In article <op.t299mxaoc3xi7v@news.povray.org>, 
phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk says...
> > A very simple principle:
> > Do unto others as you'd like other to do unto you.
> > It can replace any religion, and a great many laws. It can be used as a
  
> > reference to diferensate between "good" and "evil".
> 
> Um I'm a sado-masochist (no I'm not really) who gets off on pain therefor
e  
> I should go around hurting people because that's what I'd want them to do
  
> to me?
> 
Bingo! lol The problem is of course that people that really *believe* 
that the golden rule means what they think it does are naive to the 
point of blindness about what it *really* means. A sociopath can't make 
such a distinction, since they don't recognize other people as being 
*anything* like them. They literally can't make the connection between 
harm to themselves being the same as harm to another. And other people 
won't be as bad as that, but its not hard at all to imagine thinking, "I 
would wish someone killed me if I cheated on my wife, so I am going to 
kill people I know are cheating on their wives.", or any number of other 
similar conclusions, which, by the golden rule, are **perfectly** 
reasonable. All the golden rule means is that anything is justified, 
including mass murder, so long as the person committing it is 100% in 
agreement that **he** should be treated the same way, for the same 
supposed offense.

Those of us that recognize this know that a better standard, which 
implies basic respect for others, and a mutually agreed definition of 
what *that* means, is needed. One rule, which says nothing about what 
the basic standard should be, or who gets to define it, or how you 
determine right or wrong, save by if the person doing it *thinks* other 
should treat them the same way, so its OK to do it to others, is 
useless.

> > ANYBODY who, at least try to, live by that principle won't wilingly  
> > commit any crime.
> > What I like about it, is that it's a positive principle.
> 
> So I shouldn't steal from a store because I wouldn't like the store  
> stealing from me... except the store isn't a person (except perhaps  
> legally) so why should I care?
> 
Nah, that would at least make sense. The real problem is that the 
definition of crime is arbitrarily based on the presumption that the 
person committing and act **knows** how they should treat others, and 
thus, by that standard, can only commit a crime if they do what is 
contrary to that understanding. Yet, by that same definition, a Muslim 
who murders his neighbors wife is "not" committing a crime at all, so 
long as *he* is sure that he would want his own wife killed in the same 
fashion, for the same supposed offense. Or any other similar example.

In the end, its nothing but authoritarianism in disguise. Someone else 
defines the rules of what you can/should/are allowed to do to people, 
based on their actions/intent/statements or other criteria, and if 
everyone, except the victim, agrees that those *are* the rules, and that 
such action is acceptable if it was instead applied to them, no crime, 
against man or god has happened. Its only if the person committing the 
act disagrees with it, but does it anyway, that the golden rule comes 
into force. And since you will never find two people that are *ever* 
100% identical in their assumption about what someone else "can" do to 
them, and some won't accept "any" punishment for "any" crime at all (and 
you get those types, who will even protest sending someone to jail for 
life, after committing 10 murders), its impossible to apply such a rule, 
without making other rules to define what the rule is **supposed** to 
mean.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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