Abuses of the net
Stevan Harnad
Someone using the following name, userid and institution
"rath...@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Really Michael Ellis)
Organization: 2-3:30PM, tuesdays and thursdays"
wrote to sci.lang:
> you have shit-for-brains... This is all horse manure...
> you are blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice...
> Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding vicinity...
> get her ass up here... don't waste your foul breath telling me...
> male chauvinist pricks... but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all
> over the place... go shove where the sun doesn't shine... Utter crap.
I find it astonishing that such an obviously disturbed individual has
access to an account at brahms.berkeley.EDU, let alone the news net.
If the net is to evolve into the respectable forum many of us hope it
will become, there must be a way of blocking this sort of misuse. Not
all groups can be moderated, but the unmoderated ones should still
ensure that serious consequences overtake this sort of abuse. A copy of this
will be sent to the system administrator at berkeley.EDU. I hope
other net news users will also bring some collective pressure to bear
on this sort of behavior. (Apologies to any of the above-named if
someone else has been clandestinely misusing their names and accounts,
but then they will no doubt want to be alerted so they can change passwords.)
--
Stevan Harnad (609) - 921 7771
{allegra, bellcore, seismo, rutgers, packard} !princeton!mind!harnad
harnad%mi...@princeton.csnet
Matthew P Wiener
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I am directing followups to news.misc only. news.admin, Stevan, is for
discussion of day to day running the software sort of stuff, not flames
about the net itself. And posting your article twice, instead of cross
posting, makes it hard to track down and respond to.
In article <2...@mind.UUCP> har...@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>>[a dozen or so rude comments deleted]
>I find it astonishing that such an obviously disturbed individual has
>access to an account at brahms.berkeley.EDU,
Really? Ohmygosh, how did that happen? I guess that modem in People's
Park wasn't such a good idea after all.
> let alone the news net.
You are a complete net.neophyte. I recommend you try e-mail first to
the person involved. I have absolutely no idea what was going through
Michael's mind at the time, and his "shit-for-brains" seemed entirely
uncalled for, but the rest of his comments seemed fairly routine fare.
Considering that Michael made reference to net.debate from THREE YEARS
back, it's clear that something is going on that you don't know about.
For all you know the person involved called Michael incredibly rude
things back then, and he's just returning the favor. I wouldn't know.
Read a little more carefully before calling someone "obviously disturbed."
At least if you plan to have your complaint considered seriously.
Actually, if I had my druthers, I'd ban people like you for crossposting
to 10 groups without putting in a followup. Instead I sent you e-mail
asking you not to do so. I never got a response, but then I've never
seen you do it again. Posting to inappropriate groups in the first
place, like news.admin, isn't too net.friendly an idea either.
>If the net is to evolve into the respectable forum many of us hope it
>will become,
Hahahaha. This isn't talk.bizarre.
> A copy of this
>will be sent to the system administrator at berkeley.EDU.
I think such e-mail, especially from neophytes, is considered boring.
> I hope
>other net news users will also bring some collective pressure to bear
>on this sort of behavior.
Well, this net news user is going to call Michael a bad boy the next time
he sees him. (While we are still in sci.lang, does anyone care to tell me
how to phrase such third person sentences smoothly and correctly? Be sure
to fix the followup.)
ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
Without NNTP, the brahms gang itself would be impossible. --Erik E Fair
G A Moffett
In article <2...@mind.UUCP> har...@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
-> Someone using the following name, userid and institution
-> "rath...@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Really Michael Ellis)
-> Organization: 2-3:30PM, tuesdays and thursdays"
-> wrote to sci.lang:
->
-> > you have shit-for-brains... This is all horse manure...
-> > you are blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice...
-> > Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding vicinity...
-> > get her ass up here... don't waste your foul breath telling me...
-> > male chauvinist pricks... but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all
-> > over the place... go shove where the sun doesn't shine... Utter crap.
->
-> I find it astonishing that such an obviously disturbed individual has
-> access to an account at brahms.berkeley.EDU, let alone the news net.
-> If the net is to evolve into the respectable forum many of us hope it
-> will become, there must be a way of blocking this sort of misuse. Not
-> all groups can be moderated, but the unmoderated ones should still
-> ensure that serious consequences overtake this sort of abuse.
The language you cite is a bit groady, but I just wanted you and
others to know what we all do not agree; I consider the language
you quote to be strongly worded, but I don't think that this sort
of language should be forbidden from the network. It has its place
in human speech. (If I were on that machine, I'd
ask the person why they used such language anyway).
-> A copy of this
-> will be sent to the system administrator at berkeley.EDU.
Whatever my feelings are, this is exactly what you should do to protest
a posting that you think should be discouraged from the net. The
system adminstrator at brahms.berkeley.EDU is in the most powerful
position regarding who is permitted to use Usenet there, and that is
where the authority should lie. He who runs the machine, runs Usenet,
as far as each site is concerned.
-> I hope
-> other net news users will also bring some collective pressure to bear
-> on this sort of behavior.
It is not unreasonable to appeal to the opinions of others to get
support for what you feel is right.
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: Abuses of the net
Summary:
Date: Wed Nov 19 23:18:53 PST 1986
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In article <2...@mind.UUCP> har...@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
-> Someone using the following name, userid and institution
-> "rath...@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Really Michael Ellis)
-> Organization: 2-3:30PM, tuesdays and thursdays"
-> wrote to sci.lang:
->
-> > you have shit-for-brains... This is all horse manure...
-> > you are blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice...
-> > Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding vicinity...
-> > get her ass up here... don't waste your foul breath telling me...
-> > male chauvinist pricks... but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all
-> > over the place... go shove where the sun doesn't shine... Utter crap.
->
-> I find it astonishing that such an obviously disturbed individual has
-> access to an account at brahms.berkeley.EDU, let alone the news net.
The language is rather extreme, but I wouldn't go so far as to suggest
the writer were mentally ill, nor do I (yet) question their right
to use the net. No matter, what *I* think or you think doesn't matter
anything so much as what the System Administrator there says.
