Rich Graves wrote:
Is the goal really to be a "best of cypherpunks," or is it just to cut out the most inane trolling (of which there is a lot)? While I'd classify Dale's posts as among "worst of cypherpunks," IMO they are all at least *of* cypherpunks.
I just want the complete crap out of the way. I was envisioning a mostly unfiltered cypherpunks where the traffic level remained so high that the filtered "best of" lists like fcpunx were still in demand.
Rich, I totally agree with you. I sometimes drop a private email to someone, commenting on how much I enjoyed one of their posts, or complimenting them on presenting what they had to say clearly and concisely enough that even a numbskull such as myself could understand it. Often, after sending it, I will realize it is the same guy I lambasted a few days earlier for being such a shithole-idiot-dweeb in one of his postings. Personally, I find it amazing that it seems to be those who are most enamored of themselves as the serious, cypto-elite of the list who are the least cognizant of how silly they appear (to me) in begging for some mother-hen/higher-authority to make the 'bad kids' sit still in their seats. I find it absolutely astounding, as well, that I am sitting here watching the same process take place on this list that everyone here seems to be so terribly fired-up about when it happens in the world outside of this list. (Some 'outsider' tweaks the nose of our ambassador and, suddenly, we are firing on the citizens in order to defend our flag.) Dale, as you point out, didn't 'sneak under the fence' in the middle of the night. He is a member of this list who has contributed more than a few posts that I have saved or printed out (and filed beside those of some who are already building a scaffold for him in their minds). I am disgusted by some of the behavior and self-righteous missives of some of the people who lay claim to be of superior stature to Dale in this conference, but who act either like children, or like a pack of rabid dogs in expressing their profound belief that they are somehow aligned with the force of 'righteousness' that will slay the 'evil' ones on this list. (Your days are numbered/You're history, pal/etc.) I was particularly dismayed at seeing Ray Archelian, whom I have developed a certain amount of respect for, stooping to 'jack off' in Dale's face, so to speak. Lastly, I find it totally ludicrous that people who purport to be beings of 'reason' are babbling on and on about 'votes' of confidence, etc., on a matter that was determined and announced without asking for any kind of approval on their part, and laying out complicated 'systems' and 'future scenarios' for placing all of the missives in restricted, cypher-politically correct boxes. To tell the truth, given all of the 'shifted-reality' postings since the 'announcement', if I see a question on the list as to whether or not a posting is acceptable if it says, "John Gilmore is a cocksucker." in 'binary'... Well, I would be hard pressed to figure out if it was meant as humor or as a serious question. Toto