Re: Untraceable Payments, Extortion, and Other Bad Things

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 10:17 PM 12/22/96 -0800, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
>Timmy writes:
>>Fortunately for the bulk of us, the likely number of deaths and economic
>>losses from such crimes of kidnapping, extortion, and even murder for hire,
>>is still likely to be vastly lower than the number of deaths caused by
>>powerful central governments enriching themselves and their cronies with
>>foreign wars. Not to mention the deaths in the Drug War, the lives wasted
>>in other interferences in private behavior, etc.
>
>imho, it's a very warped kind of mind that insinuates some evil is no
>big deal because greater evils exist in the world. 

You obviously (deliberately?) are misrepresenting May's comment above.  It 
isn't that some kinds of evil are "no big deal":  It's that quantiatively, 
refusing to accept a solution that would prevent, say, 100 deaths, simply 
because it would cause _one_ DIFFERENT death is foolish and misguided.  

If you feel inclined to deny this, consider the reverse situation:  Would 
you approve of the saving of one life if it cost 100 lives?  (all things 
being equal.)  While most people would feel uncomfortable being asked to 
make decisions of this kind, that does not mean that one outcome is not 
identifiably better than another.  






Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com