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From: samuel@shemp.cs.wisc.edu (Samuel Bates)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: CPSR vs. EFF
Message-ID: <1991Jun28.142859.20500@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 91 14:28:59 GMT
References: <1991Jun26.055354.358@athena.cs.uga.edu> <1991Jun26.184003.22787@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <1991Jun27.051845.30495@wpi.WPI.EDU>
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Cc: samuel

In article <1991Jun27.051845.30495@wpi.WPI.EDU> ear@wpi.WPI.EDU (Eric A Rasmussen) writes:
>
>What the CPSR is really
>trying to say is that they as a group believe that the U.S. government should
>be spending less on the military and more on social and domestic programs. 
>Why computer professionals should feel that they know more about this than the
>government or the rest of us is still beyond me, and I still feel that the
>article was not well written.  
 
	This is admittedly a matter of interpretation, since I was not involved 
	in writing the original ad, but I would say that the intent was to say 
	that the Gulf War was a bad use of computer technology, and that there 
	are much better uses.  As computer specialists, we _can_ make that 
	claim with more knowledge than the general public.

>>Congressional and military sources estimate that at least 100,000 Iraqis died
>>in the war.  Their deaths did not improve the lives of 200 million Arabs
>>living in the Middle East.  Nor did their deaths benefit the millions of
>>Americans who continue to face a declining standard of living and a collapsing
>>infrastructure. 
>
>One must now ask oneself if they (the CPSR) believe that the death of 100,000
>people is ok if it DOES benefit citizens of the United States by raising the
>standard of living and helping the collapsing infrastructure.

	The point is that these deaths, due in large part to computer 
	technology, benefitted nobody.  Again, other applications of the 
	technology _can_ benefit people both in this country and in the Middle 
	East.

>>We call for new priorities.  We call for ... our technical skills
>>to help solve the pressing problems of social justice and human survival.
>
>What modesty.  If only the world worked like a computer program.

	The key word here is "help"; the CPSR are not saying that they can 
	solve these problems by themselves.  They _are_ saying that computer 
	technology and expertise have not generally been directed at these 
	problems, and that it has the potential to _help_ find a solution.

>+---------< Eric A. Rasmussen - Mr. Neat-O (tm) >---------+ +< Email Address >+
>|   A real engineer never reads the instructions first.   | | ear@wpi.wpi.edu |
>|   (They figure out how it works by playing with it.)    | | ear%wpi@wpi.edu |
>+---------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------+

						--Samuel Bates
						  CPSR-Madison