6th December 2006, 7:28 PM
Basically I'm saying that, if we're going to stick with GR's car analogy, there was a time when there were no guard rails on bridges and high roads. Lots of people started crashing their cars. The majority, maybe not, but enough that it became a problem. Now, some people said "if they are going to be as stupid as to drive that recklessly, let them". While it's true that it was their own fault, there were two clear reasons that eventually led most local governments to start building guard rails. The first is that not all these incidents were killing people that were making a stupid mistake. Sometimes, it was the result of some slick patch of ice they did not or could not have seen, resulting in an accident. And further, sometimes they were not the only victims. They may have had passengers, who should not have to pay for the idiocy of the driver, and they may have slipped and veered suddenly into traffic to save themselves from a fall and caused another accident. Like much in life, there are too many possible exceptions to just make a blanket declaration of "they deserved it". The second is that, as human beings, if there's something we can do to prevent these accidents, even in cases where it is clearly the fault of the driver, and it's a very simple step, then we do it because we actually CARE about each other as human beings. A single boneheaded mistake doesn't mean that person wouldn't contribute to our society in other ways, if you want to be more pragmatic about it. As a result, these fences and such were made. Not only that, recently a lot of the old barriers on the sides of roads that are level with surrounding ground (which prevented far rolling but damaged cars and further resulted in extra cost in terms of replacing those guard posts) have been replaced with rubber ones that go under the car and bounce right back up, but when one hits them late at night it's a sufficient enough "jolt" that they wake up or sober up enough to pull themselves back onto the road.
In the case of the remote, why not do this simple step to help prevent this stuff? Whatever the cause, and I'm not really arguing that, it IS happening, and it CAN be prevented by a mere physical addition. Why not? It benefits everyone. And, whatever "principle of the thing" you may be arguing about is kinda silly. I'd say the principle of just being a helpful company trumps that. The only principles that matter are ones that affect the real world, where we live and do things. Any "principles" that do nothing but make us feel morally superior without doing anything for anyone, perhaps even hurting people, should be discarded.
In the case of the remote, why not do this simple step to help prevent this stuff? Whatever the cause, and I'm not really arguing that, it IS happening, and it CAN be prevented by a mere physical addition. Why not? It benefits everyone. And, whatever "principle of the thing" you may be arguing about is kinda silly. I'd say the principle of just being a helpful company trumps that. The only principles that matter are ones that affect the real world, where we live and do things. Any "principles" that do nothing but make us feel morally superior without doing anything for anyone, perhaps even hurting people, should be discarded.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)