-> If the net is to evolve into the respectable forum many of us hope it
-> will become, there must be a way of blocking this sort of misuse.
Yes, there is: in the worst possible case, you can stop accepting or
forwarding news for brahms.berkeley.EDU, and other site whose users
offend you and their administrator does not control it. Those who
tolerate it will continue to receive and distribute it.
-> A copy of this
-> will be sent to the system administrator at berkeley.EDU. I hope
-> other net news users will also bring some collective pressure to bear
-> on this sort of behavior.
Whatever my opinion, I think this is the right way to call on it:
tell the sys. admin. what's going on, and ask them to control it.
But be prepared that the sys. admin. may choose not to control it.
--
Gordon A. Moffett {whatever}!amdahl!gam
~ And each day I learn just a little bit more ~
~ I don't know why but I do know what for... ~
--
[ The opinions expressed, if any, do not represent Amdahl Corporation ]
Stevan Harnad
> I have absolutely no idea what was going through
> Michael's mind at the time, and his "shit-for-brains" seemed entirely
> ...Read a little more carefully before calling someone "obviously disturbed."
> At least if you plan to have your complaint considered seriously.
The rest of the fairly routine fare, for those who don't recall it,
was this (I regret that it got more care than it deserved):
>> you have shit-for-brains... This is all horse manure...
>> you are blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice...
>> Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding vicinity...
>> get her ass up here... don't waste your foul breath telling me...
>> male chauvinist pricks... but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all
>> over the place... go shove where the sun doesn't shine... Utter crap.
> Considering that Michael made reference to net.debate from THREE YEARS
> back, it's clear that something is going on that you don't know about.
> For all you know the person involved called Michael incredibly rude
> things back then, and he's just returning the favor. I wouldn't know.
Whatever is going on, I don't want to know. And abusive rounds of
"returning the favor" like this are just what I think some collective
constraints should be used to stop, for the sake of the archival value
and social responsibility of the net.
> Actually, if I had my druthers, I'd ban people like you for crossposting
> to 10 groups without putting in a followup. Instead I sent you e-mail
> asking you not to do so. I never got a response, but then I've never
> seen you do it again. Posting to inappropriate groups in the first
> place, like news.admin, isn't too net.friendly an idea either.
There is evidently a difference of opinion about what constitutes an
abuse of the net.
(I was, by the way, indeed a net-neophyte in my first posting, and, as
you note, I did act on your message from then on, although I did not
reply to it, because it was rude. I imagine that redundant posting by
neophytes is a predictable initial error [perhaps some software
similar to the software that blocks excessive requoting in a reply
could be used to constrain new users' naive zeal], but is the rude style also
to be a hallmark of the experienced net user, along with its apparent
sympathy for pathological abusiveness? I suspect that the glib
scatologs and scatologophiles are going to be more vocal in their
views on this, so the sample of responses will be a biased one. I hold
no brief for the "moral majority" -- with which these objections will
no doubt be equated by the irate scatologophiles -- but might I encourage
those who simply value the language and prefer politeness to make their voices
heard too?)
> >If the net is to evolve into the respectable forum many of us hope it
> >will become,
>
> Hahahaha. This isn't talk.bizarre.
No comment.
Michael C. Berch
Sigh. The quoted material looked sort of odd there for a while, until
I realized that Mr. Harnad had merely abstracted the parts that he
didn't like out of an interesting, lengthy article of 122 lines about
gender distinctions in natural languages. I then noticed that the
person to whom the the quoted remarks were directed were in fact Mr.
Harnad himself, who seemed to be getting the worse of the argument.
Hardly a disinterested observer.
Mr. Harnad also apparently failed to notice that at least two of the
objectionable fragments above, "Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal
Heights..." and "get her ass up here" were not statements of
rathmann@brahms but were in fact quoted example material meant to
illustrate gender distinctions in utterances.
rathmann@brahms's rhetoric of argumentation is not a style I
personally practice, and Mr. Harnad is certainly entitled to complain
to anyone he wishes, including the Usenet administrator at Berkeley,
but it all seems rather a tempest in a teapot, no?
Michael C. Berch
ARPA: m...@lll-tis-b.arpa
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Stevan Harnad
to a sample of scatalogical remarks I had excerpted from a reply I
received in sci.lang as follows:
> I then noticed that the
> person to whom the the quoted remarks were directed were in fact Mr.
> Harnad himself, who seemed to be getting the worse of the argument.
Mr Berch should read that posting again, if he has the stomach for it.
He will notice that the worst of it is directed at some other poor
unfortunate rather than myself. Not that it makes any difference.
As to who was getting the worst of the argument, I wouldn't know,
since I do not read such abusive material. The only reason I took the
trouble to excerpt and post the sample was a hope that some negative
publicity might help to curb such abuses, and that others might be
encouraged to take similar steps. As I suggested in a prior reply, I
am not a vigilante or a prude or a spokeseman for the Moral Majority.
I think it's common sense that posting such material shouldn't be
free of consequences, any more than publishing it in a newspaper or
displaying it with a sky-writer would be. There's no reason the net
should allow itself to become a latrine wall for the acting out of a
few borderline personalities.
Ed Falk
> > Someone using the following name, userid and institution
> > "rath...@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Really Michael Ellis)
> > Organization: 2-3:30PM, tuesdays and thursdays"
> > wrote to sci.lang:
> >
> > > you have shit-for-brains... This is all horse manure...
> > > you are blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice...
> > > Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding vicinity...
> > > get her ass up here... don't waste your foul breath telling me...
> > > male chauvinist pricks... but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all
> > > over the place... go shove where the sun doesn't shine... Utter crap.
> >
> > I find it astonishing that such an obviously disturbed individual has
>
> Sigh. The quoted material looked sort of odd there for a while, until
> I realized that Mr. Harnad had merely abstracted the parts that he
> didn't like out of an interesting, lengthy article of 122 lines about
> gender distinctions in natural languages. I then noticed that the
> person to whom the the quoted remarks were directed were in fact Mr.
> Harnad himself, who seemed to be getting the worse of the argument.
