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From: harris@portia.Stanford.EDU (Joe Harris)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: sci.philosophy.objectivism
Message-ID: <8321@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 17 Jan 90 06:34:43 GMT
References: <8284@portia.Stanford.EDU>, <9001162348.AA11695@apee.ogi.edu.>,
Sender: Joe Harris <harris@Portia.stanford.edu>
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 49

Sender: Joe T. Harris
Reply-To: harris@portia.Stanford.EDU (Joe Harris)
Distribution: news.groups
Organization: Stanford University


<8284@portia.Stanford.EDU>  
    In article <12986@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>,  greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
 (Gregory Nowak) writes:

>Please explain to all of us...why
>sci.philosophy.meta is less appropriate than sci.philosophy.tech for
>objectivist postings.

     In article <12987@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, the same author writes:

>In article <9001162348.AA11695@apee.ogi.edu> mehuld@apee.ogi.edu (Mehul Dave) >writes:
>}Greg Nowak suggests that objectivists should use sci.philosophy.meta
>}because it is unused right now and would be ideal instead of creating
>}sci.philosophy.objectivism.  The reason why it would not be proper to
>}use sci.philosophy.meta is because it is not exclusively for discussing
>}Objectivism. 

>THANK YOU. This is a perfect explanation of why objectivist postings
>don't belong in sci.philosophy.tech. 

     As far as I can tell, neither sci.philosophy.tech or sci.philosophy.meta
is inappropriate for Objectivist postings.  All the postings to sci.philosophy.
tech by Objectivists have been technical, scientific expositions, from my
postings on the sciences of mathematics and physics to other postings on
the science of ethics.  I have never understood why technical discussions
of Objectivism are less appropriate in sci.philosophy.tech than those of other
philosophies.

     However, the propriety of Objectivist postings on a given newsgroup is
not the issue.  It has become increasingly clear that a newsgroup specifically
for discussions on Objectivism is needed.  Objectivist postings to sci.
philosophy.tech bother the others on that subgroup, for whatever reason.
The only way to be sure that this type of problem cannot arise again is to
create a specifically Objectivist newsgroup, not ask students of the philosophy
to move to a newsgroup which is more appropriate.

     I fear that, regardless of where students of Objectivism post, we will
have to deal with people who wish to disparage our ideas.  However, if we
have a newsgroup of our own, we will at least be able to avoid antagonizing
those who are willing to leave us alone.

Joe Harris
harris@portia.stanford.edu