Re: bash should not be essential
storm@gate.net (Scott Ellis) wrote on 13.11.97 in <[🔎] Pine.A32.3.93.971113123510.50732A-100000@dakota.gate.net>:
> "Because it is that way now" is NOT necessarily a valid argument for
> keeping things the same way. Slavery used to be common, East Germany used
> to exist. That is not a valid arguement for the continuance of East
> Germany and slavery.
Actually, in both cases, it _was_ a valid argument.
Not a particularly good one in the slavery case, of course, but that's
because the arguments for the other side were so incredibly stronger.
In the East Germany case, it's far from clear that the opposite arguments
were actually stronger. There are (IMHO reasonable) people who think both
parts would have been better off today if the unification had been at
least postponed, and the example of Austria surely argues that having more
than one part in Germany isn't such a bad thing per se. Note I'm not
saying the unification is bad, either - I'm just saying this is far from
being as clear-cut as you seem to think.
(Or are you maybe confusing East Germany with the particular political
system it had for the most time? That one was already gone some time
before the unification.)
Similarly, "it's been that way" is a valid argument wrt bash. Changing
this means work for a lot of people. Avoiding that work *is* a valid
argument. It may or may not be good enough, but there can be no reasonable
doubt that it is valid. Change is not valuable per se.
MfG Kai
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