> Hardly a disinterested observer.
Mr. Harnad has taken a very informative and interesting article and
quoted it grossly out of context.
I can't believe that in this day and age people are still so uptight about
four-letter words. Perhaps someone should write a filter for rn that
allows people who are easily offended to have all dirty words pre-screened
for them.
--
-ed falk, sun microsystems
terrorist, cryptography, DES, drugs, cipher, secret, decode, NSA, CIA, NRO.
(The above is food for the NSA line eater.)
David S. Hayes
After reading Steve's original posting (cited in the
references line), I thought it would be obvious to most
people that the sort of language Steve objected to was a
gross violation of net.etiquette. Now that I've seen a few
days of the followups, I'm astonished that this doesn't seem
clear at all.
In my opinion, the net does not need or deserve the
sort of traffic that Steve was citing. Aside from the usual
stuff about making the sender (rath...@brahms.berkeley.edu)
look like a jerk, it reflects poorly on all the users at
Berkeley. [What, they allow that kind of stuff out there??]
I won't talk to people who argue like that. I don't want to
see this stuff on my system. I certainly don't want to pay
to transport it! Someone, preferably the SA at
brahms.berkeley, needs to explain the basics of manners to
whoever posted the original.
I cast my vote for a reasonably polite (not
flame-proof, just polite) net.
David S. Hayes, The Merlin of Avalon
US Army Artificial Intelligence Center
PhoneNet: (202) 694-6900
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Mark Steven Jeghers
>> In article <2...@mind.UUCP> har...@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>> >
>> > > you have shit-for-brains... This is all horse manure...
>> > > you are blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice...
>> > > Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding vicinity...
>> > > get her ass up here... don't waste your foul breath telling me...
>> > > male chauvinist pricks... but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all
>> > > over the place... go shove where the sun doesn't shine... Utter crap.
>> >
>Mr. Harnad has taken a very informative and interesting article and
>quoted it grossly out of context.
>
>I can't believe that in this day and age people are still so uptight about
>four-letter words. Perhaps someone should write a filter for rn that
>allows people who are easily offended to have all dirty words pre-screened
>for them.
Well, Ed, the thing is that foul language is still (and always will be)
offensive to many people. This is perhaps the reason it is called "foul".
Ok, so I'm working in Bert and Ernie mode here - perhaps a little more
specific explanation would be in order.
Some of the tendancies of "dirty-talk" is that 1) someone or something is
equated to something vile and filthy (e.g. shit-for-brains, Fecal Heights),
2) human sexuality is depicted in a degrading way (we don't need any
examples of this, I'm sure), or 3) God is dealt with in a mocking fashion
(which is not a big deal if you are athiest, agnostic, etc, but it is to
others). Granted, these will largely depend on personal views and tastes,
but there is a generality to be drawn: the intent is to take something
that is revered or valued and degrade it. This is, thus, a sort of a
disrespect, both to the thing being degraded (sexuality, diety, whatever)
and the person being flamed (in the even that it is in a flame-context).
I was always taught that the absence of such vocabulary was an indication
of a wiser person. I suppose that is a sweeping generalization, but I am
reluctant to dismiss the idea altogether. I don't claim to have a perfectly
clean vocabulary myself, but, at the same time, I try not to go off the
deep end in the hostile fashion that the original poster seems to have
done. I interpret that as sheer hatred, thus I find it offensive.
In closing, let me suggest that "in this day and age" we are not really
any smarter than those who came before us. We like to *tell* ourselves
that we are wiser (or more open, or more fair, etc), but sometimes I
must suspect that we smell better, and that's about it. We ought not
to discard a point of view or principle *just* because of it's
antiquity.
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Mark Steven Jeghers - the living incarnation of "Deep-Thought" |
| ("You won't like the answer ... you didn't ask it very well.") |
| |
| {ihnp4,cbosgd,lll-lcc,lll-crg}|{dual,ptsfa}!cogent!mark |
| ^^^^^^-------recommended------^^^^^ |
| |
| Cogent Software Solutions can not be held responsible for anything said |
| by the above person since they have no control over him in the first place |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Michael C. Berch
> to a sample of scatalogical remarks I had excerpted from a reply I
> received in sci.lang as follows:
>
> > I then noticed that the
> > person to whom the the quoted remarks were directed were in fact Mr.
> > Harnad himself, who seemed to be getting the worse of the argument.
>
> Mr Berch should read that posting again, if he has the stomach for it.
> He will notice that the worst of it is directed at some other poor
> unfortunate rather than myself. Not that it makes any difference.
Indeed, but you seem to be fixated on the "scatology" of the remarks,
rather than their content or rhetorical stance. You also apparently
failed to notice (again) that at least part of what you object to was
example material dealing with the subject matter (sexism in language).
I found the original article interesting and challenging. (I don't
know rathamnn@brahms, by the way, so it's not a matter of personal
defense.) I had no trouble "stomach"ing it at all. I don't necessarily
agree with all that he says, but that's irrelevant.
Why do you think the proper level of discourse on Usenet should be the
common denominator that offends no one? This is a highly pluralistic
internetwork, with (based on Brian Reid's measurement programs) over a
hundred thousand participants. A fair percentage of the material is
going to offend SOMEONE, whether because of four-letter words,
or scatology, or controversial political/religious/cultural views.
Should all these be supressed as well?
It is a very large leap from "I don't like what rathmann@brahms wrote;
it offended me, and I will therefore not read such material" to
"rathmann@brahms must be a disturbed individual; how did he get an
account at Berkeley? All this abusive material must be suppressed."
The former seems quite reasonable. The latter is ridiculous.
> [...] As I suggested in a prior reply, I
> am not a vigilante or a prude or a spokeseman for the Moral Majority.
Fine. Then the proper thing to do is hit the 'n' key, or create an rn
KILL file. You may decide for yourself what you like to read. If you
are a Usenet site administrator, you may decide (under whatever limitations
your institution may prescribe) what newsgroups to accept and feed,
and what your users may have access to and post. But you DON'T
have the right to dictate to the community at large what the proper
level of taste and inoffensiveness should be in order to meet your
personal standards. That, sir, is what the Moral Majority tries to do.
