Re: [Fsfe-uk] The Reg on RMS in London

[P.L.Hayes]

On Friday 28 May 2004 18:34, Ralph Janke wrote:
> I don't see the problem here. Freedom and liberty are for me as
> essential for quality of live as is health.

For me too but the problem is that it is irrelevant what you or I already feel 
about these matters; what counts is what people unfamiliar with the issues 
will think and feel in the near future and it is clumsy and counterproductive 
to introduce a dramatic and emotive analogy when important members of your 
audience are well aware of the life and death seriousness of one half of it 
but may currently see the other half as a relatively trivial technical or 
industrial matter. It may be a long time before 'computer' and 'keyboard' are 
associated together in the average mind in the same way that 'pen' and 
'paper' or 'canvas' and 'brush' already are.

Even if that happy circumstance does eventually arise you'd still have a hard 
time of it convincing people of the validity of that particular analogy and 
it is hardly an effective means of persuading people who are still exploring 
the rational grounds on which the arguments are based - people like the 
politicians that were present. It is a serious tactical error to attempt to 
use strong emotional leverage in an argument unless you can be fairly certain 
your audience is already receptive to it. As James said:

> The problem with the analogy is just what Lucy Sheffield says -- from 
> the point of view of bare logical structure, maybe it is an effective 
> reductio ad absurdum.  But that ignores the human level, where even 
> hinting at any comparability between the two is likely to draw a sharp 
> intake of breath, and in very questionable taste.

Which is the whole point - one mistake like that and with some people you can 
lose the whole argument.

Regards,

Paul.