[sclug] Cheap'n'nasty Tesco Linux machines

[Will Dickson]

John Stumbles wrote:
> 
> Well there is an alternative (as yet untried (at least in modern 
> industrialised societies)):
> 
>  From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
> 
> 
> Discuss ;-)

If everyone were Nice, this philosophy would work. Unfortunately it 
degrades ingracefully when exposed to lusers, parasitic morons with a 
sense of entitlement, amoral crooks, sociopathic PHBs, and every other 
kind of bad thing. These inevitably arise as the size of the group of 
humans, within which this philosophy is being practiced, becomes large, 
and for small values of "large" at that.

At this point, some cabal of assessors arises to determine who "needs" 
X, and who is claimed to be capable of producing Y, and if by some 
strange chance the assessors and their friends turn out to need much 
more of everything than do the people who were too busy delivering the 
goods to play politics with other people's livelihoods, why then, the 
Wise and Beneficient Leaders do but Protect the Innocent and Virtuous 
Workers from the manifold temptations of too great wealth.[1]

If anyone wants me, I'll be in this keepnet. :-)


Will.


[1] I trust that the members of this august group are intelligent enough 
to perceive the sarcasm dripping out of this paragraph.