Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!xanth!ukma!cwjcc!gatech!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!sugar!ficc!jeffd
From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Info-futures
Message-ID: <2675@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 10 Jan 89 11:47:53 GMT
References: <8901091852.AA09475@lll-crg.llnl.gov> <8901091902.AA05549@pinocchio.UUCP>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 79

In article <8901091902.AA05549@pinocchio.UUCP>, bzs@pinocchio.encore.com (Barry Shein) writes:
> 
> >I have been wondering why there is so much discussion about
> >the electoral college, texas and its independence, and capitalism
> >on a mailing list that is (I thought) supposed to involved with
> >things like why one memory model looks better than another one for
> >a given type of architecture, why CD-ROM isn't a good choice for
> >certain types of filesystems but excellent for archives, and so on.
> 
> Exactly, you've got one loser like jeff daiell and then of course two
> or three other people get sucked in and before you know it there's a
> several messages per day on some irrelevant topic.

Barry, I did *not* get the discussion of whether the compnet should be
voluntarily or coercively funded started.  Check again.  Someone
else urged voluntaristic funding, another person tried to discredit
that approach not on its merits, but on the grounds that it seemed
like the sort of thing a certain Washingtonian might say.  Since
that's not really a valid way to debate a subject, I pointed out
the method's lack of validity ("guilt by association").  

> It would really be nice to think that someone (particularly someone
> who claims to be a libertarian!)

Maybe my memory is getting as bad as yours, BS, but I don't recall
anyone identifying himself or herself as a libertarian.  You're
the one applying that term (Goering decided who was a Jew, BS
decides who's a libertarian) -- and you've generally done so to
invoke, as did the person who prompted my first posting, guilt by
association.    

> would show a little self-restraint
> without begging that someone else play Nanny State and force him to
> behave

Hey, guy, *I'm* not the one throwing tantrums and slinging around
words like "loser" and "illiterate".   

Question: if the New England Journal of Medicine carried an article
on whether medicine should remain half-private/half-governmental,
be privatized, or be socialized, would you call the author of
that article such names, just because s/he pointed out that
such a question would be significant to the future of health care? 

> (unless his attraction to reduction of govt is the prospect of
> being able to obnoxiously annoy anyone he chooses without fear of
> reprisal beyond ignoring pleas to stop.)

Speaking of illiteracy ... are you saying the reprisal I fear is that
I will ignore pleas to stop?  Or that the reprisal I fear is that
others will ignore *my* pleas for *them* to stop?  In which case,
stop what?  Do be more careful with your sentence construction 
before calling someone else "illiterate", BS.  Or will your next
posting say, "Jeff Daiell doesn't use English too good"???  And,
oh, yes -- do remember to capitalize proper names, old chap.


With all appropriate respect,



Jeff Daiell
(opinions my own, until taxed away)


INDEPENDENCE FOR TEXAS!









-- 
         "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good...
          O Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."
  
                                --- The Animals