> I think it's common sense that posting such material shouldn't be
> free of consequences, any more than publishing it in a newspaper or
> displaying it with a sky-writer would be.
What sort of consequences do you mean? If you have been defamed, by
all means sue for libel. Or try the obscenity statutes of your
jurisdiction. Given the substance of the article involved, you are not
likely to get far in either case. I don't know what newspapers you read,
but there are many in which rathmann@brahms's article would be considered
bland by comparison., and publish quite nicely "without consequences".
If you can't stand the heat, by all means stay out of the kitchen.
Michael C. Berch
Newws/mail co-administrator, styx
Gene Ward Smith
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In article <2...@mind.UUCP> har...@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>As I suggested in a prior reply, I
>am not a vigilante or a prude or a spokeseman for the Moral Majority.
>
You sound to me to be a bit on the prissy side, which I admit is not
necessarily the same as prudishness. I *do* think you are a net vigilante.
Your first response was to get the person who offended you removed from
the net. If I followed this logic, I should try to get you removed from
the net, since I find your attitude to be extraordinarily offensive. I
don't like censors, self-appointed or otherwise; and the person you flammed
has been posting to the net for years without any problem. Of course he
used to be the SA where he worked, so I guess as a sort of net demi-god
he was a little hard for prissy censors to remove.
>I think it's common sense that posting such material shouldn't be
>free of consequences, any more than publishing it in a newspaper or
>displaying it with a sky-writer would be. There's no reason the net
>should allow itself to become a latrine wall for the acting out of a
>few borderline personalities.
I think your remarks about Mr. Ellis are in extremely poor taste.
Perhaps Mr. Ellis should sue you and Princeton University for libel and
character assassination. After all, posting vicious personal slander
(Mr. Ellis is not mentally unbalanced, you will be relieved to learn)
shouldn't be free of consequences, any more than publishing lies about
him in a newspaper should be.
I think you owe Michael Ellis an apology. But I won't try to kick you
off the net until you give him one; since I believe the net is big enough
even for the self-appointed censors. I hope I am right.
ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
"Last week in a dream I gave a fellow my shirt buttons to differentiate
and the fellow ran away with them." -- Engels
jor...@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu.uucp
Someone using the following name, userid and institution
"rath...@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Really Michael Ellis)
Organization: 2-3:30PM, tuesdays and thursdays"
wrote to sci.lang:
" [ bad no-no words ] "
I find it astonishing that such an obviously disturbed
individual has access to an account at brahms.berkeley.EDU, let
alone the news net.
Really? I'm not surprised at all ... I'd say there's a lot of
obviously disturbed individuals on brahms ...
A copy of this will be sent to the system administrator at
berkeley.EDU.
If you're going to make a point about it, don't send it to the admin at
Berkeley.EDU (aka, "ucbvax") since he really doesn't have anything to
do with the site brahms ... I would send it to the admin on brahms ...
there are probably 6 major news sites at Berkeley, each serving a
different part of the electronic community via NNTP ... the best way
to reach the news admin is to see which NNTP site is responsible for
their feed (i.e., look at the Sender: line of the offending article ...
for brahms-ians, it's cartan -- part of the math/stat group of
machines) -- don't just send blindly to ucbvax.
I don't think that kind of language should be censored, but I do
think if you are offended by it you should make that clear to the
poster. Telling the system admin right away is pretty skeevy.
/jordan
and...@hp-sdd.uucp
>four-letter words. Perhaps someone should write a filter for rn that
>allows people who are easily offended to have all dirty words pre-screened
>for them.
I don't consider myself uptight about (quote-unquote) "foul language",
being likely to use it myself when upset enough, but there's a definite
difference between an occasional use of invective to make a statement
more emphatic ("hell, yes!"), inject some emotional content ("you
heartless bastard, how can you say that?") make the tone more casual
("another damn I/O bug"), or even as part of a colloquialism that is no
longer shocking ("puttin' on mah shit-kickin' boots"), as compared with
gratuitous, automatic, excessive use, or use in personal attacks.
Frankly, it's tiresome to run across postings from people who are
using the net to "act out" or vent their emotions inappropriately.
Just as it is wearing to read postings in all caps, or ones where
every sentence ends with an exclamation point, seeing too much invective
decreases the effect (and speeds up the "n" key reflex!).
I don't want to run this into the ground (being more of a free-wheeler
than a bureaucrat), but a little courtesy goes a long way in public
discussion. And as the guide for new net.users says, you never know
when someone reading what you've posted might be across the desk
from you when next you go job-hunting!
Andrea Frankel, Hewlett-Packard (San Diego Division) (619) 592-4664
"...like a song that's born to soar the sky..."
______________________________________________________________________________
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re...@decwrl.uucp
I must say that I am also appalled. Everyone knows that "shit-for-brains" is
an adjective, and so the sentence "You have shit-for-brains" is grammatically
incorrect. The correct way to say it is to leave the hyphens out: "You have
shit for brains".
har...@mind.uucp
asks:
> Why do you think the proper level of discourse on Usenet should be the
> common denominator that offends no one? This is a highly pluralistic
> internetwork... A fair percentage of the material is
> going to offend SOMEONE, whether because of four-letter words,
> or scatology, or controversial political/religious/cultural views.
> Should all these be supressed as well?
The issue in this case was not mere offensiveness, but abusiveness --
ad hominem coprolalia, to be precise. I think the extract (which has by now
been quoted often enough) speaks for itself. I can't help thinking that those
who say it was quoted out of context must either be joking or have had their
senses numbed by exposure to too much behavior of this sort. The only
conceivable context that could have been filled in around the extracts
I quoted that would have justified them would have been if they were
themselves quotes from someone else's abuses of someone else and the Net.
As to plurality and controversy, in place of an inclination to
suppress it, you might say I had a certain professional interest and
involvement in fostering it. Ad hominem abuse, on the other hand, I'm
rather committed to combatting.
