In a ranking system like Condorcet, however, your first choice vote does not endanger your selection between other, lesser, choices. You can safely vote [Buchanan|Nader], without thinking you'll tip the election to [Gore|Bush]. You can even vote for yourself! That's the beauty of it.
The whole idea of deciding who "has a reasonable chance" beforehand, and then only selecting from among them, is the very problem inherent in the system. With only a single choice, you can only really choose between two people. And an election between two people isn't much of a choice at all! In an honest election you should be able to say "Who cares what the herd thinks! This is how I'm going to vote," and know that your vote was not wasted.
Does this make me a hopeless idealist? Maybe, but the ideal is worthwhile.
I never said that corporations should be allowed to break the law. If Acme dumps waste into the river that flows by your property, Acme has infringed on your property rights if you can demonstrate that it has done harm, and should be punished for doing so. Your property rights are protected by law, and government should enforce that.
OTOH, this can be taken too far. If my factory causes one person downwind to suffer asthma, it doesn't justify shutting down my factory (putting hundreds out of work) or huge renovations (costing millions). There has to be a sense of proportion. These should be handled on a case by case basis.
It all comes down to a respect for each other's rights, and respecting each other's freedom to do what we please unless it infringes on your own rights.
Government should not have so much power that companies would want to lobby it. Government should not have so much power that there are favors to be handed out. Lobbying is a relatively recent phenomenon. When government was limited to its Constitutional boundaries, lobbying effectively didn't exist.
It's never "profitable" to be responsible. You'll always make more money by cutting corners. But there's still an obligation to be responsible. You still have to respect others' rights. As long as you do that, you have freedom to do whatever you want.
You said you leaned Green. That's enough proof of socialistic ideas for me. Green philosophy looks like a watermelon to me.
There can never be too much freedom. If you believe (as I do) that government only has the power we, the people, give to it, then there is no such thing as "government freedom". There is only personal freedom. If government authority is squelching personal freedom, it's time for the people to rise up and take some of that authority back.
Restricting the power of government equating to restriction of freedom? That's the most asinine thing I've heard in some time.
No one's advocating ditching government altogether. That would only work if men were angels, and we're definitely not. We need government to secure and protect our rights. But power corrupts, and men weilding governmental authority can also abuse rights very easily.
Also, I did not voluntarily create the government the way it is now. I would freely create the government as it was in 1787, as it had built-in checks to prevent what's happened to it since. Unfortunately, the 16th and 17th Amendments (lawful ratification in question, but that makes no difference to the people in power) pretty much put an end to the dream of 1776.
Unfortunately, I still feel obligated to cast my votes for the most freedom-oriented Republicans (or Democrats), until the Libertarian Party has a chance of winning, but how can you knock the party that advocates more FREEDOM?
You can't knock them - you join them. (Or if you happen to believe that rights derive from God and not from man, join the CP like I did.) Until you start voting for them, then of course they will never win. My question to you is will you stand up for what you believe in, even when the going is rough, or will you cave in to pressure?
The problem is that the voting system is rigged in favor of the two major parties. A simple plurality vote, with only one vote to express preference between candidates, will always lead to people sacrificing their principles in order to vote for the "lesser of two evils". That's why we need Condorcetvoting, to restore liberty of conscience. (Ask yourself this: If you have to sacrifice your conscience in order to feel like you're having an impact on an election, is it truly a free country?) There's absolutely no reason that we cannot have a diverse range of viewpoints in a race together, instead of being stuck with two parties that squeeze to the center so tight that they're essentially the same with different rhetoric. The laws these guys make is going to govern our lives, you know - darn right I want some real debate and some real choice between candidates.
I've posted about this many times in the past, with more explanation than I have time for now. If you search Slashdot for my nick and "condorcet" or "voting" you should be able to find it. Condorcet's method trashes every other voting method I've heard of, including Instant Runoff Voting (also called Single Transferable Vote), Approval, Borda Count, and definitely Plurality.
Another problem is ballot access laws. Again, the major parties shape this to favor the status quo. Why is it so hard for challengers to get in the race? Obviously, the major parties don't want competition. If collecting a half million signatures is "good enough" for a minor party, why don't we require the same thing of a major party?
One can never be too gung-ho about freedom. Government's natural tendency is to squelch it. We must be constantly vigilant in freedom's defense.
