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From: andrew@trlamct.OZ.AU (Andrew Jennings)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: UUCP to Russia
Message-ID: <8711071103.AA10165@trlamct.trl.oz>
Date: Sat, 7-Nov-87 22:02:56 EST
Article-I.D.: trlamct.8711071103.AA10165
Posted: Sat Nov  7 22:02:56 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Nov-87 06:30:02 EST
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I know its now a dying subject on the mailing list, but at the risk of 
inciting a flame war I cannot resist adding my small contribution.

Those who worry about security leakages across the net bely the fact that
many >highly< commercial organisations are on the net already. They 
obviously have taken precautions to avoid losing valuable information.

Those who view the USSR as a nation of Darth Vaders worry me enormously. As
a non-American I worry about >both< the US and the USSR. For us the ideology
is not so important as the possibility of conflict. 

Can't we simply accept one principle in this : there are no winners in a
possible conflict. Either both win or we all lose.

Given that obviously you guy's had better learn to live together. What better
way to learn about each other than over a computer network ? I thought the
game we were all in was to use technology to benefit >all< of us, not just
one country.

There is an interesting quote in my newspaper today :

  " Today ittakes greater courage to fight for peace than it does
    to prepare for war."


I know you are going to construe this as naive, wishful thinking etc. But 
more and more it seems very pragmatic to me. Have you ever connsidered in 
any detail how much damage it does to the American economy diverting all
that money, talent etc. into defence when you could be putting it to work
on commerce ? Why do >you< think the current Russian administration is so
concerned to reduce its defence spending ?



UUCP: ...!{uunet, mcvax, ucb-vision, ukc}!munnari!trlamct.trl!andrew
ARPA:     andrew%trlamct.trl.oz@uunet.uu.net
Andrew Jennings   AI Technology        Telecom Australia Research Labs

..usual disclaimers apply ..




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