Re: PEX (was Re: Not always joking...)

In article <65fb7hF2fucqcU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 Sean O'Hara <seanohara@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> > If you're willing to pay someone to haul it away, why would you object
> > to someone else hauling it away for free? 
> 
> It's a matter of principle -- it is my private property, for me to 
> dispose of as I see fit.

The problem is one of communication. One interpretation of putting your 
trash out is "this is stuff I no longer care about; anyone can take it." 
A different interpretation is "this is stuff being transferred from me 
to the garbage collectors."

On the first interpretation, putting it out was a statement of how you 
see fit to dispose of it--if you didn't want to completely give up 
ownership you would have put up a sign saying "For Jones garbage 
collection only." On the second interpretation, if you wanted it free to 
anyone to take it you would have put up a sign saying "free to anyone 
who wants it."

People in this thread seem to be arguing as if the distinction was a 
question of principle when it's mostly one of custom, which determines 
the meaning of such acts.

-- 
 http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
 Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
 Published by Baen, in bookstores now