Re: Tim May's offensive racism (was: about RC4)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim May wrote:
If Bob has objections or differences of opinion, fine. But he should not squander his reputation capital by foaming about my personal choices, by referring to snot running down my barrel, by claiming I said I was going to kill a judge, and other such lies.
And he really ought to tone down his "Hunter S. Thompsen wannabee" style of writing. It was old a couple of years ago.
I am of the opinion that Hettinga still has some value, but he should work on his style and do a little more homework before posting. I think what he is trying to convey is relentless positive energy and friendliness. This may work in person, but it tends to fail in ASCII. He also doesn't seem to be aware that a good portion of his articles are insulting. It's somewhat understandable if he is a recovering Democrat. I've seen cases like this before and they are treatable. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNG5T/5aWtjSmRH/5AQEXxAf+NmsB63JByu1N879lnBezBGsaM+oLIluK imZsWa//u+XLtEn+OVwhEk7vSn7BGIpUjVv3YjwA76dBHOgFaVH7RvK7XrM2Qilb clteX7+GFRJQas3wy1JWtmTmlWZtLm/NfQAD8GMXWmlq9S8VJpEpD7qNg9cy0KAo RVW72oFniQ70oChs+RK8JXFD0sDNaUrmeC1axplT5g7UdYnEJi/0eSWY8fSjX/6i iLggR69+YNy+/cGaxfjpW0PFAp4yHaquSW2lKxeHX3bkX+bEEsZRJ8WO0Q7mdJlb PxRWn9G5knZkTokmOJ1Rc0PA3QnkZo3XE7aXGs0spdxPj9gkk0RDHg== =+V8D -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Neva Remailer, cleverly pretending to be Monty Can2sin wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP FORGED MESSAGE----- I am of the opinion that Hettinga still has some value, but he should work on his style and do a little more homework before posting.
I think what he is trying to convey is relentless positive energy and friendliness. This may work in person, but it tends to fail in ASCII.
Electronic communication is a bare-bones ASCII interpretation of our intended communication. i.e. - stripped of intonation and other physical gestures which convey a meaning beyond the mere words we speak, in themselves. Although there are some rudimentary ASCII images (:>) which can be used to add elements of shared emotional or conceptual constructs to the message we are attempting to convey. The Medium IS the Message. Until the email/communications medium evolves to allow us the ability to add not only smiles and winks, etc., but also chagrin, doubt, self- doubt, etc., to our online communications, the medium will remain an impediment to conveying the totality of our true message, as opposed to being merely an electronic version of 'pidgin Englich'. e.g. - When I read 'ymmv', I interpret it as 'You Make Me Vomit.' despite the fact that I now know it is usually meant as 'Your Mileage May Vary'. I still instinctively take it to mean the former, which sometimes results in miscommunication, and sometimes results in some of the most outrageous humor imaginable.
He also doesn't seem to be aware that a good portion of his articles are insulting. It's somewhat understandable if he is a recovering Democrat. I've seen cases like this before and they are treatable.
One of the advantages of the shortcomings of email as a communications medium is that we _do_ see our intended meaning stripped bare, with the result that we then have to 'think' (god forbid!) about what portion of our message is being 'twisted' by the loss of our accompanying physical gestures, and what portion of our message is being 'revealed' by the removal of the 'socially polite' gestures that we use to 'conceal' our true intent in our message. e.g. - When a dog bares its teeth while cringing, and the dog's human companion says, "It's just her way of smiling." Right... When we are attacked for what our ASCII Doppleganger 'appears' to reveal about us and our message, we tend to adopt a 'fight or flight' posture, in which we then proceed to either 'suck ass', drooling on ourself as we try to explain what we "meant to say," or we launch a counter-attack which tends to confirm the opposite of what we had intended to convey. The only True (TM) response to, "You are a racist, sexist, violent asshole piece of shit!" is, "Yeah? So what's your point?" If you take a look at the posts which stir-up long threads of animosity and dissention, I think you will recognize that they are based on simple, universal 'keywords' which we then react to by aligning ourself on this-or-that side of the Newtonian equation. We need to remind ourselves that, ever since the Theory of Relativity was born, we should take into account that Dr. Vulis' theory that "All CypherPunks are cocksuckers." is subject to wide variations of interpretation/acceptability, depending on whether the 'CypherPunk' is named John Gilmore, or Carol Anne Cypherpunk. Not that I'm a 'sexist'...:> (;P) {:0) (:) {;{>} (:>)=======< Help! They knocked me down and cut off my arms! \ (:>)-------< I'm healed! I'm healed. / ArmMonger
At 2:33 pm -0500 on 11/17/97, Monty wrote:
I am of the opinion that Hettinga still has some value, but he should work on his style and do a little more homework before posting.
