Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : David Golden
Date : Tue Sep 20 2005 05:02 am

> You quote things such as:
> 
> "The human race divides politically into those who want people to be
> controlled and those who have no such desire."
> 
> What does this mean? 

What it says: it hardly seems incomprehensible?!
Sites like dictionary.com provide online service if you have to look
up any of the longer words.

Here's a fuller quote anyway:

"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist,
fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic
criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people
to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are
idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the
greatest number. The latter are surely curmudgeons, suspicious and
lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the
other sort."  [from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Heinlein ]

> It's just drivel authored for the purpose of a 
> game, if I've understood correctly 

You haven't; that's a quote attributed to Heinlein, it'd be drivel
he wrote (and boy, was there a lot of that). 

> - the deep insight into the human 
> psyche that this little snippet hints at is entirely in your own mind.

Heinlein just puts it better than I would have:  It's not particularly
deep or hidden or anything, it's there to be observed in human
interaction by anyone who cares to look. As simple dichotomies go, I
find it rather more useful (bearing in mind the limitations of simple
dichotomies in general, of course) in making actual predictions of
people's decisions than republicrat-demopublican or whatever. 

And I expect it would continue to be so useful if it had been said by
Mussolini or Kylie Minogue or Pierce Brosnan in "Remington Steele":
Some statements have applicability independent of who says them, believe
it or not.

(there are of course the usual caveats similar to silly discussions
about limits of "freedom": obviously one might start to argue that some
basic means of blocking others' actions in their attempts to control
you is necessary to stop them controlling you and that amounts to some
control over their actions, just like arguments over "limits to the
freedom to limit people's freedom", etc. -  and there's the whole
question over whether too actively trying to avoid being controlled
allows one to be controlled by predictable negative responses to overt
attempts at control, something protesters usually fall for when being
incited into rioting by police, for example).

.