Many psychopunks, particularly T.C.May, E.Hughes, and D.Barnes, have been upset by my latest name variation, `The Executioner', supposing in their sweaty desperation at exposure for their crimes that it represents some kind of insinuated threat. Nothing could be further from the truth. The obvious meaning of `execute' in this context is `to carry out a plan', as in `execute a program,' as in `elicit the truth'. The connotation is completely harmless. I have no idea why anyone could construe it negatively, unless, as the saying goes, they have something to hide! Sorry, but I can't be responsible for tormented psyches and consciences in the face of Truth! I don't understand why these master pseudospoofers should be upset by a trivial name change. In fact, in the face of their own plethora of faces, it seems quite hypocritical! It would be like taking the words, `I'm going to come kill your family with a rusty razor blade' seriously. This idea of `execution' reminds me of historical cases of execution. There are very many variations. One of the best and my favorite is that by a lynch mob, led by a corrupt leader. The lucky criminals get hung, with their faces bulging around, and legs dangling below, a constricting, unremitting noose, sort of like a poisonous snake around the neck. `Brave New World' ends with a delightfully novel description of a hanging: NE, N, NE, N, NW, W, SW, ... (paraphrase!) I imagine that hanging is not a very bad way to die, of all the ways invented and experienced by man. Traitors were often hung by the noose in the Civil War, as I understand it, when our country turned in on itself in disunity. Who was it who was executed with the words, `I regret I have but one life to give to my country'? The infamous spy Benedict Arnold (who put on one face to the British, and another to the Americans, quite the ingenious pseudospoofer!) was hung, I understand. Other cases of execution, of course, are more grisly. We have the Inquisition to thank for some of the more hideous variations. I don't know if Poe's Pit and the Pendulum was ever really in use, but what a fantastic way to die! The shining, razor sharp blade gently swaying to and fro, hypnotically mesmerizing, swish, swosh, subtly, imperceptibly lower, approaching like a whisper in one's ear by Death. The victim in the tale faced anonymous black judges in a dark courtroom, as they handed down the sentence, described like a druglike stuporous hallucination. As I recall the protagonist in Poe's tale had his stomache glanced by the blade, dark red blood slowly oozing forth, but he was ingenious and saved himself by turning the vicious rats in the dungeon into a useful tool! Ah, what fantastic literary irony. The Pit and the Pendulum is a sort of mental and psychic torture. I wonder how many days the blade was descending over? The end could certainly not be as painful as compared with other physical torture devices, like the rack, used to elicit confessions. Who can forget that wacky human enclosure with spikes on the door? What amazing creativity. I've always been fascinated by the Guillotine in use during the French revolution. The doctor Guillotine was very humane and was tormented by the visions of humans who had a few moments of discomfort and displeasure ensuing after failing to perfectly align their necks with the executioner's blade. Of course, one swift and single CHOP! was ideal, but sometimes the executioner was drunk, or maybe his mask was in the way, and it took more than one CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! over a period of a few seconds to dispatch the soul on its merry journey. Guillotine invented his ingenious device, and executions were very rapidly improved in reliability and accuracy. This was very useful because all kinds of terrorists, counterrevolutionaries, and criminals had hidden themselves in the guise of the Victorious Revolution, and the public turned on itself after all the discredited leaders had been accounted for (in--what else?--a `head count'). The Guillotine was really unsurpassed in its efficiency at the time, a real technological marvel. I'm sure there were many people at the time who were quite impressed by it, and said that it was a fine piece of machinery, and that even though it could be put to evil uses, `Guillotines don't kill people, people kill people' and therefore no one should have any qualms about its existence and continued use, or safeguards and restrictions and regulations governing the authority of its operation by naive and unskilled unprofessionals, or even criminals, themselves ready amateur Executioners. One said, `yes, surprising as it sounds, I'm coming out in favor of the Guillotine.' The people got what they wanted. They weren't about to let some sinister, evil, oppressive government stand in their way of exercising their true glorious birthright freedoms, like killing each other. One of the things that really fascinates me is the possibility of cyberspatial-oriented murder. It seems to me that in a CryptoAnarchic society where there is no government or social order, things like hired assassins will be more readily hired, and certainly more abundant. What do you do when you are robbed or harassed? Call the police? Ha, ha, there are none of those annoying, meddlesome, timeconsuming and troublesome Social Justice Farces in our Private Utopia. Imagine the delight of hiring hitmen with completely untraceable cash, and communicating with them with Chaum style DC nets to describe the victim and pinpoint one's enemies for execution. That reminds me of the Focaultian idea that punishment and torture is related to the human body. The theory is, if you don't have a physical body, you can't experience pain. Some pseudospoofers in the psychopunk cult have suggested that they are unaccountable in this fashion -- pseudospoofing allows them to achieve a sort of godlike omnipresence and transcendance through their myriads of ephemeral identities. Actually, this philosophy appears to originate with one of the leaders and is a central tenet of their idolatry. The `fluidity of identity' exists in Cyberspace, to some extent, but all the pseudospoofers I know still have a real-world body that bleeds like any other, and all their tricky circumventions of its existence are no match for superior technology. That's The Truth! ``Any sufficiently evil machination is indistinguishable from murder.'' --S.Boxx ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.