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From: bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: UUCP - USSR  and Barry's flame.
Message-ID: <8710282256.AA01629@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Wed, 28-Oct-87 17:56:51 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.8710282256.AA01629
Posted: Wed Oct 28 17:56:51 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Oct-87 10:25:56 EST
References: <8710282007.AA00269@barnard.UniSoft>
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I appreciate Don Coleman's comments. My mail indicating I was
considering changing the format of the group to minimize the noise was
just that, a consideration and I am very much open to hearing opinions
on the matter. My attitude on this is far from fixed.

In part I was responding to the wave of private mail that was
beginning to fill my box with sentiments like "can't anything be done
about this junk?!" and "drop me, I've had it". Those who are looking
for an audience are quite frankly "killing the goose that lays the
golden eggs".

I don't think a touch of "politics" per se is a dirty word. I do think
irrelevant grandstanding and soap-boxing is self-defeating and
completely non-productive. A note detailing one's views on some
specific event occuring between the USSR and Finland in the '30s might
be true but it's of no value. Such non-sequitars add little (or, at
the very least, there is some responsibility on the part of the sender
to tie it together, other than to indicate that it proves that they
know who the bad guys really are.)

The future of computing will have political aspects guiding its
development, technology does not occur in a vacuum. The real challenge
is to tie those thoughts together, not just spout off some steam which
seems to have been triggered by precisely one word seen in the subject
header.

Anyhow, perhaps cooler heads will prevail.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University