🚀 go-pugleaf

In group talk.euthanasia, article <54ga5m$su6@noc.van.hookup.net>,
egerk@awinc.com (Edward Gerk) wrote:
>wrightd@magic.mb.ca (David C. Wright) wrote:

...

>David:
>
>I recognize the fact that you cannot put forward an argument without
>resorting to infantile profanity.  But regardless, I am talking about
>what Mr. Hofsess is saying on his web site.  Not what is in the
>newspaper articles.  The quote I gave from Mr. Hofsess, with him
>stating that no information on his web site is available for plastic
>bags, is quite plain.  He sells a pamphlet on his web site that is an
>instruction brochure on how to use a plastic bag.
>
>Now either he makes available material on plastic bags or he does not.
>Which is it?

You yourself state above that he sells a pamphlet that contains information
on how to use a plastic bag.  So the question is, what constitutes
information?  If I mention that grenades exist, have I provided information
about explosives?  In one sense, I have, since I have let it be known that
they exist.  On the other hand, I have not, because I have not provided the
means to create a grenade.  The notion that a plastic bag can be used to
suffocate is surely not a revelatory coup in terms of dying, any more than
the notion that a grenade explodes is a relevatory coup.  Everybody knows
about these things.  So, if merely noting or referring to something
constitutes 'information', then Hoffsess is surely a horrible criminal.  On
the other hand, so am I, and so are you, because we have both noted that a
plastic bag can be used to augment suicide, and we are as guilty as he is.

If you are prepared to abstract information to that level, then you are
grasping at straws.  At that level of abstraction, I would be a murderer,
because I have presented the means by which it could be done.  Never mind
that I've never actually *hurt* anybody. If second-level indirection is
enough for an endictment, then I'm guilty of all manner of things that I've
never done, simply because I've considered them, or discussed how it could
be done.  Hell, I've robbed the Royal Canadian Mint, because I've discussed
the means.  Never mind that I've not actually taken anything.

Oh, and, by the way, I recognise that you cannot lead off any article
without taking a personal shot at the author, but I really don't hold that
against you.  I would not for a minute consider that practice as labelling
you as a lame-brained moron.

...

-- 
                  David C. Wright (wrightd@magic.mb.ca)
                    http://www.magic.mb.ca/~wrightd

       Alimony: the screwing you get for the screwing you got.