At 3:16 PM 7/31/94 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:
[remove reflective headgear, cough, adjust nomex underwear, blow whistle..]
[...]
Chill out. [...]
Damn. Every time I put on that asbestos suit, Tim brings out the napalm....
The connection, tenuous (but no more tenuous that a hundred other threads these past two years), is that of source-level or receiver-level blocking is central to many of the proposals here and in general:
* Centralized control: Source-level blocking.
vs.
* Decentralized, market control: Receiver-level blocking.
Strong crypto makes the second view impossible to stop.
Is this enough of a connection?
Tim, you just made my point. It makes the whole thread moot, and any participation in what appears to be a holy war about it for other reasons (like thrashing someone theologically) is a waste of time.
I doubt I can convince Nathan Zooks that his idea for a world-wide police state to ensure that children are not exposed to anti-Christian material is a lousy idea, or that I can convince Mike Duvos that his idea of mandating access to Nathan's "Funny Mentalist" children so as to de-program them is an equally lousy idea, but I sure do hope I can convince most of you that central control just doesn't work.
Just like Tom Paine, you're reducing things to extremes, Tim. Useful when providing the ideological motivation for a particular political action, but not helpful in a jihad between people who are allies on any other significant topic of discussion on this list. Mr. Zooks can't help but believe what he does because it's a logical consequence of his deeply-held religion. Mr. Duvos' strong belief in the evils of Fun-damn-mentalism, while laudible in my *personal* opinion, seems to prevent him from ignoring an opportunity to thrash anybody with those beliefs. Neither one of them is as comical as you portray them. My point is, we shouldn't perpetuate the brawl on the field by clearing the benches in solidarity with our theological soulmates.
Let the ideas compete, but don't argue for a Net that is what the Unites States was ostensibly organized to avoid.
Yes, and I believe there are at least a dozen newsgroups out there where this kind of ideological warfare can be played out, keeping the s/n ratio here in better shape. A slow news day on the list is not a good excuse to keep the bandwidth allocated with a pissing match about who's religious paradigm is bigger. Cordially(!), Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923