> You may decide for yourself what you like to read... you DON'T
> have the right to dictate to the community at large what the proper
> level of taste and inoffensiveness should be in order to meet your
> personal standards. That, sir, is what the Moral Majority tries to do.
Who's dictating? I have neither the power nor the desire to dictate. I
simply did what you profess to be defending. I aired my own reactions
to what I viewed as unconscionable behavior. It has several times been
gumblingly suggested by way of response that *I* am the one who ought to
be taken off the Net, presumably for venturing to express my views against
someone's ad hominem coprolalia. It's an odd state of affairs when people
can view themselves as the righteous defenders of free speech when they
they rush to the defence of someone's right to tell someone else she has
"shit-for-brains" while clamouring that someone else ought to be deprived
of his right to denounce it.
> What sort of consequences do you mean [when you write:]
>> I think it's common sense that posting such material shouldn't be
>> free of consequences, any more than publishing it in a newspaper or
>> displaying it with a sky-writer would be.
I had a few in mind. One was that those, like myself, who feel that
such behavior represents a grave abuse of the Net, should make their views
known, rather than, by default, encouraging people who are so inclined
to act out in this way without any expectation of public consequences.
I also wished to draw the case to the attention of the relevant
authorities so that if (as I hoped) there were rules against such behavior,
they might be enforced. [As it happens, the account in question was shut down
because the individual who had posted the message was not the authorized user of
the account, and that violated the rules of the system; so, as the system
administrator indicated, the local matter is "moot."] Finally, I
wanted to serve open notice that one person, at least, was prepared
neither to contribute to the impression that one has no choice, when
someone else's private anomalies are rudely forced on one in public, but to
walk away from it in silence, leaving the perpetator to repeat such
antisocial antics on others, nor was he prepared to be drawn into any
back-and-forth round of responding in kind.
fa...@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu.uucp
> [deleted]
> I think you owe Michael Ellis an apology. But I won't try to kick you
>off the net until you give him one; since I believe the net is big enough
>even for the self-appointed censors. I hope I am right.
Or rather, let us hope that the network is *too* big for the
self-appointed censors.
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!usenet use...@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
rath...@cartan.uucp
>Gur vffhr va guvf pnfr jnf abg zrer bssrafvirarff, ohg nohfvirarff --
>nq ubzvarz pbcebynyvn, gb or cerpvfr.
Nj cbbe onol. Zbzzl abg ohl lbh fbzr ehoore wnzzvrf ynfg gvzr lbh
jrag ubzrfvr jbzrfvr? Qvq lbh sbetrg gb chg ba lbhe qvncref jura
lbh fvtarq ba?
Urrurr.
>V guvax gur rkgenpg (juvpu unf ol abj
>orra dhbgrq bsgra rabhtu) fcrnxf sbe vgfrys.
Bs pbhefr lbh qb. Lbh'ir tbg fuvg sbe oenvaf, nf lbh'ir orra znxvat
nohaqnagyl pyrne.
Urrurr.
>V pna'g uryc guvaxvat gung gubfr
>jub fnl vg jnf dhbgrq bhg bs pbagrkg zhfg rvgure or wbxvat be unir unq gurve
>frafrf ahzorq ol rkcbfher gb gbb zhpu orunivbe bs guvf fbeg.
Jryy, lbh'ir tbg n cerggl yvzvgrq oenva, V'z jvyyvat gb tenag lbh
gung. Ybgf bs crbcyr guvax bgurejvfr, naq lbh pna bayl fnl gung
gurve rvgure yvnef be fghcvq. Wrrm, jung na vafhygvat naq nohfvir
yvggyr nffubyr lbh ner.
Urrurr.
>Gur bayl
>pbaprvinoyr pbagrkg gung pbhyq unir orra svyyrq va nebhaq gur rkgenpgf
>V dhbgrq gung jbhyq unir whfgvsvrq gurz jbhyq unir orra vs gurl jrer
>gurzfryirf dhbgrf sebz fbzrbar ryfr'f nohfrf bs fbzrbar ryfr naq gur Arg.
Gur bayl pbaprvinoyr pbagrkg? Frm jub? Gur pbtavgvir ratvarre jub
jebgr gur NV cebtenz gung lbh hfr sbe n zvaq? Jurer qb gurl trg
nohfvir "V nz abg nohfvir" zbebaf yvxr lbh sebz naljnl? Yrnxvat
frcgvp gnaxf?
Urrurr.
>Nf gb cyhenyvgl naq pbagebirefl, va cynpr bs na vapyvangvba gb
>fhccerff vg, lbh zvtug fnl V unq n pregnva cebsrffvbany vagrerfg naq
>vaibyirzrag va sbfgrevat vg.
V fhccbfr jr'er fhccbfrq gb gunax bhe yhpxl fgnef sbe gung. Vs lbh
qvqa'g fubj hc, guvf arg jbhyq unir tebhaq gb n unyg ynfg jrrx.
Urrurr.
>Nq ubzvarz nohfr, ba gur bgure unaq, V'z
>engure pbzzvggrq gb pbzonggvat.
Lbh ratntr va vg lbhefrys cerggl ybhqyl. Naq fghcvqyl, V znl nqq.
Urrurr.
>V unir arvgure gur cbjre abe gur qrfver gb qvpgngr.
Lbh qb unir gur cbjre naq qrfver gb sneg gubhtu.
Urrurr.
>V
>fvzcyl qvq jung lbh cebsrff gb or qrsraqvat. V nverq zl bja ernpgvbaf
>gb jung V ivrjrq nf hapbafpvbanoyr orunivbe.
Nverq? Nf va oebxr jvaq? V gubhtug fb.
Urrurr.
>Vg unf frireny gvzrf orra
>thzoyvatyl fhttrfgrq ol jnl bs erfcbafr gung *V* nz gur bar jub bhtug gb
>or gnxra bss gur Arg, cerfhznoyl sbe iraghevat gb rkcerff zl ivrjf ntnvafg
>fbzrbar'f nq ubzvarz pbcebynyvn.
