Various people, on Unicorn's suit:

...

You only had to find someone who was ill, and then kick him while he was down.

It has never been demonstrated to my satisfaction that tmp@netcom.com is ill, and while the suggestion has been made frequently I don't think we can use the supposition to accuse Mr. Unicorn of "kicking" a sick person. This is a serious twisting of the facts.

Hee hee. True, Detweiler (who's not tmp, of course) has often been accused of being 'ill' -- meaning mentally deranged. I doubt that he'd agree, though ;-)

...

Was it Rousseau who said, "First, we kill all the lawyers"?

No, my ignorant friend, it was Shakespeare.

Shakespeare?? Not Moses... ;-) As I said earlier:

In an ideal world one would have the freedom to express without any risk of damage, whether it be economic, material or social. Ideally, I should be able to publicly discuss my views, on anarchy or religion or sadism or whatever, without risking social censure. In an ideally tolerant society, the need for anonymity would then be reduced to freedom from analysis.

Unfortunately our society is far from ideal. Though Unicorn could freely post on the relatively more tolerant Net, he still faces intolerance in the 'real' world.

For all we may talk about reputation systems, multiple identities and so on, the seven-digit possible loss Unicorn talks about is _real_, in a way cyberspace and lost net.reputations just aren't, yet.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab@dxm.ernet.in Voicemail +91 11 3760335; Vox/Fax/Data 6853410 H-34C Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA The National Fairness to Game Animals Association says: Support your right to arm bears! --------------------------------------------------------------------------