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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-unix!husc6!seismo!mcvax!botter!klipper!biep
From: biep@klipper.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.misc,news.software.b
Subject: Re: Bogus loud warning messages
Message-ID: <778@klipper.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Tue, 2-Jun-87 05:51:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: klipper.778
Posted: Tue Jun  2 05:51:49 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jun-87 03:46:04 EDT
References: <1216@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <1953@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Reply-To: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 23
Xref: utgpu news.misc:433 news.software.b:613

> This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire
> civilized world.  You message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of
> dollars to send everywhere.  Please be sure you know what you are doing.
> 
> Does this mean that someone is spending millions if not tens of millions
> of dollars per year to support 'soc.singles'?  
> 
> (Is it unethical to program in false warning messages?)

That part is true, and therefore not unethical (without wanting to say that
all true facts can be ethically made public!).
The hard part is, that this message actually defines the civilized world
to be those parts of the world where usenet is received. As a joke, that
might be funny, but in this way it sounds both boasting (are we really so
civilized?) and insulting to the rest of the world. I am sure the author
hadn't meant it that way, but since I read it I have been waiting for
someone to say we shouldn't say such things. I am disappointed nobody did
(but perhaps they were all waiting like me :-))
-- 
						Biep.  (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax)
When a doctor doctors a doctor, does the doctoring doctor doctor the doc-
tored doctor with the doctoring doctor's doctrine,  or does the doctoring
doctor doctor  the doctored doctor  with the doctored doctor's  doctrine?