On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 10:38:54AM +0100, J.H.M. Dassen wrote: > On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 20:26:12 +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: > > i mostly agree but wouldn't put it anywhere near that strongly. > > I would. Ben's phrasing strongly reminds me of Robert A. Heinlein; > especially of the concept of TANSTAAFL and the political system he > describes in "Starship Troopers", where the right to vote must be > earned through a tour of duty of public (not necessary military) > service. > > In the case of Debian, users do not have the right of vote, but can > earn it by becoming developers (i.e. by maintaining packages, but also > by writing documentation, maintaining the website etc.).
such a system works fine for an organisation (like debian) where participation or membership is completely voluntary. it would suck for the real world where participation in the nation state is involuntary, and there's nowhere "outside" to go to. Heinlein wrote some good books, but you've got to be careful in your reading if you want to avoid adopting some of his more fascist pro-militaristic and ultra-capitalist politics. Also, the sexual politics was certainly quite progressive for the '50s and '60s but comes across is being old-fashioned sexist trash these days. his stuff is still an enjoyable read, though (if you ignore complete crap like the number of the beast). Pournelle's even worse. in partnership with Niven he writes some great stories. take the politics with a large grain of salt, though. Must admit I like the "Think of it as evolution in action" phrase, though i use it in contexts quite contrary to their usage :-) (BTW: TANSTAAFL was Larry Niven, not Heinlein IIRC) i better stop now before debian-devel detours into an sf crit list for a while. craig -- craig sanders
