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From: donn@UTAH-CS.ARPA (Donn Seeley)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Abuses of the net
Message-ID: <8612090231.AA15915@utah-cs.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 8-Dec-86 21:31:49 EST
Article-I.D.: utah-cs.8612090231.AA15915
Posted: Mon Dec  8 21:31:49 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Dec-86 03:39:07 EST
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Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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I don't know why I bother (and my diodes hurt all up and down my left
side, too).

Michael Ellis:
	Get your [Objectivist] propaganda out of here and into
	talk.religion or talk.politics where it belongs.

Ellis isn't saying that that Objectivists should not be permitted to
post in the philosophy group, he's saying that Objectivists have not
been posting articles appropriate to that group.

Eyal Mozes:
	Please note that I never used the phrase "the Berkeley Mafia";
	that's not my style.

@i(I) used that phrase.  I don't care whether you find it suitable.
Perhaps I should have used the more official 'brahms gang' (tm) instead
of inventing slang which you perhaps are too unimaginative to handle.

Eyal Mozes:
	Could Mr. Seeley produce any quote supporting [Ellis's alleged
	lack of objections to $reasonable postings by Objectivists]?

Sure.

Michael Ellis (11/27, title 'Rand => talk.religion.misc'):
	That is really excellent, Jack. If only the Objectivists would
	spend more time trying to understand what others are saying and
	less time attacking what they perceive as "opposing
	philosophIES", there would be far less objection to their
	presence in this newsgroup. I would even welcome communication
	among nondogmatic Randroids and the rest of us, just as I
	welcome nondogmatic discussions from any religious viewpoint,
	but there don't seem to be such folk as "nondogmatic Randroids"
	-- they ALL rave on about THE CORRECT definitions and THE
	CORRECT philosophical principles as though Ayn Rand's words
	were The Final Word on such matters. And their ravings are as
	rabid as those of the worst fundamentalist.

Lest there be any doubt, it was exchanges like the following which led
me to believe that the Objectivist postings in talk.philosophy.misc
were no different from the similar earlier postings in net.philosophy...

Eyal Mozes (>>) vs. Michael Ellis (11/28, title 'Re: defining Mathematics'):
	>> Now, is this "formalist" approach to mathematics valid? I
	>> submit that it isn't.  It is based on wrong philosophical
	>> principles - clearly on rationalism, the idea that
	>> meaningful knowledge can be gained without referring to
	>> reality, and also on logical atomism and the conventional
	>> view of logic.

	"Wrong philosophical principles" -- this is religion, and does
	not belong in this newsgroup unless you are prepared to support
	it without resorting to cultish doctrines and appeals to the
	authority of the Holy Texts of Rand.

I agree completely with Ellis here.

The Objectivists in the original 'net.philosophy' were my original
exposure to a unique form of censorship which can be carried out in
public forums.  The strategy is simply to produce so much verbiage on
so many trivial points that it is impossible for a normal human being
to find the time to refute them and still get any other work done.
Since no interesting problems are covered, the readers get bored too.
Eventually all the opposition and most of the readers drop away, and
the conquerors are left to masturbate in peace.  Net.music was nearly
killed this way back in the time of the Kate Bush debacle.  Net.women
has been under constant assault from men who post messages about toilet
paper or door etiquette instead of women's issues.  I'm afraid I can't
scrounge up so much as one crocodile tear of sympathy for Objectivists
who feel they are being censored in the philosophy group.

Sorry,

Donn ('are you happy now?') Seeley