Hi Simon,

> Is that what it meant? lol.. I thought it meant something like:
> everyone is everything thing.. or people are good and bad in equal
> measure...

Maybe the value of the story is that it means different things to different
people. ;-) Kind of a theme developing in this thread.

A tangent: I used to be frustrated in conversations about certain ideas and
values that mean so many different things to different people. "Fairness"
is one that always threw me, because it means so many different things. It
looks as if the Prime Directive is one of those ambiguous ideas, too, at
least as stated in Norm's words.

A few years ago I was listening to a tape by consultant Peter Block. He
told of a conversation with Dennis Bakke, CEO of a power company called AES
that was noted for its work values. The primary company value was fun.
After Peter attended one meeting in which people expressed different ideas
about fun, and what was fun, and why fun mattered, he said to Dennis,
"People can't seem to agree what fun means. How can you have such an
ambiguous concept as your core company value?"

Dennis replied, "The ambiguity forces people to talk about the idea. That's
what makes the concept of fun so valuable."

Dale

--
Dale Emery, Consultant
Inspiring Leadership for Software People
Web: http://www.dhemery.com
Weblog: http://www.dhemery.com/cwd