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From: kathy@wrcola.UUCP (K.M.Vincent)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: To Post or Not To Post... That's the Moral Issue
Message-ID: <876@wrcola.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Sep-87 12:54:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: wrcola.876
Posted: Fri Sep 11 12:54:06 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Sep-87 18:32:25 EDT
References: <1111@ark.cs.vu.nl> <818@cod.UUCP> <1114@ark.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: kathy@wrcola.UUCP (K.M.Vincent)
Organization: AT&T, Winston-Salem, NC
Lines: 42

In article <1114@ark.cs.vu.nl> kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) writes:
>> author should make a moral statement... [paraphrased]
>
>This is turning things upside down. Think of how readable newspaper
>articles would be: "John Doe, 24, set his house on fire, killing
>all residents. The New York Times editorial staff strongly objects
>to people setting houses on fire. It is dangerous and against the law."
>
>Feel better when reading such articles?


On the other hand:

"John Doe, 24, set his house on fire, killing all residents. 
Though people in Doe's neighborhood are now on guard against
people who want to set fires there, other neighborhoods are
wide open for the taking by pyromaniacs.  All a dedicated
pyromaniac has to do is buy a can of gasoline from the local
gas station (about $5 at the going rate), pour the gasoline
around a inviting structure, light a match, and run.  And they
unlikely to be apprehended because etc etc etc."

Would you feel great reading *that* kind of article?

I believe that's was the point of the original objector to the
original posting.  The original posting read - to me, anyway -
almost like an *invitation* to phreakers everywhere.  As such,
it was no less biased than either of the pseudo-NYT-articles
above, and it was not the pure "objective" journalism the poster
says it was intended to be.  Whether journalism is ever truly
objective or not is subject to debate elsewhere.

I don't know the original intent of the poster beyond what he tells us.
I just know how I read it.  I also know well enough that I can mean one
thing when I write something -and yet it can sound entirely different
to someone who reads it.  Sometimes that's the reader's fault:  S/he
isn't reading carefully enough.  Sometimes that's my fault:  Without
realizing it, I may not have said what I really meant to say.  


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