Jung n cvffcbbe yvne lbh ner. Vg'f orra fhttrfgrq gung lbh or gnxra
bss orpnhfr lbh ner fb erznexnoyl naq ulfgrevpnyyl ehqr nobhg vg,
jvgu ab frafr bs pbafpvbhapr bgure guna lbhe bja zbebavp cevffvarff.
Urrurr.
>Vg'f na bqq fgngr bs nssnvef jura crbcyr
>pna ivrj gurzfryirf nf gur evtugrbhf qrsraqref bs serr fcrrpu jura gurl
>gurl ehfu gb gur qrsrapr bs fbzrbar'f evtug gb gryy fbzrbar ryfr fur unf
>"fuvg-sbe-oenvaf" juvyr pynzbhevat gung fbzrbar ryfr bhtug gb or qrcevirq
>bs uvf evtug gb qrabhapr vg.
Qrabhapr vg, lrf. Or n pbzcyrgr fuvg-sbe-oenvaf nffubyr nobhg vg, ab.
Urrurr.
>V unq n srj va zvaq. Bar jnf gung gubfr, yvxr zlfrys, jub srry gung
>fhpu orunivbe ercerfragf n tenir nohfr bs gur Arg, fubhyq znxr gurve ivrjf
>xabja,
Jub tvirf n qnza nobhg lbhe ivrjf? V org n qbmra zbaxrlf cvffvat
sbe n gubhfnaq lrnef pbhyq pbzr hc jvgu orggre ivrjf guna lbh'ir
tbg.
Urrurr.
>engure guna, ol qrsnhyg, rapbhentvat crbcyr jub ner fb vapyvarq
>gb npg bhg va guvf jnl jvgubhg nal rkcrpgngvba bs choyvp pbafrdhraprf.
Naq abj, sbe fbzrguvat pbzcyrgryl qvssrerag. Ynqvrf naq Tragyrzra,
Nffubyrf naq Srpnysnprf, sbe gur svefg gvzr ba nal arg, V cerfrag
gb lbh gur Fgrina "Cevaprgba Cevffobl" Uneanaq gurzr fbat:
Fuvg-sbe-oenvaf, fuvg-sbe-oenvaf,
Jung nz V tbvat gb qb,
Abj gung V'ir tbg fuvg-sbe-oenvaf?
Zl zbzzvr jnf n svfu, ohg zl qnqqvr pbhyqa'g fjvz! Ub!
Fuvg-sbe-oenvaf, fuvg-sbe-oenvaf,
Jung nz V tbvat gb rng,
Abj gung V'ir tbg fuvg-sbe-oenvaf?
Zl fvfgre unq ab haqrejrne, fnirq ure ynhaqel ovyy! Ub!
Fuvg-sbe-oenvaf, fuvg-sbe-oenvaf,
Jung nz V tbvat gb cbfg,
Abj gung V'ir tbg fuvg-sbe-oenvaf?
BU AB! JUNG QVQ V WHFG QB? JUNG'F TBVAT GB UNCCRA GB ZR?
Ba gur vafgnag ercynl fyb-pnz, gurer jr frr gur nafjre, ybhq naq pyrne:
C H O Y V P P B A F R D H R A P R F
Urrurr.
>V nyfb jvfurq gb qenj gur pnfr gb gur nggragvba bs gur eryrinag
>nhgubevgvrf fb gung vs (nf V ubcrq) gurer jrer ehyrf ntnvafg fhpu orunivbe,
>gurl zvtug or rasbeprq.
Jryy, gurer nva'g. Lbh yhpxrq bhg.
Urrurr.
>[Nf vg unccraf, gur nppbhag va dhrfgvba jnf fuhg qbja
>orpnhfr gur vaqvivqhny jub unq cbfgrq gur zrffntr jnf abg gur nhgubevmrq
>hfre bs gur nppbhag, naq gung ivbyngrq gur ehyrf bs gur flfgrz; fb, nf gur
>flfgrz nqzvavfgengbe vaqvpngrq, gur ybpny znggre vf "zbbg."]
Qnzarq yhpxl guvat gbb. Fvapr V qba'g rkvfg nalzber, V pna fnl
jungrire gur shpx V jnag naq abg gerzoyr va zl obbgvrf. Lbh ubjrire
ner tbvat gb fhssre harkcrpgrq objry ceboyrzf nf ybat nf lbh ernq
gur arg. Fb trg fbzr ehoore cnwnznf arkg gvzr nebhaq. Gurl ner
n ybg rnfvre gb svaq gura n frafr bs uhzbe.
Urrurr.
>Svanyyl, V
>jnagrq gb freir bcra abgvpr gung bar crefba, ng yrnfg, jnf cercnerq
>arvgure gb pbagevohgr gb gur vzcerffvba gung bar unf ab pubvpr, jura
>fbzrbar ryfr'f cevingr nabznyvrf ner ehqryl sbeprq ba bar va choyvp,
Lbh org. Nf ybat nf lbh fcernq gung frys-evtugrbhf ubefr znaher gung
lbh pnyy "erfrnepu" va fpv.ynat, V'yy or gurer fgnaqvat hc sbe nyy hf
Fgnasbeq Onaq sna pyho zrzoref.
>orypu<
(|)
* uvp *
Urrurr.
>ohg gb
>jnyx njnl sebz vg va fvyrapr, yrnivat gur crecrgngbe gb ercrng fhpu
>nagvfbpvny nagvpf ba bguref, abe jnf ur cercnerq gb or qenja vagb nal
>onpx-naq-sbegu ebhaq bs erfcbaqvat va xvaq.
Uhu? Jub nfxrq lbh gb erfcbaq va xvaq? Vs gurer jnf nal qbhog
orsber, vg'f cerggl pyrne gung lbh'ir tbg gur fuvg lbh unir sbe oenvaf
vf pbzvat bhg bs nyy bs lbhe obqvyl bevsvprf fvzhygnarbhfyl.
Ohg gurer'f bayl bar guvat pbzvat bhg bs nal bs zl bevsvprf ng gur
zbzrag:
Urrurr.
