Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!labrea!agate!ucbvax!dewey.soe.berkeley.edu!robinson From: robinson@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Michael Robinson) Newsgroups: alt.flame Subject: Re: The Difference It Makes . . . Message-ID: <22831@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 2 Feb 88 14:17:37 GMT References: <22620@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <2333@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <2142@chinet.UUCP> <22775@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <2184@chinet.UUCP> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: robinson@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Michael Robinson) Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley Lines: 129 In article <2184@chinet.UUCP> rhonda@chinet.UUCP (Rhonda Scribner) writes: >In article <22775@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> robinson@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Michael Robinson) writes: >>In article <2142@chinet.UUCP> rhonda@chinet.UUCP (Rhonda Scribner) writes: >I have taken Mike's paternalistic suggestion that flames stay here in >alt.flame to heart Since when has common courtesy become "paternalistic?" Are you implying that only men can be courteous? >>I own, operate, and administrate a Usenet site (the aformentioned BBS). Of >>course I am well versed in the techniques of article forgery. I have to make >>some effort to see that it doesn't happen on my machine. > >Sure, Mike. Look, "even" Mark Ethan Smith itself has accused you of being >behind these forgeries. Now, this can mean any number of things > [1. I really forged the articles] > [2. Mark is confused and paranoid] > [3. We fabricated a "spat" to throw people off the trail] Well, there is always my favorite, the truth, number four, that we really did have a disagreement. Now, whether or not you, youself, believe it, it is still a possibility, and in the interest of fairness, you should have listed it in your list of possibilities. >(Notice that he doesn't deny that Mark Ethan Smith is a pseudo anymore. Where >I said he was trying to prove I was a pseudo LIKE HIS PAL MARK, he doesn't >make any mention that "Mark is not a pseudo!" as we would expect. Why not?) I thought it was getting tedious to make a denial every time you made the assertion. However, since you insist on making it an issue, I hereby, and forthwith, for ever and ever and ever claim that Mark Ethan Smith is a real person who has both a California Driver's License and computer accounts in the same name. Happy? >Let's be clear about this. There was NO evidence. Look here, there is NO evidence that you are who you say you are. However your blatant big lie and agent provocateur tactics in supposedly women-only discussions brings your authenticity into serious question. Now, put up or shut up. >The basis for the opinion >was nothing more than the fact that I got into a heated debate turned flame >war with your alter ego Mark Ethan Smith and you didn't like this, so in >standard MES fashion you perpetuated the original accusation made by MES that >I was really a man using a pseudo. And that's really funny, because that just >happens to be exactly what you've been doing pretending to be Mark Ethan >Smith, isn't IT? No wonder you got that great idea for an insult to throw at >someone, you just happened to be doing it yourself. To the objective observer (i.e. none of Mark, Matthew, you or myself) the accusation you have just made is perfectly symmetrical. It can apply equally to you or me. Either I am perpetuating a fraud and accusing you of doing the same thing as a cover, or you are perpetuating a fraud and accusing me of the same thing as a cover. It works just as well either way. The aformentioned non-objective parties all know the actual situation, so this song and dance of yours is for the benefit of the audience. How is the audience to judge who is the fraud and who is being unfairly accused? Perhaps they can consider whose actions suggest fraudulence more. Who is more evasive? Who hides their identity behind a veil of "privacy." About whom is there more information. Which one of the alleged phantoms has a phone number where they can be reached? >But I still love your >reasoning process: you have no "objective evidence" that your opinion that >I'm really a man using a pseudo is false, so lacking any such "objective >evidence" you just continue to hold the opinion you arbitrarily came up with >to suit your own prejudices. And what is wrong with that reasoning? You wouldn't be complaining if I arbitrarly came to the conclusion that you were who you claimed to be, a conclusion that is equally unsupported, and by your claims, equally unreasonable. >Amusing, Mike. That's the way they teach you >to think at Berkeley? Come up with your own personal explanation of things >based on your personal prejudices, and lacking any objective evidence to >DISPROVE it, hold to it steadfastly? You have said it is a fact (sorry, a FACT) that I don't exist. Now, either that is true, in which case what they teach me here at Berkeley is completely moot, or it is false, in which case you have a demonstrated propensity for lies and deception. >The Berkeley left-wing stereotype >incarnate! Which stereotype is it? Not existing, or not trusting liars and scoundrels? I don't think the Berkeley left-wing has a stereotype of not existing. >>The remainder of your article is largely self-refuting, so I won't bother. > >That's a good one. Self-refuting. I think the real reason you won't >bother is because you have nothing to say in your own defense. No, the real reason is that I didn't have to say anything in my defense. You and I don't matter in this. We both know the true and the false of the matter. It is everybody else that matters. Self-refuting means that the rest of your article convinced the others, the ones that matter, that you are full of it. So, there is no reason for me to respond, is there? >Don't you >have any "objective evidence" to counter my opinion about you, Mike, to >convince me to change my mind? Call the Berkeley Rhetoric department, and ask them if they have a student and tutor named Michael Robinson. Call the School of Education personnel office and verify my employment there. If you remain skeptical, I can give you a list of names of professors in the Computer Science department who know me. If you still remain skeptical, I can mail you a photocopy of my passport (Oh, that wouldn't work. To do that, I'd need to know what state you lived in, and that would invade your privacy.) Objective evidence. >If you respond that you don't care what >opinion I have of you, realize that the feeling is mutual. For someone who doesn't care about my opinions, you certainly spend quite a bit of time trying to discredit them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael Robinson USENET: ucbvax!ernie!robinson ARPA: robinson@ernie.berkeley.edu