--- Eugen Leitl wrote:

----- Forwarded message from jrandom -----

From: jrandom Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 13:03:02 -0800 To: i2p@i2p.net Subject: [i2p] weekly status notes [feb 1] [snip] Thats all I have for the moment (good thing too, as the meeting starts momentarily). As always, post up your thoughts whenever and wherever :)

Ha ha. Just why is it that "we" should post "up" our thoughts when it is now the norm to ignore such thoughts if they (a) come from the 'wrong' source, or (b) if said thoughts do not mesh in the approved fashion with the agendas of the moment? I've recently come to a realisation that the reason why most people are accepting of the current environment of highly tuned and structured radio/television media and news content is that the common themes underlying most such input gives people a false sense of inclusion and belonging. Sure, the cognitive neural structures that become trained and tuned to one broad class of input leverage some of the basic and flexable architecture of the human mind, and this leads to what some would consider a higher commonality of performance in communication and interaction with like others, but the loss of fundamental flexability in thought and debate in public spaces is an unacceptable compromise in so far as I am concerned. Excuses that in turn leverage the idea that the present status- quo is the best we've got at the moment, in terms of fostering a community of purpose among people of a single culture, and also in terms of avoiding an `unproductive' factionalisation of the citizenry, strike me as being without sustainable merit. Am I making sense here, or is this merely superficially obfuscated surplus verbiage? You decide. In the meantime I will further consider, in my few moments of quiet and solitude, the negative aspects of the current state in which civil and human rights are selectively applied only to those who kiss ass in the 'approved' fashion. Regards, Steve ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca