To: gg cox who wrote (23464 ) 10/3/2007 12:56:13 PM From: Maurice Winn Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 217685 Thinking definitely is a holy grail GG. Which isn't to say people shouldn't use rules of thumb nearly all the time. I do it myself and so does everyone. Starting at first principles for every tiny thing one does would mean paralysis. Unfortunately, the fact that some rules of thumb are needed is taken by the enthusiasts for Orwellian levels of rule of thumbing to keep everyone under THEIR thumb. As with so many things, people take a good idea then race off to extremity with it and say NO thinking is good. Lack of thinking kills people needlessly too. Excessive rule-making and Kremlinized central planning leads relentlessly to morbidity. A major problem is that some people are excellent at thinking and others can't think much at all. When "solutions" are designed for the lowest common denominator, and everyone is forced to march in lock-step with the lowest common denominator, and even have them doing the deciding, then there is big trouble and low-level life is the result. <You don't want to pay taxes ...what do you propose??I should pay for you?? > Here's a novel idea. Don't charge them! Then you wouldn't have to pay mine and I wouldn't have to pay yours. Most taxation is frittered away on silly things run badly. Most regulations are just busy-bodies bossing other people around because most people like to be bossy. I'm quite happy to pay for things I buy and use. For example, roads. <You don't want to pay, then don't use infrastructure services...how would you accomplish that?You step off your property you are in common infrastructure land of all. > With GPS and other position location things, it wouldn't be very difficult to charge people for road use. Diesel vehicles in New Zealand are charged by the kilometre already. Taxes are collected on fuels. Those are usage taxes and rightly paid by the users. But they don't charge depending on the road which is used or the time the road is used. Using a cattle track in the bush costs the same as a fast lane on a motorway in rush hour in a major city. That's dopey. Communism was tried and doesn't work. Reinventing the USSR is no doubt wanted by some. People who like such things could live there. Freedom lovers could live elsewhere. If a box cutter bloke stands up in an airliner now and says "Everyone sit down, I am taking over the cockpit!" do you really think it would take a six-gun shooting air marshal to persuade the box cutter bloke that he was NOT going to do that? The reason that 911 took place was that the lack of thinking you advocate was used. The carefully figured out rule for transportation was to be compliant and fly to Havana. There was no need for anybody to think. Except that there was. If some free-thinking people had thought "No you are not taking over the aircraft" and had then attacked the attackers, and the cockpit doors were not left open for anyone to wander in, then none of it would have happened. So your "safety" thinking [which says people shouldn't think] led to a huge loss of life which continues today. If there hadn't been a successful 911 attack, then swarms of people wouldn't be dead and maimed in Afghanistan, Iraq and USA. "Follow the instructions of your crew - they KNOW what to do" ... is a joke. They can barely serve meals. The way to handle a few box cutter blokes is to attack them and subdue them. A box cutter isn't much of a weapon against a load of angry and frightened passengers and crew. Having a six-gun shooter firing holes in the control systems of aircraft and frightened passengers seems to be a bad idea. Box cutters only work against people already in an obedient frame of mind. <You want to free think your way to your financial nirvana at everyone elses expense. > You obviously didn't understand. AND you left out an apostrophe. Mqurice