The risk of not holding a grudge...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| AnonymousCoward May 01, 2005 5:14 PM EDT |
...can probably be typified by Terry Pratchett's Discworld character Carcer, who would stab you to death without even blinking if you had something he wanted, then turn innocent eyes on everyone present to deny that he'd just done anything wrong - and then turn to stab the next person as soon as they glance away. Because corporations, particularly but not only US corporations, get many of the rights of an individual without most of the risks and responsibilities, they are particularly prone to developing this kind of there-are-no-consequences "personality", usually referred to as "psychotic". Microsoft have been behaving exactly like this. Holding a grudge against them for it (the human equivalent would be never taking your eyes off them for an instant or believing anything they say) protects you against some of the effects of this psychosis. I strongly suspect that they are about to find out - to their great shock - that the EU (1) isn't buying their protests of innocence either, and (2) is prepared to do something substantial about it. One has to hope that if the EU is playing Vimes, Carcer doesn't have a third knife hidden about his person. Holding a grudge isn't the same thing as prejudice, but it leads to what you might like to think of as "intelligent prejudice" - and if the threat is real, to "extreme prejudice". |
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