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From: dgil@pa.reuter.COM (Dave Gillett)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware,news.misc
Subject: Re: Goodbye.
Message-ID: <641@saxony.pa.reuter.COM>
Date: 3 Jan 91 21:00:44 GMT
References: <1990Dec16.113452.19023@wbgate.wb.com> <214@buster.ddmi.com> <20812@crg5.UUCP>
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Organization: Reuter:file Inc  (A Reuter Company) Palo Alto, CA
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In <20812@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:

>There is nothing new here.  People have been writing letters since
>the post-Renassaince spread of literacy (and before).  During some
>periods, writers went out of their way to say things like "your humble
>servant" to placate the reader if there was offense.  At other times,
>people wrote flames and just expected that was what letters were like.


     One of the first major uses of the printing press, in Europe, was a
massive flame war between Luther and his friends and various Catholic
theologians.  Flame wars are at least as old as print, and are probably
a necessary side-effect of literacy.
     (Literacy is, of course, virtually a prerequisite for democracy.  The
poster that Nick was responding to commented about rumours of a government
move to kill the net, and this would be entirely in keeping with the
general assault on literacy being waged by the government and its
backers....  Follow-ups to alt.conspiracy?)
                                                Dave