Hi Bob,

At 10:04 AM 4/29/01 -0700, you wrote:
>It's a big world and there is no black and white answer. It's like saying
>"killing is bad". That's not always true. How you feel about it(and how the
>laws deal with it) vary depending on the conditions. In the US, a rich

Saying that people's opinions and laws on killing vary is a lot different
than saying that the actual moral rightness or wrongness of killing varies.

>person killing a poor person is considered less bad than the other way
>around. I won't even get into race when it comes to justice in the US. Most
>white people don't think the law treats people differently based on race.
>Ask a non-white person the same question sometime.

I haven't seen examples of the "rich person killing a poor person being
considered less bad", except that maybe when a rich person dies it gets
more media coverage, or there is more money to pay to lawyers for "wrongful
death" suits,etc. Is that what you were talking about? I could be wrong, I
just haven't seen many examples that I would describe that way.

I agree on the race issue, though, and it isn't the only example. In almost
any case where what you are saying or doing is unpopular, some of the
police feel more free to mistreat you.


>This leads back to the original topic, "the value of a donation". If you
>have no money, an old piece of test equipment has more value. I think we
>all can agree with that. Clearly, when it comes to software piracy, there
>are lots of opinions :-)

I couldn't agree more with Roman's call to donate. I'm not completely sure
how I feel on the issue of software piracy in poor countries. Certainly,
they have a more legitimate excuse than those who have money. And I almost
buy the argument that it doesn't hurt the company because they couldn't pay
anyway. I'll have to think more about it. But, I don't really care what
people's opinions are about it, I only care if they can express why it is
right or wrong, so that we can discover whether it is right or wrong and
abide by that regardless of what everyone else thinks.


>Cheerful regards,
>
>Bob

Sean

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