Subject: Re: source access vs dynamism From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1999/08/28 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3144868668727852@naggum.no> * Erik Naggum | nor do I understand why people individually accept so horrible working | conditions that they have to form labor unions so they don't have to | accept them, anymore, but I digress. * Erann Gat | It's because for some people the alternative is to be destitute. no, that is not the explanation, although some would have you believe that people can be forced to accept anything under threat of becoming destitute if they don't. the problem is not that they would become destitute, but that they want something so badly they will accept the worst possible conditions because there's something at the other end to hope for. some people are good at defrauding people of their present and future in this particular way, but I wonder why so many fall for them. at issue is why people "invent" solidarity at the wrong time and accept absolutely everything as long as they are alone, but speak up only when they think they can gang up on others, and especially why they have to wait until things are really, really horrible before they react. this is the stuff I don't understand. historically, labor unions arose when people had gotten a taste of a different lifestyle and were willing to pay a lot more for their basic livelihood and had gotten into a fix they couldn't get out of -- because they had accepted the unacceptable to begin with. accepting something you have to form a labor union to fight after the fact only tells me that people were acting against their own best (or even good) interests for a long time. I don't see any rational, coherent explanation for this sort of behavior in humans, but it's all over the place. I guess it's the same basic argument as "yes, we do fear the vendor": a complete failure to grasp that the roles people play in a complex society do not change their nature or (other) qualities as humans beings. why do people give their money to people they fear will screw them in the future _because_ they have given their money to them in the past? don't they _see_ that their capacity to screw them and hence their fear of them, is a function of giving the wrong people money to begin with? Microsoft is the ultimate fraud operation, but it's always extremely easy not to get defrauded: just don't deal with them at all. if you fear you will be screwed by someone you deal with, whoever forces you to deal with them? here's my line: don't _ever_ grin and bear it, speak up when you aren't happy with what you experience. you'll piss a lot of people off for a while until they figure out that you are actually very happy when you are happy with things and that most things actually do improve when you care to express your concern, and then it dawns on a few people that _because_ you consistently speak up, you don't bear grudges or get bitter at people for not caring. if you can't accept something, don't. don't prostitute yourself because you want something you can't have without prostituting yourself -- just stop wanting it when you realize what you'll have to go through to get it. reject the "future religion" which attempts to tell people they should accept to suffer now because some future will be so good: somebody is ripping you of your present if you believe that crap. if you _don't_ accept to suffer now, the historic evidence shows that the future _will_ be better. the good future doesn't _come_ to people who sacrifice today for any rosy promise of a better tomorrow, because there will _always_ be a "today" that can be sacrified to a "tomorrow", and if somebody, such as Bill Gates, benefits from your naïve belief in this, they _will_ rip you off again and again, and the future never comes, it will remain "the future" for as long as you believe in it. only when you stop believing in the unreasonably brighter and better future do you have a shot at improving the present. #:Erik -- save the children: just say NO to sex with pro-lifers