Your socialistic ideas will never work, BTW. People are by nature selfish, and will not contribute to the "greater good". (Look at the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies. Both nearly failed when they tried the communal approach.) Free enterprise harnesses that, and surprise of surprises, it actually works out better for everybody when everybody tries to improve themselves. Any kind of government redistribution plan amounts to theft. Wealth redistribution is best left to private charity.
But business is just a group of people trying to make money together. What's wrong with that? If you restrict business, you are restricting people.
Business does not have a legal monopoly on the use of force like the government does. Big difference.
If you don't like the way a corporation runs its business operations, shop somewhere else! That's called the free market. You may hate Microsoft or Wal-Mart, but until you stop buying there (even though they're the cheapest, or they're ubiquitous, or whatever other excuse there may be) then you are the problem. But you knew that, right?
If government were limited to its proper role, it wouldn't have enough power to give all those special benefits to "favored" companies. The first step is limiting government. It's not like the laws against fraud (and others that protect consumers) are going to go away.
Well, duh. They promote liberty, not licentiousness. Your liberties end where they begin to encroach on someone else's, and government's proper duty is to enforce that you don't try to do that. But beyond that, government has no right to interfere in your affairs.
In short, there is no "right to kill" because we all have the right to live. No, you are not free to "do anything" and most of us understand that already without needing it explained.
Bryan Duncan used a Mac to speak the opening lyrics to this song. I'm not familiar enough with the various voices to know which it was, and I'm not at my Mac now.:(
Nice to see how the neo-conservatives are eroding the rights of individuals by refusing to legislate any controls over corporaions, and all in the name of freedom.
The problem isn't that we're not regulating corporations. If they want to collect data, you don't have to do your business there. Free market, you know? If no one will provide the service you want without "spying" on you, start up your own and make some money in the process!
The real problem is that the restrictions on the government aren't strong enough. Not only should it be restricted from collecting this information with its own personnel, but restricted from buying the info wholesale from third parties. If they don't have a warrant, they can't collect it. How hard is this?
If we clamped down on government hard enough, the problems would go away. The lobbiest phenomenon only came about once government began to swell beyond it's Constitutionally prescribed bounds. Shrink government so it can't grant special benefits to companies. Private businesses are just people like you and me trying to make a buck together. There's nothing wrong with that.
Feh. Did you even read what I wrote? You have the same rights I do. You may exercise your rights to the degree that they do not interfere with my exercise of mine, and vice versa. Hold your sign, travel around, assemble where you want, etc. Just know that obstructing traffic and throwing things at buildings and passersby are not looked at kindly, and for good reason, because you've begun to infringe on others' rights.
As far as the traffic argument, don't be a troll. I understand the concept of sharing limited resources, like freeway throughput. Do you?
Spontaneous generation was disproven centuries ago - life does not arise from nothing. And since I doubt you'd argue that the unborn is at any stage a dog, a guppy, a turnip, or anything other than a human fetus, it is in fact a human - albeit one at a very vulnerable stage of its development.
Either it's life from conception, or from an arbitrary point that we (flawed) humans decide. What if we decide wrong? That's argument enough to convince me that legally babies should have all the protections of human life from conception, even if I didn't believe they actually are.
Of course, I'm in favor of "conception control" also. Being against abortion doesn't mean I'm in favor of creating children by the litter. I can't afford to raise a dozen kids, so my wife and I choose not to create that many. We act responsibly from the beginning, understanding the consequences of our actions.
Line-item veto is extremely dangerous. You're letting one man essentially write legislation, but cutting bits and pieces out of a bill.
A much better system, IMO, would be a law (or amendment perhaps, if we're talking about the US) that would limit riders on bills to being germane to the topic of the bill and within its original scope. Of course, the fact that 535 members of Congress don't do this on their own is proof of how morally and ethically bankrupt they (at least a majority of them) are.
That's because it's not about "death" as such. It's about responsibility.
A baby is not responsible for coming into this world, it's parents are. To kill the baby for a "mistake" of the parents is irresponsibility, and a crime, on their part.
A murderer is responsible for the crime, assuming due process and fair trial, as we are guaranteed in a free society. To punish a murderer for a crime is justice.
I hope you see the distinction, and understand why the anti-abortion pro-capital punishment rationale is logical and consistent. Personally, I find the reverse viewpoint incomprehensible. You want to let murderers live, but kill innocent vulnerable children?
It's quite simple, actually. You don't understand "personal responsibility"? Then I'm afraid I can't help you much there. But let me try to explain anyway.
