Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • November 2, 2012 9:50 AM

The first part is about getting around the Church’ ban against suicide.

It has been pointed out in the past that the right to terminate your existance at a time and place of your chosing is the ultimate form of freedom or self determination.

In many countries under political preasure from various religious organisations this right was made a crime. Even though in places this is nolonger the case it is usually still a crime to assist somebody in taking their own life.

Thus if you were asked by somebody to help them die, and you told them that the main constituant of the leathal injection (potassium chloride) was easily available in a large food store sold as one of a number of brands of low or reduced sodium salt for cooking etc you would be potentialy commiting a crime. If you also went on to tell them where they could get a suitably sized syringe and needle (cooking equipment shops and most hobby model makers shops) you would be compounding you problems.

However if you were to provide the same information above in a generalised way as can be easily found on web sites like wikipedia et al and with out being specificaly asked or directing it at somebody you knew might be contemplating suicide it is not a crime.

Of course wikipedia etc point out that potasium chloride is just one of three components in the lethal injection, the others being more frequently used for surgical anesthesia because potasium chloride burning up your blood vessels and then hitting your heart and causing it to fail is a very very painful way to die, (and yes there are considerable rumours and some evidence that those performing executions by lethal injection are not giving sufficient anesthesia thus it is a crule and inhumane punishment).

So it’s not just Churches where loopholes exist for suicide but for the law as well.

Clive Robinson • November 3, 2012 6:11 AM

@ Pointless-hack,

First off,

Gaming the system should be about getting an edge

I prefere to think of it as “redressing the balance” or “leveling the playing field”. Most often these contracts are set by those who believe “might is right” hence they further believe they have an incontestable right to set the terms and conditions their way. It is their hubris that gives rise to the loopholes and hence the “hammer to crack a nut” response when somebody uses the loophole. In essence their view is “our way or no way”…

And that is the real point the “our way or no way” view of the thug / dictator / enslaver. In their view you have no rights, no self determination, and that irrespective of what harm they are inflicting on you you must suffer it for the pretense of what they say is “the common good”. We know that what is now the Catholic Church used pain and the fear of pain to control people, people who found ways to elevate pain were either eliminated as witches or subsumed into the priest hood, to draw people to the Church. Slow painfull deaths were good for the Church because it focused peoples minds on their impending demise, they went to the Church for relief from their sufferings and this left them susceptable to the mysticism of the Church and ultimately the idea was sown in their heads that they could buy their way into God’s Graces by leaving their worldly wealth to the Church…

Thus they viewed you (and still do) not as an individual with rights and self determination, but as a property to be owned and therefore used, abused and taxed as they saw fit, because they “know” what is right for you. Even at it’s most benign it is the worst form of “paternalistic hypocrisy” and quickly goes on from there through abuse to torture to reach the desired goal of your full suplication.

Their reasoning is the age old political “King Game” of “rule by devine right”, the King claims that either they are the “godhead” or “directly anointed by the godhhead” and that to question their rule is to question the judgment os a devine and all seeing entity and thus your punishment is ultimatly eternal damnation…

Even when people tire of this and chop a Kings head off to prove they are nothing but an impotent individual, the people still need for some reason a hierarchy culminating in a single individual so they create Presidents or other leader of state. On the idea that “somebody has to be in charge”…

As has been observed in the past “people need to be governed” the point being the real meaning of “need” in the statment, it can have two meanings, and actually means in this case “craving” or the “need” of the drug addict for that, that they abuse themselves with. Most people however mistakenly believe it is the other “need” that is like that of a child being given direction to ensure “good behaviour”. Unfortunatly as we know historicaly the chosen method of “direction” is what we now call abuse be it physical or mental.

It is as Bruce has pointed out a game of “hawks and doves”, in our society those hawks who appear as doves generaly become the “chosen” leaders. Thus we see the reality of two old sayings “a wolf in sheeps clothing” and “lone wolf”, the wolf is a hawk who preys on doves either covertly in the disguise of a sheep/dove or overtly as a wolf in either case the wolf is generaly a sociopath / psychopath.

And this point about actual leaders (as opposed to visable puppet leaders) being psychopaths is not lost on sociologists, in fact there has been research that shows those who “actually run” successful businesses have many of the traits of psychopaths. The only difference between them and those we lockup for crimes against humanity is that they have developed the ability of (faux) social communication we call “charisma” in order to win the bigger prize of immunity from the consequences of their actions.

Oh and the way to control a leader is to identify their “needs” or “cravings” and pander to them. So as the old sayings of “upon a dogs back are fleas to bite him, and upon those fleas are lesser fleas and so ad infinitem” and “the hidden had that pulls the puppets strings”. And this is an important point because some leaders are not actually leaders, they are all “charisma” and lack the actual ability to lead, but they make good puppets to front for those who “actualy run” things as the “hidden hand”.

It does not realy matter what the veneer of the hierarchy is, be it Church, State, Corporation, club or family, the power structure beneath is where the Hawks pray on the Doves, and the Doves come forward to their fate usually as willing suppliants. It only changes when the Hawks become sufficiently oppressive to the Doves, then for a brief time doves become Hawks and remove the head of the hierarchy. The real question for the Hawk is thus how far can they push the attrition rate on the Doves before the Doves turn on them.

But what is the alternative? we are usually told it’s “anarchy” and if we ask what anarchy is we get told it is bad… Likewise with “socialism” or anyother “ism” that people might think of.

However where such “isms” have been tried they fail not because of failings of the Dove like “ism” but because a Hawk comes in amongst the Doves and starts to build power structures with the aim of the Hawk to be the head of the hierarchy they are building, and that is where things develop into chaos as factions form and the “ism” breaks down. It is in effect not “the barbarians at the gate” that bring an Empire down but those within, their continual in fighting weakens the Empire such that the Barbarias can just walk in.

The scare stories about “isms” are told by those Hawks that want to keep the Doves in line meakly accepting the fate the Hawks have for them. George Orwell and others realised this and he wrote 1984 (whilst resident at the bottom of Pond St Hampstead London) as a warning to Doves of what to look out for, unfortunatly the Hawks appear to use it for a “best practice guide”.