Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!ai-lab!life!gnn From: gnn@spike.ai.mit.edu (George Neville-Neil) Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix Subject: Re: USENIX and South Africa Message-ID: Date: 7 Jun 90 20:06:15 GMT References: <13051@smoke.BRL.MIL> <13055@smoke.BRL.MIL> <811@ssc.UUCP> <13072@smoke.BRL.MIL> Sender: news@wheaties.ai.mit.edu Organization: I see no organization here. Lines: 43 In-reply-to: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL's message of 7 Jun 90 16:24:29 GMT In article <13072@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes: > ....................... Clearly profession technical > societies do not even come close to being able to properly make such a > determination. Therefore, if they attempt to meddle in such affairs it > is most likely that their actions will be totally inappropriate, judged > by objective standards. Much better to leave these affairs to those > whose primary job it is to deal with them. FLAME ON : Bull !! All associations are made up of people, and in a democracy it is the people who decide. Just because someone is "trained" to be a politician/lawmaker/foreign relations person does not mean that they have anny better grip of any political situation. It does mean that they know how to get elected and stay there but that is all. There isn't an institution on Earth that can reliably teach someone enough psychology/socioligy/politics/esp to deal with real politics. Witness the foreign policy failures of successive countries administrations since 1900. Or even further back. I for one support the idea that everyone get involved. The more data you have the less likely that one error will skew you too far from the truth. In this vein the more minds are turned towards a problem the better the solution. Parallel processing you know :-) I take offense at your statement sir and believe that you are sorely mistaken. FLAME OFF : Sorry about that but it really got under my skin. I think we should see what we can do to help these people in SA if they are anti-apartheid. Has anyone considered setting a vote up in USENIX for this ?? Later George ______________________ One World, One People. ----------------------