You: It's not my fault I conceived a baby! Kill it now!
Or...
You: It's not my fault I conceived and gave birth to a baby! Someone else should feed and clothe it, not me!
If those sound ridiculous, it's because they are. Who else's "fault" is it? The baby didn't just appear out of thin air! Listen, dacetone...if you don't want to deal with the consequences of sex, then don't have sex! Sex is not merely a recreational activity. The sooner you realize that, and take responsibility for your actions, the better off we'll all be. If you make the bad decision to unzip your pants, your baby should not take the brunt of the consequences, and neither should I.
The welfare society we live in today was caused by capitulating to those who refused to live up to their responsibilities. So the rest of us, being the caring and generous people we are, made it even easier for them to shirk their duties! Boy, were we stupid. We should have left welfare in the hands of private charities. If you want a freebie, humble yourself enough to ask for it and live within the guidelines established by the organization you chose. (A little more humility in general wouldn't hurt.) But expecting "society at large" to pick up your tab because we have no choice in the matter is simply irresponsibility and theft.
Yes I do. Tell me where it says I don't. Otherwise, I have the right to do anything which doesn't infringe on the rights of anyone else. Maybe you should learn what a right is. A right isn't given to you by government. Government is instituted to protect the rights which we inherently possess. To enable it to do so, we the people grant certain rights to government - but the rights are still ours.
> grin ChristTrekker grins. > noogie Little Brother ChristTrekker seizes Little Brother under one arm and gives him a ferocious noogie as Little Brother squirms.
I find it sadly amusing when all the Muslim countries complain about the existence of Israel. Look at a map. If the Muslims "reclaimed" Israel (and there's no evidence there was anything resembling a strong Muslim presence in that area before 1940), the amount of Muslim territory would increase a fraction of 1%. That's what all the fuss is about? The Jews are content to be let alone, even surrounded by hostile states. The Muslims want to obliterate them, even though the gain is negligible. Seems pretty clear where the problem is.
I prefer a democratic republic. That is, having laws in place as a check on the majority, so that the rights of the minority are not trampled in the process. Nobody said anything about minorities ruling, but they should be protected.
Then there was one time I went to the computer lab, where my class was supposed to be having a final exam, about an hour early, I logged on to a mud, and missed the exam because I didn't notice the entire class had come in, taken the exam and left while I was on the mud.
That's got to be about the most pathetic things I've ever heard.:) Even I was never that bad. But then, you were one of those "rotten immature little kids" that we college students complained about taking over "our" MUDs.:) "It's 10 AM! Get back to class, ya twerp!"
Man am I glad I'm out of the MUD addiction. Of course, reading weblogs like slashdot is the new addiction, so I'm not sure if I've gained anything.
Sweeeeet! I'll email you about that IIsi ROM SIMM. I'm using MODE32 on my SE/30 now, but I can see it might be a benefit to move that from software to hardware.
I bought a 1.2 GB drive off a swap list, and got NetBSD installed on that while I had 8 MB. Later I also found an eBay auction for RAM, so I'm at 68 MB now. I wonder if I should have bit the bullet and gone all the way to 128. It is pretty amazing, because as recently as 1997 Apple was shipping machines with a 128 MB ceiling. I also bought a 10bT card on the swap list, so I'm ready to go whenever I get the time to set up the network.
You should really say something about the machine itself on your site. A picture would be nice.:)
Maybe that's the old origin of the word (don't know Greek or Latin, so can neither confirm nor deny), but that's not how they're used in English. A republic is a nation ruled by law, a democracy is a nation ruled by people.
A true democracy would call a vote every time a decision needs to be made, and the majority would win regardless of the rights or interests of the minority. As I like to say, a democracy is two wolves and a sheep taking a vote on what to have for dinner.
A republic is ruled by laws that you cannot overturn at whim, and hopefully those laws have had some thought and wisdom put into them to protect the minority opinion. So your government can't simply have a vote to take Fred's property and give it to Chad, even if everyone (except Fred of course) thinks it's a good idea. Fred's property rights are protected by law.
I've been doing the same, partly out of SE/30 nostalgia, and partly to play with a BSD to gain broader experience. I've found the community to be very helpful so far.
What are the stats on your machine? What are you doing with it?
