you think you need something when you don't. Leaving the descision of "need" up to the person can easily lead to this situation.

the rich "need" their millions to not be taxed...
the poor "need" education, health care, and sometimes food and clothing provided to them if they are to get it at all...

...as my five year old once said to her younger sister who was trying (forcefully) to get a turn with a shared toy: "what is mine, is mine, is mine, is mine, is mine, is mine, IS MINE!"

Family is a socialist collective. I am pro-family. ...and you are my brothers and sisters.

So do you want to always stop A from killing B, even when it might be in self-defence? Is it any easier to judge "need" for others?

Note: If A thinks that A needs to kill B in self-defence, and this is not true; that is, A will not be harmed (as A thinks) if B is left alive, and C understands all of this, then C is quite right to stop A. Why? Because A's killing B will severely harm B's freedom and only marginally harm A's.

Whereas, if A really needs to kill B to save A's own life, then C should probably keep out (although there are a lot of potential complications here).

If your point is that C might not know what's going on, yeah, that's a problem in the real world. Or if it's that A might do something stupid by imagining a threat that's not there, yeah, that's a risk too. But these risks apply to needs just as much as to freedom.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying "Hey, everybody, do whatever you want!", because that would ignore that the freedom of the many outweighs the freedom of the few. I'm saying something more like "Hey, everybody, help everybody else do what they want!". That said, everybody doing what they want works out most of the time, but not when A wants to murder B. In that case, A should stop and help B live instead (in the vast majority of situations at least), and C should interfere to help B live (again, most of the time, you can find exceptions).

Sent from: Ursa (0 ) Sent: 05:01 AM
Money is the root of all evil.
==================================================
THE LOVE OF money is the root of all evil.

Money, itself, is just an inanimate object.

You're welcome.

"the needs of the many vs. the needs of the few" is a false dilemma. That choice rarely if ever needs to be made. Much more often it is:
the needs of the many poor and/or powerless vs. the wants of the few rich and powerful...

@ "the rich "need" their millions to not be taxed"

I would not say that I am pro-tax, because I do not trust the government. But to keep that out of the question, let's ask this: Given that the income tax is run how it is, and fixing the total amount of tax revenue, is it better for that tax to be progressive or regressive? Here I give the "left-wing" response, on the basis of freedom: it should be progressive (tax the rich more).

This is because of the economic concept of diminishing margin of returns. Put simply, the poor will be able to do more with that money towards increasing their options in life than the rich.

"freedom-loving = right-wing" is one of the great political myths of our time. It is not always true, not even for purely economic issues.

@Dexter:

I agree with your latest comment (unless you sneak another in while I write this; I mean the one dated 3 minutes after).

@ Invictus: "You realize that they contradicted that phrase in all the Star Trek movies, right? The other member of the Enterprise crew took all kinds of risks for Spock that go against that saying. The real meaning of the films was that friendship meant putting yourself in harm's way to help out someone you care about."

If the crew decide for themselves that their own desires (wants/needs/whatever) are best fulfilled by risking their lives to go after Spock, then I don't really see a contradiction.

I'd rather rephrase the aphorism without the word "needs" as I said above, but I can easily imagine Kirk or Bones saying "We need to go after him.", and who am I to disagree?

"freedom-loving = right-wing" should probably be "freedom-loving = conservative" to fit more precisely the great myth in contemporary America.

But this will probably be my 4th post in a row, so I'll shut up now.

Have you seen the movies?

There's no arcane lit crit message in them like you seem to want. It's all about doing things for your friends, for altruism.

I stand by my saying that you are extrapolating too far in applying Spock's words this way. It was a very personal moment in the movie.

Invictus is right when it comes to Trek. Watch the original series, especially Amok Time in which Kirk is determined to fulfill his obligation and help his friend Spock, even if it means killing Spock or dying himself.

@ Toby... please explain what you mean by "wants" then. As a philosophy major, I need to define terms, otherwise they are moot.

My question of course is: what does freedom have to do with want, need, desire, however you want to couch the term that extrapolates the meaning "we have an affinity to the choice we made." "Freedom" is often an illusion to redress our ego when we had no choice in the matter but someone made the choice for us, as it it were our own. We do confuse our choice with another's.

Invictus and I may differ politically, we agree where Star Trek is concerned, and isn't that more important?

@ Invictus... Just a question: Kirk was really good at getting green alien women and humanoids alike. In the Kirk/PIcard dialogue it was stated that Picard was an older version of Kirk, and yet Picard definitely had a hard time getting women. If you could explain the discrepency to me, I'd be much obliged.