-zvpunry
... gur rcvfgrzbybtvpny nanepuvfg unf ab pbzchpgvba gb qrsraq gur
zbfg gevgr, be gur zbfg bhgentrbhf fgngrzrag. ... ur znl hfr ernfba,
rzbgvba, evqvphyr, na `nggvghqr bs frevbhf pbaprea' naq jungrire
bgure zrnaf unir orra vairagrq ol uhznaf gb trg gur orggre bs gurve
sryybj zra. Uvf snibhevgr cnfgvzr vf gb pbashfr engvbanyvfgf ...
Gurer vf ab ivrj, ubjrire `nofheq' be `vzzbeny', ur ershfrf gb
pbafvqre be gb npg hcba, naq ab zrgubq vf ertneqrq nf vaqvfcrafnoyr.
-Cnhy X Srlrenoraq "Ntnvafg Zrgubq"
Ohg gur obhdhrg jnf guvf fgbel bs Znubbq'f va juvpu V nccrne V nccrne
nf hcfrg ng univat orra qryvirerq fb rpbabzvpnyyl bs n cnpx bs oybbq
eryngvbaf, abg gb zragvba gur gjb phagf vagb gur onetnva, gur bar
sbe rire npphefrq gung rwrpgrq zr vagb guvf jbeyq naq gur bgure,
vashaqvohyvsbez, va juvpu, chzcvat zl yvxrf, V gevrq gb gnxr zl
eriratr. Gb gryy gur gehgu, yrg hf or ubarfg ng yrnfg, vg vf fbzr
pbafvqrenoyr gvzr abj fvapr V ynfg xarj jung V jnf gnyxvat nobhg.
Vg vf orpnhfr zl gubhtugf ner ryfrjurer. V nz gurersber sbetvira.
Fb ybat nf bar'f gubhtugf ner fbzrjurer rirelguvat vf crezvggrq.
Ba gura, jvgubhg zvftvivat, nf vs abguvat unq unccrarq.
-Fnzhry O Orpxrgg "Gur Haanzrnoyr"
gsm...@brahms.uucp
Expires:
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Keywords:
In article <2...@mind.UUCP> har...@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>As to plurality and controversy, in place of an inclination to suppress
>it, you might say I had a certain professional interest and involvement
>in fostering it. Ad hominem abuse, on the other hand, I'm rather committed
>to combating.
Is this one of those subtlies of language which can be appreciated
only by true language mavens? I get the impression that if you had said
you were committed to combating ad hominem abuse, you would feel obligated.
But since you are only "rather committed", you content yourself with
denouncing it--and engaging in it. Or is calling someone "obviously dis-
turbed" or a "borderline personality" not ad hominem abuse in your diction-
ary (which I will gladly and humbly stipulate to be more professional
than mine?)
>Who's dictating? I have neither the power nor the desire to dictate. I
>simply did what you profess to be defending.
I would call this the lie outright, but I wouldn't want to fall into
the deplorable habit of ad hominem abuse--I might loose your respect,
and that I could not stand. But if you had merely written some e-mail,
or posted a complaint or a flame, that would be one thing. Instead you
tried (and succeeded) in getting your victim into trouble, and insisted
on this debate in news.misc, rather than confining yourself to sci.lang
as the rest of us would have.
>I also wished to draw the case to the attention of the relevant author-
>ities so that if (as I hoped) there were rules against such behavior,
>they might be enforced. [As it happens, the account in question was
>shut down because the individual who had posted the message was not the
>authorized user of the account, and that violated the rules of the system;
>so, as the system administrator indicated, the local matter is "moot."]
Well, we are all happy to have such a good net.citizen with us. A
"sea green incorruptible" such as yourself is the obvious choice to decide
who next to send to the guillotine. For what it is worth (very little)
Mr. Ellis did have authorization from jurgen@brahms (the owner of the
account) to use his account--no doubt this was a violation of system
rules (I don't know what the rules are) but he wasn't a hacker breaking
in illegally.
ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
"The *evident* character of this defective cognition of which mathematics
is proud, and on which it plumes itself before philosophy, rests solely on
the poverty of its purpose and the defectiveness of its stuff, and is therefore
of a kind that philosophy must spurn." -- G. W. F. Hegel
jor...@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu.uucp
What's the difference between "You have shit for brains" and "You don't
have shit for brains" ...? I'm not sure ... *ugh*
/jordan
s...@briar.uucp
Even thought net.flame is gone, the net still exists and people who
claim it being a professional organization are only claiming what
they want usenet to be. This ain't IEEE, it's one of the few anarchys
that works! I for one am not offended by use of such words as "shit-for-brains",
its usage can be quite effective and useful at times. You're free to complain
to the SA for brahms, but you should probably deal with the individual
posting the offending material, instead of whining to the rest of the
net about how YOU don't like x...@y.z.q because he uses dirty words. You're
just what the world needs, another net.cop. Grow up, remember, we're all
professionals here...
--
USENET- .... Sea'n Byrne
6 years . /\ . Philips Laboratories/NAPC
of anarchy . / \ . (914) 945-6242
freedom . / \ .
and --/------\--
chaos. /. .\
/ . . . \
Mark Steven Jeghers
>What's the difference between "You have shit for brains" and "You don't
>have shit for brains" ...? I'm not sure ... *ugh*
>
>/jordan
Simple. "You have shit for brains" means that your brain is made primarily
of shit. "You don't have shit for brains" means that your brain is made
primarily of things other than shit. The second of the two is, of course,
much less definitive, and could, therefore, be a compliment or an insult.
I suppose you could take it however you want to.
John P. Nelson
>neophytes is a predictable initial error ...
> ... but is the rude style also
>to be a hallmark of the experienced net user, along with its apparent
>sympathy for pathological abusiveness?
I am afraid that this effect is because the majority of "cool-headed"
experienced users simply avoid the debate - it is not productive. I
have to point out the similarity to a parlimentary body with over 50
members - unless you have something worthwhile to say on the current
subject, the most EFFECTIVE technique is to say nothing.
