Subject:
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Re: e-commerce (was Technic shuttle etc)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 2 Dec 1999 21:37:06 GMT
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Viewed:
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1649 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> Richard Franks wrote:
>
> > My personal view is that it's nicer to give 20 people 1 thing, than give 1
> > person 20 things (related specifically to Lego deals in this example). That
> > doesn't logically extend to saying that the one person who has the 20 things
> > is bad, or has less right to them. I think that attitude would be
> > unreasonable.
> >
> > Richard
>
> This might seem obtuse, but...
>
> Imagine a lunch room at a public school. You have 20 nickles. Do you
> give 20 hungry kids one nickle each, or give one of them all 20 so they
> can get lunch?
It's not obtuse, just irrelevant, as I did state that the example was related
"specifically to Lego deals" - as I predicted such a response with my amazing
predicto-vision, and tried to avoid it :) It did also mention the flaw in
trying to extend logical arguments to real-life scenario's.
Taking your argment on, I'd say that it is an unequal analogy - 1 Lego set is a
self-contained item that you can use and gain satisfaction from, 1 nickle isn't
useful if you need 20 of them to gain satisfaction.
So to make your analogy equal, you have 20 starving children, and 20 meals - do
you give 20 meals to the greedy kid?
You would then argue that children need food, whereas people don't *need* Lego
sets, so my analogy would be unequal too, and I'd have to agree.
There! Just saved 17.5 posts, during which the original statement would have
been forgotten in a haze of flames and rhetoric. :D (1)
> I'm only pointing out exceptions to your 'rule.'
Undoubtably there are exceptions to saying "Wouldn't it be nicer if 20 people
had 6277s, instead of one person having 20 6277s". I would like to think that
when I meet such an exception: "That one person works for a charity, and wants
to give them to sick kids," or "Those 20 people are all social deviants who
wish to hurl pirate minifigs at the old and infirm.", then I can spot such an
exception and act accordingly.
If you'd like to discuss the distribution of Lego sets then I'm all for it, but
on a different thread as I miss seeing the dots!
Richard
(1) Feeling unusually cynical today.. does it show?
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: e-commerce (was Technic shuttle etc)
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| (...) This might seem obtuse, but... Imagine a lunch room at a public school. You have 20 nickles. Do you give 20 hungry kids one nickle each, or give one of them all 20 so they can get lunch? I'm only pointing out exceptions to your 'rule.' Chris (25 years ago, 2-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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