I dislike meta-threading, but I don't want to be dragged into THAT thread too.

For Picard Starfleet was his wife. I just think he was too preoccupied with his job to chase after alien tail. While this makes for a slightly less interesting show, it does make him the guy I'd want to be running the show.

Now please, continue with all the philosophy stuff. I feel vindicated about the whole quote stuff.

Picard had Beverly Crusher and was mature enough to know that one good woman is better than a dozen psychos from hell, although the psychos from hell are much more fun.

A reasonable, well crafted response.

@ whoevercares: It can be clearly shown from Invictus' Star Fleet analogy, and the reason I asked him (from a Socratic point of view, naturally) is that happiness is simply a viewpoint in which we cradle our own ego. Picard, clearly not a happy person, would call himself happy in his work, while Kirk would probably give some half-formed attempt at a logical response, throw the issue to Spock, and then latch on to the next She-Ra passing.

The point gentlemen is that our happiness is usually decided for us by external influences. We delude ourselves into our own power of happiness. Certainly there amazing individuals that have dealt with quite a lot of personal and interpersonal strife, thereby creating happiness via sustained action. Mostly our ego fuses our basic decision with relative values to our former and present experience. Memory changes with time. Want/need/desire really is a of your imagination.

Statistically, persons shown to be prominantly left-minded describe themselves as happier. Persons who are more right-minded, tend to characterize themselves as less happy. We, as a people, make social choices for ourselves. Without a supportive community to validate good choices and correct poor ones, we feel unhappy from the resultant limbo. Evangelical Christians and Orhodox Jewish persons characterize themselves as happiest. Those without religion are statistically less happy. It is interesting to note, however, that persons who are less happy tend to be more productive and inventive.

As Aristotle said in his Nichomachean Ethics, "People who see the theater eat more candy when the actors are especially bad."

Or as Kirk said to Spock: "You and I are extremists. Reality is probably somewhere in the middle" (Star Trek VI).

"
Redistribution of wealth is extreme and (in my opinion) unecessary. What matters is that everyone is given equal opportunity to succeed - wealth should be irrelevant in education, ie free universities and a totally nationalized education system. This means the richer people don't get the upper hand by paying for private education. Essentially, everyone get's the same opportunities and it is down to the individual whether they put the work in to capitalise on them to secure their future."

I take it you have no idea what redistribution of wealth means, given that you say it is unnecesary and then explain one of the most important ways of implementing it.

Unless of course, you think that the money to pay for the Universitys and Schools is going to grow on trees or something, that's redistribution of wealth right there.

equal oppurtunity to succeed under capitalism?
what a laugh

thats like saying equal oppurtunity not to be gassed in the holocaust

You suck.

equal opportunity as a blade of grass to grow as much as the adjacent blades of grass... all to be cut down by the mower... (not that I agree completely with the grim view offered by Sicarius... but I think the image is better)

@ Invictus "I stand by my saying that you are extrapolating too far in applying Spock's words this way."

Sorry, where am I extrapolating Spock's words? Possibly you have me confused with someone else, or I misunderstood what conflict you claimed existed. Although there's a lot else going on in this thread, all that I was responding to was this:
Xapi quoted Spock.
You said that this quotation was contradicted by the crew's actions in the movies and give as an example basically the plot of STIII.
I said that they were compatible, given when the crew wanted (or felt the need) to do.

You did go on to address Xapi's opinions about spreading the wealth around, but that seemed to me a separate point, and I wasn't addressing that.

@ maintgallant "please explain what you mean by "wants" then. As a philosophy major, I need to define terms, otherwise they are moot."

OK, define "define" and "term", then I'll get back to you. (^_^)

Then maintgallant wrote:
"My question of course is: what does freedom have to do with want, need, desire, however you want to couch the term that extrapolates the meaning "we have an affinity to the choice we made." "Freedom" is often an illusion to redress our ego when we had no choice in the matter but someone made the choice for us, as it it were our own. We do confuse our choice with another's."

Freedom I did define, yet you reject my definition! Substitute another word if you want, then. I meant freedom, not the illusion of freedom.

"Invictus and I may differ politically, we agree where Star Trek is concerned, and isn't that more important?"

No, what's important is, can you trust Invictus as an ally in your next game together?

You should never trust anyone in this game.

Except me, of course.

@ Toby: ahahahahahahaha... point taken!

I'll define "define" and "term" tomorrow.

