Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!grivel!gara!pmorriso
From: pmorriso@gara.une.oz.au (Perry Morrison MATH)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: New Book in Computer Ethics
Keywords: Ethics, Professional Standards:
Message-ID: <3274@gara.une.oz.au>
Date: 21 Aug 90 00:44:02 GMT
References: <3217@gara.une.oz.au> <9008171738.AA01165@world.std.com> <1990Aug19.230355.22506@syd.dit.CSIRO.AU> <3264@gara.une.oz.au> <519@roo.UUCP>
Reply-To: pmorriso@gara.UUCP (Perry Morrison MATH)
Organization: Uni. of New England, Armidale, NSW.
Lines: 31

In article <519@roo.UUCP> mark@parc.xerox.com (Mark Weiser) writes:
>In article <3264@gara.une.oz.au> pmorriso@gara.une.oz.au (Perry Morrison MATH) writes:
>
>>I understand that his prospects at an
>>Australian institution were recently thwarted and I can only surmise that 
>>this has something to do with it.
>
>>Perry Morrison
>
>At least the original comments were about the book, not the people.
>I don't find the above form of argumentation to be in good taste.
>-mark
>--
>Spoken: Mark Weiser 	ARPA:	weiser@xerox.com	Phone: +1-415-494-4406

My point is that, given a history that your aren't privy to, the comments about
the book appear to be driven by feelings about the authors.

A genuine comment on content is fine, if it is motivated by analysis of the
content. It's not fine in my view if it is driven by some feeling against the
authors. I am suggesting that the original criticism was motivated by the
latter rather than the former.

It's easy to masquerade a comment on the net as impartial, honest and unbiased.
I don't mind unbiased criticism, but thousands of people have now been informed
by Dr. Reynolds that my book is somehow not even **about** computer ethics.

That's too deep an insult to ignore and I believe that those thousands of people
deserve a larger context.

Perry Morrison