Red Audio Pills (English)

This story is supposedly a historical article that will be written in the future by someone else, describing Dan Halbert's youth under a repressive society shaped by the enemies that use “pirate” as propaganda. So it uses the terminology of that society. I have tried to project it from today so as to sound even more oppressive. See “Piracy”. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).

Every decision a person makes stems from the person's values and goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is a matter of principle, we call that idealism...