Less heat, due to lower power consumption, which leads directly to longer battery life if you're dealing with a laptop. Hot laptops are not nice either. The chip size itself becomes a factor if you're looking at embedded devices, and PPC is often chosen for embedded devices partly because of the heat/power issue.
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In a ranking system like Condorcet, however, your first choice vote does not endanger your selection between other, lesser, choices. You can safely vote [Buchanan|Nader], without thinking you'll tip the election to [Gore|Bush]. You can even vote for yourself! That's the beauty of it.
The whole idea of deciding who "has a reasonable chance" beforehand, and then only selecting from among them, is the very problem inherent in the system. With only a single choice, you can only really choose between two people. And an election between two people isn't much of a choice at all! In an honest election you should be able to say "Who cares what the herd thinks! This is how I'm going to vote," and know that your vote was not wasted.
Does this make me a hopeless idealist? Maybe, but the ideal is worthwhile.
I never said that corporations should be allowed to break the law. If Acme dumps waste into the river that flows by your property, Acme has infringed on your property rights if you can demonstrate that it has done harm, and should be punished for doing so. Your property rights are protected by law, and government should enforce that.
OTOH, this can be taken too far. If my factory causes one person downwind to suffer asthma, it doesn't justify shutting down my factory (putting hundreds out of work) or huge renovations (costing millions). There has to be a sense of proportion. These should be handled on a case by case basis.
It all comes down to a respect for each other's rights, and respecting each other's freedom to do what we please unless it infringes on your own rights.
Government should not have so much power that companies would want to lobby it. Government should not have so much power that there are favors to be handed out. Lobbying is a relatively recent phenomenon. When government was limited to its Constitutional boundaries, lobbying effectively didn't exist.
It's never "profitable" to be responsible. You'll always make more money by cutting corners. But there's still an obligation to be responsible. You still have to respect others' rights. As long as you do that, you have freedom to do whatever you want.
You said you leaned Green. That's enough proof of socialistic ideas for me. Green philosophy looks like a watermelon to me.
There can never be too much freedom. If you believe (as I do) that government only has the power we, the people, give to it, then there is no such thing as "government freedom". There is only personal freedom. If government authority is squelching personal freedom, it's time for the people to rise up and take some of that authority back.
Restricting the power of government equating to restriction of freedom? That's the most asinine thing I've heard in some time.
No one's advocating ditching government altogether. That would only work if men were angels, and we're definitely not. We need government to secure and protect our rights. But power corrupts, and men weilding governmental authority can also abuse rights very easily.
Also, I did not voluntarily create the government the way it is now. I would freely create the government as it was in 1787, as it had built-in checks to prevent what's happened to it since. Unfortunately, the 16th and 17th Amendments (lawful ratification in question, but that makes no difference to the people in power) pretty much put an end to the dream of 1776.
You can't knock them - you join them. (Or if you happen to believe that rights derive from God and not from man, join the CP like I did.) Until you start voting for them, then of course they will never win. My question to you is will you stand up for what you believe in, even when the going is rough, or will you cave in to pressure?
The problem is that the voting system is rigged in favor of the two major parties. A simple plurality vote, with only one vote to express preference between candidates, will always lead to people sacrificing their principles in order to vote for the "lesser of two evils". That's why we need Condorcet voting, to restore liberty of conscience. (Ask yourself this: If you have to sacrifice your conscience in order to feel like you're having an impact on an election, is it truly a free country?) There's absolutely no reason that we cannot have a diverse range of viewpoints in a race together, instead of being stuck with two parties that squeeze to the center so tight that they're essentially the same with different rhetoric. The laws these guys make is going to govern our lives, you know - darn right I want some real debate and some real choice between candidates.
I've posted about this many times in the past, with more explanation than I have time for now. If you search Slashdot for my nick and "condorcet" or "voting" you should be able to find it. Condorcet's method trashes every other voting method I've heard of, including Instant Runoff Voting (also called Single Transferable Vote), Approval, Borda Count, and definitely Plurality.
Another problem is ballot access laws. Again, the major parties shape this to favor the status quo. Why is it so hard for challengers to get in the race? Obviously, the major parties don't want competition. If collecting a half million signatures is "good enough" for a minor party, why don't we require the same thing of a major party?
One can never be too gung-ho about freedom. Government's natural tendency is to squelch it. We must be constantly vigilant in freedom's defense.
