[ExI] A Small Request

[Olga Bourlin]

From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 12:27 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] A Small Request


> Olga writes
>> I don't know if you live in a sizeable metropolitan area, Spike ... but 
>> if
>> you've seen (e.g., in San Francisco, in Seattle, etc.) the number of poor
>> souls wandering around, homeless, sick, cold and hungry (not to mention,
>> completely out of their minds), well ... it just does not seem like a 
>> good
>> thing.
>
> Indeed, it does not seem like a good thing. But it also does not seem
> like a good thing to accost a citizen (with your gun and your badge)
> and require that citizen---"for your own good"---to come along
> quietly so that your "problem" may be treated.

OK, Lee you've defined the problem (and I agree with you to a large extent). 
What do you suggest as a solution?

> Now it's one thing to accost the citizen if he or she is doing something
> offensive, even if by just being an eyesore. At least the citizen has a
> chance to know that he's been offensive some way, or that he has
> inconvenienced or is inconveniencing someone, and that by a simple
> change in overt behavior, that affront may be fixed.  It's quite another
> to forcibly remove the citizen from going about his business because
> the citizen is deemed by certain psychiatrists (of legally/philosophically
> dubious credentials) of being incapable of successfully attending to his
> own needs.  (On this account, I would have no problem with the
> "authorities" merely trying to persuade a citizen that he or she would
> be better off in captivity.)

The problem often is, that by the time someone is "better of in captivity" 
they are usually out of broadcast range.

Olga
> It wasn't so long ago that in a more socialized country, dissidents were
> routinely judged to be suffering from certain mental problems and
> hustled off to insane asylums.
>
> Lee
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat