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At 02:03 AM 2/2/96 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:
>I think an explanation for this is due. Jim is going to move his complaints
>here instead of dealing with them with me no matter what I do...
Alan Olsen is correct, here.
>
>A bit of history here...
>
>I had seem Jim Bell's postings and had not thought too much about them one
>way or another. I felt that some people had been a bit too hard on him, but
>did not care one way or another.
>
>I organized a physical meeting on Jan 20th at a public coffee house in
>portland. Jim showed up. During this meeting he espoused some ideas which
>I found very bothersome because they sounded far too much like "magical
>thinking" and pseudo science.
Alan Olsen will be amazed to see that I am absolutely agreeing with his
limited understanding of the description of the events of the meeting.
Further, I am acknowledging that I said certain things which, to the vast
majority of the population, and ESPECIALLY moderately-technically educated
ones, would sound like "magical thinking and pseudo science." Even to
extremely well-educated ones, in fact. This sounds strange, but it is true.
But of course, I only told him PART of the story. It is as if David
Copperfield (the magician, not the Dickens character) claimed that he was
going to make an elephant disappear: The claim sounds impossible to
believe. Logic tells us he can't do that. But, on the other hand, he has a
reputation as a "magician." The difference, obviously, is that the name
"David Copperfield" is far better known than "Jim Bell."
Of course, I am embarrassed to have to admit that I can't recall the name of
the person who said something like, "A sufficiently advanced technology is
indistiguishable from magic." Perhaps somebody more "into" SF quotations
can supply the reference.
Regrettably, I fear Alan Olsen (being exposed to talk which at the time he
interpreted as "magic") will mis-remember the details of which I spoke.
Actually, in the short term this is good. Fortunately, I recall what I said
quite well, and it will all become clear eventually.
As I kept saying in my (not-yet-canned) tagline:
Something is going to happen. Something....Wonderful! (2010)
>I did not challenge him about them at the
>meeting and tried to move on to other things.
Alan Olsen is correct, here. He did not indicate the extent of his
disbelief. Perhaps I would have been willing to tell him more if he'd
politely approached me after the meeting with his doubts. Maybe not, however.
It's not really a deep-dark secret.
Instead, Alan Olsen flamed me on this national list, despite myself having
done nothing to him (either in public or private or private email) to
justify this. In case there is any doubt here, I hereby give him permission
to post any past and/or future (private) email from me to him that he may
care to quote, which in his opinion "justifies" his acts of flaming.
Furthermore, I give a blanket permission to anybody reading this message to
publish on this (or other, more appropriate list) any private email from me
which would, itself, "justify" or explain, pre-facto, Alan Olsen's odd
behavior.
In other words, Alan Olsen has bought the rope, and has tied it to a branch
on the tree, and is now asking permission from me to hang himself. He has
my permission.
>A while ago an anonymous poster made a number of comments about Jim Bell's
>beliefs involving assassination politics.
And my response was that unless he (the anonymous poster) was unwilling to
at least use a stable nym to stick around long enough to debate the details
on some SUITABLE area, his criticisms were no more realistic than flames.
> He brought up a number of valid points.
But he (the anonymous poster):
1. FLamed me on this national list, similarly to the way Alan Olsen later did.
2. Failed to be willing to sustain the debate in a more appropriate list,
even under a stable nym.
3. Didn't stick around to respond to my commentary.
> Jim ignored all of those points and flamed him on something totally
>without substance.
Others apparently disagree. I received supportive (private) email, agreeing
that I had been flamed by that anonymous poster. The fact that he was
anonymous says it all. The fact that he has not returned says it all. The
fact that Alan Olsen is bringing up this example as if it is some sort of
fault of mine incriminates Alan Olsen most of all.
> (Not signing messages and not using an identifiable
>nym.)
If that's all that he did, then it wouldn't have been a problem. I suspect
that Alan Olsen had something to do with that anonymous post; in fact, I
suspect that he knows who sent it. Alan's following commentary sounds like
an admission that he, himself, did it.
>This bothered me.
Your general behavior bothers me.
> I responded to the post. A good portion of this message
>was flame, but it contained a number of questions about the workability of
>Jim's pet theories.
Justa sec. You're admitting that a person (YOU?!?)ANONONYMOUSLY posted to
Cypherpunks, with a "good portion" of what even you are willing now to admit
was a "flame", and yet you fault ME for my response to it?
Pardon me for a few minutes while I try to stop laughing, Alan.
>Jim's response to this was to question the validity of the post, but not
>deal with any of the substance of the arguments.
Which I believe is the logical thing to do. For a number of reasons.
First, I am well aware of the primary purpose of the Cypherpunks list, and
the fact that I am relatively new here. I have no intention of inflicting
an unwelcome discussion of "Assassination Politics" on the list, and
certainly not with a person who clearly wanted to start a flamewar and
didn't genuinely want to debate the issues with even a stable nym.
Clearly, I recognized that if I responded to the bait and clogged
Cypherpunks with off-topic (or numerous marginal-topic ones) then this
flamer would already have won by sowing hate and discontent, and have not
suffered any longterm loss of reputation of his own. I, on the other hand,
use my REAL NAME.
Only a fool would have taken an anonymous flamer seriously under those
circumstances.
> (He was questioning it
>because I did not sign the posting.)
You're admitting it, huh?
> I ignored the post as I had other
>things occupying my time...
In other words, you took the time to flame me, but when I failed to take the
bait you lost interest and went on to something else, huh? Interestingly,
subsequent to that event, both you and a number of your clique "lose
interest" very quickly when things turn against you. How...conveeeeenient!
>During the period of time between the meeting and the offending post I had
>created a pdx-cypherpunks list. I had a number of people who were
>interested and it seemed like a good idea at the time...
What you REALLY wanted to do was to create your own little fiefdom where you
could punish non-believers, a privilege which does not accrue to you on the
national list.
>Well, i posted on the list a question about the next meeting and mentioned
>about the results from the key signing. (I had three people, who i did not
>mention by name, who had not signed keys or gotten back to me on it.) I
>relieved a response from Jim about my messages to him here and why he had
>not signed anyone's keys. [For those who are interested, I can forward the
>original messages. They are interesting reading, in an odd sort of way...]
You have my permission, BTW. Go ahead and post them. And this message will
be signed.
> It came down to him complaining about my messages on national list. He
>still did not address any of the issues I had raised (he still has not), but
>was pretty pissed.
Yes I was "pretty pissed." But since you've now basically admitted that
you were the anonymous flamer, as well as having flamed me on Cypherpunks
without justification, under the circumstances I don't think you have pretty
much destroyed your own credibility. I assume people on Cypherpunks don't
want anonymous flaming, and they wouldn't have appreciated it if I'd taken
your bait and abused my position here.
>A number of the other people on the list took him to task on a number of the
>comments he made.
In other words, Alan Olsen's clique decided to help him out of his jam.
He'd screwed up by flaming me nationally, and he disappeared for a few days
while his cronies tried to pretend that it was all my fault.
> It grew into a pretty hot flame war on the list. After I
>started to get complaints and it prevented anything useful being posted,
Read: "After my credibility had been shot to pieces...."
> I posted a message to take the discussion to e-mail or I would start banning
>people from the list.
Read: "I don't want anybody to know what I did, Jim. Stop reminding people
about it!"
>Jim ignored that request and I removed him from the list.
Read: "Alan Olsen exercised his authority in his own personal fiefdom, the
"PDX Cypherpunks list."
>
>That is why it has moved back here.
That's a very interesting admission, Alan. While I'm sure that some of the
people around here are interested in your character faults, baiting,
flaming, and crude anonymous posting, most of them probably want this
discussion off the national list and onto a local one. Problem was, you
couldn't even accept getting embarrassed locally, despite the fact that I
was willing to maintain this as a local issue. You were clearly afraid that
your credibility would be destroyed by a serious discussion of your actions,
so you couldn't even accept limiting the discussion to the local list.
>This will be my last response to Jim's rantings in public.
Read: "Things are bad enough as it is! I'd better cut and run."
> i will be glad
>to deal with questions in e-mail.
On the contrary, I have no interest in dealing with this sleazy character in
email. He was the one who chose a national list to do his flaming and
baiting, and I think he deserves full "credit."
> I have sent a number of responses to Jim
>already in e-mail and he has ignored them. He has made veiled threats to me
>on the pdx list and has shown no sign of wanting to deal with this in a
>rational manner.
Alan, please re-post these "veiled threats." Let's see how you interpreted
them as such. Please explain your reasoning.
Above, you accused me of "magical thinking and pseudo science." Let's see,
maybe I ought to get out my set of voodoo dolls and poke a few pins in them...
Feel that, Alan? And that? And that?
>The issue comes down to this. Jim Bell has a number of ideas i disagree
>with. I have challenged him on some of those ideas.
Anonymously, with flames, on a national list on which the discussion did not
belong, anyway. I, recognizing this, attempted to spare the rest of you
Olsen's rants.
> He is unwilling to
>answer any questions as to the flaws in his beliefs.
Alan Olsen is unwilling to apologize for his behavior. He was unwilling to
debate as a stable nym, even. Clearly, he did not want to genuinely debate
the issues involved.
> Instead, he takes any
>questioning of his ideas as personal attacks.
No, I take unjustified (and anonymous) flames on Cypherpunks as attacks not
only on myself, but on the rest of you people. The only reason this
discussion came back is that Alan Olsen's personal fiefdom was not strongly
enough controlled by him, apparently, to help him out.
> I refuse to give any respect
>to an individual who presents his ideas to the world and yet is unwilling to
>defend them in public (or in private).
That's an odd statement from a person who wasn't willing to debate as a
stable nym. I'm using my own name. And if there are any of you who have
any residual doubts about my willingness to debate my ideas, I recommend
that you ask the regulars on the FIDO areas DEBATE, CIVLIB, CONTROV,
LEGAL_LAW, LAW, POLTITICS, and a few others. While I haven't posted much in
the last couple months there, I copied most everything to those areas and
received many responses. I responded, there, even to flamers if the "tone"
of the "echo" (FIDO's term for what Internet people generally call a "list")
allowed it.
>I suggest you get your killfiles ready.
I suggest that we regularly warn subsequent "newbies" about Alan Olsen and
his misguided set of "ethics."
> I will be killfileing Mr. Bell's
>comments on this list as it does not belong here.
That's illogical. What you really meant is that you don't want to hear the
truth. What you REALLY would like to do is to control EVERYBODY ELSE'S
killfiles, so as to silence me.
>The following is the last I will say publically on the matter.
You're going to take your bat and ball and "go thwait home!" You hear your
mommy calling, Alan.
Jim Bell
jimbell(a)pacifier.com
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