Re: The Road with no Branches argument

From: Albert (alwagner_at_tcac.net)
Date: 10/24/04 

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:24:48 -0500

Keynes wrote:
<snip>
> One analyzes future possibilities of action and selects the one he likes best
> or hates the least. We always do exactly as we want. This is how we are
> made, and it gives us the illusion of freedom of choice. But to always do
> what one likes best is not freedom at all. It's a mechanism that utterly
> limits freedom. Real freedom would allow one to hate what he loves
> and to love what he hates. We're certainly not inclined, and therefor
> not Free to do any such thing. We're caught in our own web.
>
> We're bound and determined by our inclinations and opinions to do
> what pleases us and to avoid what displeases us. And so we are
> easy to influence and manipulate by those who understand human
> nature. Salesmen always sell the sizzle and never the steak.
> They play on our attractions and aversions like a harmonica.
> Since we are gullible we accept substitutions of emotion for
> substance, and even imagine we have got the better of the deal.

You speak only for yourself. It is an error to project your
personal motives onto the rest of the humanity. 

-- 
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the 
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally 
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
     -- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"

Relevant Pages