Your socialistic ideas will never work, BTW. People are by nature selfish, and will not contribute to the "greater good". (Look at the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies. Both nearly failed when they tried the communal approach.) Free enterprise harnesses that, and surprise of surprises, it actually works out better for everybody when everybody tries to improve themselves. Any kind of government redistribution plan amounts to theft. Wealth redistribution is best left to private charity.
But business is just a group of people trying to make money together. What's wrong with that? If you restrict business, you are restricting people.
Business does not have a legal monopoly on the use of force like the government does. Big difference.
If you don't like the way a corporation runs its business operations, shop somewhere else! That's called the free market. You may hate Microsoft or Wal-Mart, but until you stop buying there (even though they're the cheapest, or they're ubiquitous, or whatever other excuse there may be) then you are the problem. But you knew that, right?
If government were limited to its proper role, it wouldn't have enough power to give all those special benefits to "favored" companies. The first step is limiting government. It's not like the laws against fraud (and others that protect consumers) are going to go away.
Well, duh. They promote liberty, not licentiousness. Your liberties end where they begin to encroach on someone else's, and government's proper duty is to enforce that you don't try to do that. But beyond that, government has no right to interfere in your affairs.
In short, there is no "right to kill" because we all have the right to live. No, you are not free to "do anything" and most of us understand that already without needing it explained.
Bryan Duncan used a Mac to speak the opening lyrics to this song. I'm not familiar enough with the various voices to know which it was, and I'm not at my Mac now. :(
The problem isn't that we're not regulating corporations. If they want to collect data, you don't have to do your business there. Free market, you know? If no one will provide the service you want without "spying" on you, start up your own and make some money in the process!
The real problem is that the restrictions on the government aren't strong enough. Not only should it be restricted from collecting this information with its own personnel, but restricted from buying the info wholesale from third parties. If they don't have a warrant, they can't collect it. How hard is this?
If we clamped down on government hard enough, the problems would go away. The lobbiest phenomenon only came about once government began to swell beyond it's Constitutionally prescribed bounds. Shrink government so it can't grant special benefits to companies. Private businesses are just people like you and me trying to make a buck together. There's nothing wrong with that.
Sadly, the remake will likely feature Kong climbing the Empire State Building again.
Remember 9/11.
Feh. Did you even read what I wrote? You have the same rights I do. You may exercise your rights to the degree that they do not interfere with my exercise of mine, and vice versa. Hold your sign, travel around, assemble where you want, etc. Just know that obstructing traffic and throwing things at buildings and passersby are not looked at kindly, and for good reason, because you've begun to infringe on others' rights.
As far as the traffic argument, don't be a troll. I understand the concept of sharing limited resources, like freeway throughput. Do you?
Spontaneous generation was disproven centuries ago - life does not arise from nothing. And since I doubt you'd argue that the unborn is at any stage a dog, a guppy, a turnip, or anything other than a human fetus, it is in fact a human - albeit one at a very vulnerable stage of its development.
Either it's life from conception, or from an arbitrary point that we (flawed) humans decide. What if we decide wrong? That's argument enough to convince me that legally babies should have all the protections of human life from conception, even if I didn't believe they actually are.
Of course, I'm in favor of "conception control" also. Being against abortion doesn't mean I'm in favor of creating children by the litter. I can't afford to raise a dozen kids, so my wife and I choose not to create that many. We act responsibly from the beginning, understanding the consequences of our actions.
Line-item veto is extremely dangerous. You're letting one man essentially write legislation, but cutting bits and pieces out of a bill.
A much better system, IMO, would be a law (or amendment perhaps, if we're talking about the US) that would limit riders on bills to being germane to the topic of the bill and within its original scope. Of course, the fact that 535 members of Congress don't do this on their own is proof of how morally and ethically bankrupt they (at least a majority of them) are.
That's because it's not about "death" as such. It's about responsibility.
A baby is not responsible for coming into this world, it's parents are. To kill the baby for a "mistake" of the parents is irresponsibility, and a crime, on their part.
A murderer is responsible for the crime, assuming due process and fair trial, as we are guaranteed in a free society. To punish a murderer for a crime is justice.
I hope you see the distinction, and understand why the anti-abortion pro-capital punishment rationale is logical and consistent. Personally, I find the reverse viewpoint incomprehensible. You want to let murderers live, but kill innocent vulnerable children?
It's quite simple, actually. You don't understand "personal responsibility"? Then I'm afraid I can't help you much there. But let me try to explain anyway.
You: It's not my fault I conceived a baby! Kill it now!
