Personal attacks etc (was Re: USA: National Security Strategy...)

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On 01/01/2018 02:45 PM, Ben Mezger wrote:
> since when did cpunk got so personal specially on a public list? and
> since when has cpunks become a sexual diary?

Personally, I would rather read flagrant personal attacks and outright
pornography from Cecilia than even one-tenth of the flagrant racist
(including white supremacist), anti-semitic, homophobic, and dishonest
spam that eminates from the like of those who I now call #$%& and #$%&#$
%&#$%&#$. Her posts are probably more on-topic than that sort of filth
and fraudulent garbage. (Arguably the worst example of said filth and
fraudulent garbage is changing the name of Lauren Weinstein's PFIR or
People for Internet Responsibility to a misleading, fraudulent, and
racist name, such that it makes it more difficult to fact-check the
original postings.)

Unmoderated lists like these work best only when the participants agree
on a topic and to behave as decent people. While I understand the
objections to moderating this list (note: NOT censoring, moderating),
there's almost no point to having the list if it's not going to stay on
a defined topic and if we as a community have no power to deal with
those who habitually behave as anthropomorphic uncaged animals.

If the "cypherpunks" banner is to mean anything, then we need to take it
back from those who are using it as an excuse to be racists, homophobes,
thieves, and liars. As someone who is today a citizen of good character,
I feel I should be able to call myself a cypherpunk and maintain my
membership here without risk of associating myself with those who engage
in such putrid and/or criminal conduct as I have enumerated above. I
believe a true cypherpunk is of good character (including honesty and a
respect for basic standards of decency) and disown those who use the
"cypherpunks" banner and mailing list to partake of and further conduct
to the contrary.

I'm no fan of personal attacks, and I can see how overt sexual content
would be at least nominally off-topic, but those two things rank among
the very least of our problems.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at rushpost.com>
http://www.rantroulette.com
http://www.skqrecordquest.com