However, I will also be attempting to narrow your vision of "freedom" a peck. Socratically, of course. ;-)

@ maintgallant: ‘Socratically, of course.’

You mean what they call the Socratic method, or what Socrates actually did (at least as reflected in Plato)? I prefer the former.

I agree that freedom can be illusory. On the one hand, I don't want to interfere in someone's life just because I think that they're suffering from an illusion of freedom. (I mean to interfere with their decisions; I may well TALK to them as a warning.) But on the other hand, I definitely do mean freedom, the ability to make one's own choices, not the illusion of freedom (even though that will more readily lead to happiness).

There are (at least) two senses in which free will can be an illusion. One is that people are all machines constructed out of a biological substrate, and our decisions are controlled by the physical process in this machine, not by some sort of soul. I don't care about that. I want these machines to be free, to be able to control themselves by their own internal decision-making process.

The other, which I is what you were talking about, is that we often make decisions thoughtlessly (and often by relying heavily on external influences) and rationalise them later. If people know this and are OK with it —I don't want to take the time and effort to analyse all my decisions completely, after all—, then that's OK with me. If they're being tricked, then that's a problem.

(The relevance of the last paragraph for Diplomacy should be obvious. See, this thread's on topic!)

Hi Toby:

Thanks for writing the above paragraphs. I think we are hovering around the same vision of Freedom. Except...

I'm not sure Freedom exists as a philosphic form. The word Freedom must be paired with something to maintain its definition. Europe is free from the bonds of the black plague (yes, there are several thousand cases of plague every year, but its not what it was in the late 1200's). It's common for those of us living in America to say that we are Free from the bonds of a repressive government. We do not have our whims dictated to us by our government in relative comparison to say those living in the Sudan, or Rwanda, when the very tribe to which you belong marks you for life or death. In that sense, we are Free.

However, there are those in America who say that our government or economic system to which the government and the people of America holds is repressive. The 60s movement demonstrates the latter ("power to the people, man") and the status of gay/lesbian individuals shows the former. 26 states have decided that these individuals cannot have a part in Holy matrimony. If Freedom is "doing what I want to do what I want to do it" then this is not Free living, nor is this Freedom espoused by the majority of voting Americans in these states. In this way, America is relatively unFree as compared to various European states. The system to which we belong does make choices for us. I'd like everyone in America to be driving a really cool hydrogen powered car rather than gas cars, as I think the penguins and polar bears, and even us humans will be happier, more free to make a multitude of choices than we will be when the ice-caps melt. An economic push against an oil-based economy would increase my relative happiness/freedom. I could drive more, knowing that I'm not polluting the air, water, soil, that I'm not creating hazardous conditions for seniors on hot summer days and I'm not piking someone's athsma when the clouds cover the city, trapping in the smog. This economic shackel would indeed increase my Freedom.

As Socrates said: "As fall the sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives!" (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure!).

So I am agreeing with what you have said in your above paragraph, though maybe in a different bent... maybe not.

Way to include our topic in the game! As far as Diplomacy goes, this means that I have the Freedom to attack who I want when I want, though I may get overrun by making so many dratted attacks. But then I usually get overrun anyway. :-)

Is tricking another person an expression of Freedom, or a condmenation of it?

Anyway, I'll be back later... have a good day, all!

i only read the first 5 or so posts in this tread but i have an idea and im sorry if someone else has already suggested it but here goes...what about mandatory philanthropy? Depending on income or some other method each person/family unit would be responsible for either donating money to a non-profit organization or funding some sort of research organization(for aids or some other detestating disease). Now the one problem most people would have with this system is the parting with their money. To deal with the stingy people who feel like their money does not deserve to go back into the market from which it came, the government would penalize that person/family unit with a fine. Not just a flat rate but one that depends on how much that person/family unit has failed to give. Therefore the amount of the fine could be anywhere from the entire amount that was required to mere pennies. Any amount of giving that goes above their require amount would be tax deductible which should(in a perfect world) encourage true philanthropy and not just government induced. The reason i think this could work is because the money required by the government wouldnt go to the government which gives the person who donated or funded a programme the reassurance that their money is being used in a way that they deem fit. Sadly, some people would probably find loopholes like fake companies so i think that before being put into practice the government should build a list(well into the thousands) of certified companies/organizations for people to give to and any money given to companies not on the list would not count towards the required amount.

sorry about the wall-o-text but im on my phone and i dont have an enter button

You have the freedom to attack whomever you want, ut all the other players have the same freedoms; therefore, diplomacy is a model for checks-and-balances in a free society.