Or...
You: It's not my fault I conceived and gave birth to a baby! Someone else should feed and clothe it, not me!
If those sound ridiculous, it's because they are. Who else's "fault" is it? The baby didn't just appear out of thin air! Listen, dacetone...if you don't want to deal with the consequences of sex, then don't have sex! Sex is not merely a recreational activity. The sooner you realize that, and take responsibility for your actions, the better off we'll all be. If you make the bad decision to unzip your pants, your baby should not take the brunt of the consequences, and neither should I.
The welfare society we live in today was caused by capitulating to those who refused to live up to their responsibilities. So the rest of us, being the caring and generous people we are, made it even easier for them to shirk their duties! Boy, were we stupid. We should have left welfare in the hands of private charities. If you want a freebie, humble yourself enough to ask for it and live within the guidelines established by the organization you chose. (A little more humility in general wouldn't hurt.) But expecting "society at large" to pick up your tab because we have no choice in the matter is simply irresponsibility and theft.
Yes I do. Tell me where it says I don't. Otherwise, I have the right to do anything which doesn't infringe on the rights of anyone else. Maybe you should learn what a right is. A right isn't given to you by government. Government is instituted to protect the rights which we inherently possess. To enable it to do so, we the people grant certain rights to government - but the rights are still ours.
Oh, OK, that's alright then.
> grin
ChristTrekker grins.
> noogie Little Brother
ChristTrekker seizes Little Brother under one arm and gives him a ferocious noogie as Little Brother squirms.
I find it sadly amusing when all the Muslim countries complain about the existence of Israel. Look at a map. If the Muslims "reclaimed" Israel (and there's no evidence there was anything resembling a strong Muslim presence in that area before 1940), the amount of Muslim territory would increase a fraction of 1%. That's what all the fuss is about? The Jews are content to be let alone, even surrounded by hostile states. The Muslims want to obliterate them, even though the gain is negligible. Seems pretty clear where the problem is.
I prefer a democratic republic . That is, having laws in place as a check on the majority, so that the rights of the minority are not trampled in the process. Nobody said anything about minorities ruling, but they should be protected.
That's got to be about the most pathetic things I've ever heard. :) Even I was never that bad. But then, you were one of those "rotten immature little kids" that we college students complained about taking over "our" MUDs. :) "It's 10 AM! Get back to class, ya twerp!"
Man am I glad I'm out of the MUD addiction. Of course, reading weblogs like slashdot is the new addiction, so I'm not sure if I've gained anything.
Sweeeeet! I'll email you about that IIsi ROM SIMM. I'm using MODE32 on my SE/30 now, but I can see it might be a benefit to move that from software to hardware.
I bought a 1.2 GB drive off a swap list, and got NetBSD installed on that while I had 8 MB. Later I also found an eBay auction for RAM, so I'm at 68 MB now. I wonder if I should have bit the bullet and gone all the way to 128. It is pretty amazing, because as recently as 1997 Apple was shipping machines with a 128 MB ceiling. I also bought a 10bT card on the swap list, so I'm ready to go whenever I get the time to set up the network.
You should really say something about the machine itself on your site. A picture would be nice. :)
Maybe that's the old origin of the word (don't know Greek or Latin, so can neither confirm nor deny), but that's not how they're used in English. A republic is a nation ruled by law, a democracy is a nation ruled by people.
A true democracy would call a vote every time a decision needs to be made, and the majority would win regardless of the rights or interests of the minority. As I like to say, a democracy is two wolves and a sheep taking a vote on what to have for dinner.
A republic is ruled by laws that you cannot overturn at whim, and hopefully those laws have had some thought and wisdom put into them to protect the minority opinion. So your government can't simply have a vote to take Fred's property and give it to Chad, even if everyone (except Fred of course) thinks it's a good idea. Fred's property rights are protected by law.
I've been doing the same, partly out of SE/30 nostalgia, and partly to play with a BSD to gain broader experience. I've found the community to be very helpful so far.
What are the stats on your machine? What are you doing with it?
Less heat, due to lower power consumption, which leads directly to longer battery life if you're dealing with a laptop. Hot laptops are not nice either. The chip size itself becomes a factor if you're looking at embedded devices, and PPC is often chosen for embedded devices partly because of the heat/power issue.
AFAIK, YDL is basically a PPC version of RH's distro. The "big deal" is that there are so few distros available for PPC to begin with.