Homework is for wimps. :-). I work from memory almost all of the time, and everything I say here can be classified as my opinion, and nothing else. Most of the things I state as fact are correct, when you root around on them a bit, like Choate did with the Great Awakening stuff. When I'm wrong on my memory, like the Aurora stuff, I freely admit it. Usually, I try to write myself in some wiggle room, which I should have done with Aurora, because I clearly didn't know what I thought I did about it. And, frankly, I'm too lazy to go look it up when I'm just spewing a rant to cypherpunks for my own entertainment, and the occasional witch trial. :-). If we were doing science around here, Tim, or I, or you, wouldn't have anything to say. Check the archives :-) for Tim's comments on how thought out a post on this list should be. :-). Actually, I'm very serious. Go look.
I think what he is trying to convey is relentless positive energy and friendliness.
I appreciate your charity. I *am* friendly, for the most part, as people who've met me will probably attest.
He also doesn't seem to be aware that a good portion of his articles are insulting.
Nope. I know exactly when I'm insulting, and, when I write it, I don't care if some people are insulted. See above. I do like to poke at people, a bit, just for fun, though I try to let people know that I'm kidding them somehow. I may feel cause to moderate myself later, of course. Which is a good thing, too, because I *like* to shoot from the hip, and I *do* take out people in friendly fire accidents on occasion.
It's somewhat understandable if he is a recovering Democrat.
A little more complicated than that. I was born a John Birch Republican (Pop helped found the El Paso chapter). Mom was one of those Republican women who volunteered for, and finally ended up running, other people's campaigns. She ran Alaskan Congressman Don Young's phone bank in his first campaign almost 30 years ago, and he's still there. Teenage rebellion in the mid-70's made me a liberal in high school, and in college, I've joked about being a LUG (acronym overloading noted): Liberal Until Graduation. (Yes, Wolfe and Thompson were my favorite authors, at the time, and it shows, Heinlein, E.E.Smith, Pournelle, and other right-libertarian science fiction authors are my other writing influences, mostly in childhood.) Working for a living, particularly for Morgan Stanley when the market took off in the early 80's, cured me fast of confiscatory government and spending other people's money for a living. I've spent most of my time working for, as Tim puts it, "hoity-toity" financial institutions, like Fidelity, and Citicorp, though for the past few years, I've devoted most of my time to thinking (which means writing, which is how I think, most of the time) about the effects of financial cryptography on the net, and, as Tim rightly says, not actually having a *real* job. :-). I credit this list, and the eloquence of people like Tim, and Eric, and Perry, and Duncan, and John, and Nick Szabo, and all the other people I can't but should remember right now, for driving the last nail in the coffin of my belief in any government at all. I think, eventually, that the state will have the same power the church has now. Which is only as much as we want it to.
I've seen cases like this before and they are treatable.
Thanks for your extensive wisdom, Dr. Freud. Sheesh. Maybe *you* need a job, yourself? ;-). Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>
participants (3)
-
nobody＠neva.org -
Robert Hettinga -
TruthMonger