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To: tacticalogic
And you will do this how, exactly, without any sense of proportionality, or any reference as to expense - either monetary or societal?

I will not do that; society performs that choice collectively, by means of more than one institution.

I guess I understand better now your use of the word "proportionality." When Y depends on X as Y = k X with some constant k, it is said to be proportional to X. Well, the sence of "importance" of X for Y may also be captured by other functions, with diminishing returns (Y = log X), or increasing returns, (Y = x^2, for instance).

Proportionality is not necessarily present or important. BAsed on the values, the decision-maker --- an individual or society as a whole --- may prioritise alternatives and put all resources on the one with the highest priority. One can show that in many cases this is actually optimal.

201 posted on 12/04/2002 1:05:44 PM PST by TopQuark
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To: TopQuark
I will not do that; society performs that choice collectively, by means of more than one institution.

And you, as a member of society have a responsibility to help make that decision. For that decision to be implemented effectively, people must have some sense that there is a rational basis for that decision. IMHO, people tend to rebel against decisions they view as arbitrary, and this is not a bad thing.

You talk about "drawing the circle", and defining what is inside and outside that circle. Marijuana was once inside that circle, and is now outside. Alcohol was inside, put outside, and later moved back inside. You may defer to the majority, defend the status quo, and deny that proportionality or cost have any relevance - essentially maintaining that it is simply the will of the majority that is the deciding factor. But we can't all just sit back and wait to see what everyone else is going to do, and then go along with that. For there to be a "will of the majority", the majority have to decide, and I believe that when they make those decisions, proportionality and cost are, and should be part of that equation.

202 posted on 12/04/2002 1:27:51 PM PST by tacticalogic
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To: TopQuark
Proportionality is not necessarily present or important. BAsed on the values, the decision-maker --- an individual or society as a whole --- may prioritise alternatives and put all resources on the one with the highest priority. One can show that in many cases this is actually optimal.

"Optimal" implies there is some relationship between the selective allocation of resources and the desired end result. This is exactly the question I posed earlier, which you pretty much declared to be irrelevant.

203 posted on 12/04/2002 1:37:19 PM PST by tacticalogic
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