I've been studying "detweiling" in old archives as this issue is raised here every so often. imho the lesson of detweiler has nothing to do with detweiler, but in fact more to do with his targets. effective "detweiling" would be impossible if it were not for the large egos of his quarry. he selects his targets carefully based on the size of their egos, presses their obvious buttons, and stands back to watch the fireworks ensue. the larger the ego, the more easy it is to do this. (i.e. larger fireworks/provocation ratio). detweiler took a lot of pride in how much reaction he could get with just a few posts or barbs. he is not really apparently responsible for ever actually mailbombing the cpunk list from what I can tell. he believed he was perfecting the art of playing with people's egos. a sort of depraved cyberspatial psychology experiment. the amusing thing about "detweiling" is the way that it is something like a bad, self-perpetuating virus among those with big egos. detweiler took great glee in starting the virus wherein these people with big egos blame all their obvious personal problems on him (i.e. atrocious lack of interpersonal skills). since the virus propagates not because of any action on his part, but because of the inherent psychology of those with big egos, it continues on this list even though there seems to be no evidence that Detweiler has had anything to do with this list for perhaps over a year. the cypherpunks is a rabid breeding ground for this detweiler virus, because of the vast array of throbbing egos. the flamewars are routine because of the immature psychology of many posters, esp. the more "prominent" ones. even anonymous or pseudonymous posters defend themselves because of their large egos, and those with big egos feel they have to defend themselves against anonymous or pseudonymous accusations, or take intermittent jabs at whatever hapless pseudonym-of-the-week is thought to be detweiler. imho from what I have seen (which is admittedly not everything, as the detweiler stuff is rather endless), detweiler is not really destructive in himself. but he is an amazing catalyst to those that already have destructive tendencies within themselves, and he tweaks them into erupting. in a sense it is almost a public service in helping people with big egos temporarily relieve their "painful flareups". but I see no sign that he has been anywhere near the list for a long, long time, and I think all the ranting and scapegoating of him is quite strong evidence of all the big egos and small minds that litter this list. there is nothing new about detweiler's approach. there was a classic greek who was put to death for the same reason: not provoking people by calling them names, so much as asking them questions that embarrassly exposed all their ego problems. his name was called "socrates" and he was put to death for refining his art beyond that which was tolerated by a power structure largely populated by those with the ego problems (power structures are always dominated by these types, it is like flies and dead meat, or moths and flames). the joke of course may be that detweiler could have been dead for a long time, and people here would still be blaming him for their problems. perhaps we have a new convenient substitute for Satan in the cyberspace age. "the detweiling made me do it." (hee, hee). "projection" was identified by freud in another century as a basic device of the ego, a pity that few in our modern era are aware-- or perhaps it is not such a pity from detweiler's perspective. <g> (p.s. I imagine quite a few people will accuse "me" of being detweiler. I assure you my amusement will at least exceed or match that which detweiler ever obtained.)