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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!we13!ihnp4!cbosgd!osu-dbs!karl
From: karl@osu-dbs.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: What Studs Says About The Net
Message-ID: <560@osu-dbs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Apr-84 09:00:08 EST
Article-I.D.: osu-dbs.560
Posted: Thu Apr 19 09:00:08 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Apr-84 01:58:18 EST
Organization: Ohio State U., CIS Dept., Columbus
Lines: 35


    "Thanks for the comments. I do apologize for the rimless glasses
     crack. I found several of the replies thoughtful and encouraging.
     The great many, however, made my point. They were worse than even
     I suspected.   Their smugness and mindlessness scares me..."
----------
	Looking over the submissions lately, I have to agree that the degree
	of smugness is phenomenal. It has to do, in part, I believe, with the
	relative anonymity of the net (akin to CB radio). There has also got
	to be some correlation with the fact that people with access to the
	net are in an area of the economy that isn't hurting much overall.
	The visceral denunciations of trade unions has got to reflect the
	relatively well off status of the enunciators.
----------
First, I don't view the net as a relative anonymous form of communication.
Many people know quite a bit about me from the things I have submitted, and
I know a great deal about quite a few other people.  Granted, the impres-
sions I have received are probably unbalanced, since one does not sit down
and *really* talk with someone, and one ends up with knowledge of a person's
position on only one subject area.  Nonetheless, I don't think it's anonymous.

Second, my anti-union stance (not yet vented on the net until now) is not
caused by my well-off status.  Rather, my well-off status is caused by my
anti-union stance.  If the computer science industries ever become sub-
stantially unionized, I will change professions; I am prepared to do so
at any time.  I prefer to work where my improvement in my job is directly
related to nothing but my own personal performance, not due to a contract
worked out for hundreds of similarly-employed people.

Maybe that's smug and maybe that's not.  I'm not sure.  The one thing that
I *am* sure about is that I don't like unions, and that led me into a pro-
fession where I don't have to be saddled with one.
-- 
"Confusion will be my epitaph."  -- King Crimson, 1969
Karl Kleinpaste @ Bell Labs, Columbus
accessible as osu-dbs!karl, but *much* better as {cbosgd,rlgvax,ihnp4}!cbrma!kk