Unfortunately, this means that the "net hotheads" have a much higher
profile. Believe me when I say that there is a large body of users who
take the mostly-silent view, and refrain from comment to avoid
"stirring the pot" unnecessarily
Edward J Cetron
I thought I'd stay out of this one since I didn't see the original
sci.lang posting by ellis.....
Not to mention that the resulting flame by harnad was a little too
moral majority for my tastes.... a simple e-mail response back to the poster,
and if offense was repeated, maybe to the sys admin.....but a public posting
and on and on.....
Then Mr. Ellis posted again. This time I read the whole posting
(not to mention the gene ward smith rejoinders...) and I am convinced that
some of the postings from brahms are getting out of hand. I don't mind the
lanquage (i've been known to make a longshoreman blush) nor do I mind personal
attacks when used/done appropriately.... But I DO MIND cluttering up this net
and this newsgroup with pure bullshit, junk and crap... Big deal that ellis's
last posting was rot13 - so what if it offends no one for language - it is
STILL OFFENSIVE because it had several pages that had absolutely no content
at all....Had he included only the last two paragraphs, I would have felt
diffenrently.
summary - I have no argument with the way you have expressed yourself - or
that you did try - but that your content was well down in proportion to the
length of your posting.
If you must post content-less articles, please (user@brahms and harnad) go
back to posting them in talk.bizarre where they belong (and are then worth
something.....)
-ed cetron
center for engineering design
univ of utah
Jeff Winslow
> After reading Steve's original posting (cited in the
>references line), I thought it would be obvious to most
<people that the sort of language Steve objected to was a
>gross violation of net.etiquette. Now that I've seen a few
<days of the followups, I'm astonished that this doesn't seem
>clear at all.
I'm astonished that some people think a few four letter words are
worth the fuss, or "indications of a borderline personality".
> In my opinion, the net does not need or deserve the
>sort of traffic that Steve was citing. Aside from the usual
<stuff about making the sender (rath...@brahms.berkeley.edu)
>look like a jerk, it reflects poorly on all the users at
<Berkeley. [What, they allow that kind of stuff out there??]
>I won't talk to people who argue like that.
Are there really people out there who are so dense that they imagine
material sent from a place is reviewed and agreed upon by all people
at that place, so one individual's posting has *anything* at all to do
with what anyone else at that place thinks? I won't talk to people that
argue like *that*! (Hence this posting in lieu of mail. :-))
> US Army Artificial Intelligence Center
I *won't* say it. I'm so polite. :-)
Jeff (disclaimers for the careless) Winslow
Jeff Winslow
> It's an odd state of affairs when people
>can view themselves as the righteous defenders of free speech when they
>they rush to the defence of someone's right to tell someone else she has
>"shit-for-brains" while clamouring that someone else ought to be deprived
>of his right to denounce it.
Oh, come on. Think for a minute. They only "clamored" after *you* suggested
depriving someone else of their right. One of the most effective ways of
letting doctors know the foulness of a prescription is by making them
take it themselves. There's nothing in the least odd about that.
Amos Shapir
there can be only one conclusion: NEVER YELL SH*T IN A CROWDED NEWSGROUP!
Long live the K command!
--
Amos Shapir
National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel
(011-972) 52-522261 amos%nsta@nsc 34.48'E 32.10'N
Mark Brader
> Comparing the volume on this group before & after this subject was introduced,
> there can be only one conclusion: NEVER YELL SH*T IN A CROWDED NEWSGROUP!
And thus we have come full circle back to the original complaint!
-- And let's leave it there and not go round again --
Mark Brader
se...@ukma.uucp
>Simple. "You have shit for brains" means that your brain is made primarily
>of shit. "You don't have shit for brains" means that your brain is made
>primarily of things other than shit. The second of the two is, of course,
>much less definitive, and could, therefore, be a compliment or an insult.
>I suppose you could take it however you want to.
The second is actually an insult. Think of the phrase "We don't have shit".
What this means is that we don't have anything, not even shit. I think of
"You don't have shit for brains" as being in the same context. The person
who is the recipient of the insult not only doesn't have brains, he doesn't
even have shit for brains. In this respect, the insult is even worse than
"You have shit for brains".
Sean
--
===========================================================================
Sean Casey UUCP: cbosgd!ukma!sean CSNET: se...@ms.uky.csnet
ARPA: ukma!se...@anl-mcs.arpa BITNET: se...@UKMA.BITNET
the late Michael Ellis
> Then Mr. Ellis posted again.
That's impossible. I don't exist.
>Big deal that ellis's
>last posting was rot13 - so what if it offends no one for language - it is
>STILL OFFENSIVE because it had several pages that had absolutely no content
>at all
I did not rot13 to hide offensive language, I rot13ed to make
it easier for people to not bother with an article that they
probably don't want to read in the first place. It was a warn-
ing: all those expecting the meaning of usenet, please leave.
>If you must post content-less articles, please (user@brahms and harnad) go
>back to posting them in talk.bizarre where they belong (and are then worth
>something.....)
Bad boy me. I will retire to contemplating my non-existence in
talk.philosophy.misc.
But before I go, a small linguistic point needs clarification.
>Mark Steven Jeghers >>Jordan Hayes
>>What's the difference between "You have shit for brains" and "You don't
>>have shit for brains" ...? I'm not sure ... *ugh*
>Simple. "You have shit for brains" means that your brain is made primarily
>of shit. "You don't have shit for brains" means that your brain is made
>primarily of things other than shit.
I see you belong to the fecocerebral school of linguistic anal-
ysis too, where words mean just what they say. Right.
This completely misses the important question raised by Mr Hayes.
``You have shit for brains'' is a rude insult, whereas ``You don't
have shit for brains'' is a rude insult. See the difference?
I have a not-yet-published paper on this, entitled: "The Fecation
of the English Tongue: Reflections on Current Trends in `Nonpolite'
Usage." Limited preprints are available on request, but you have
to supply the postage.
As I said recently in a similar situation, utter crap.
-michael
A monk asked Ummon, "What is Buddha?" Ummon replied, "Kanshiketsu!"
A shiketsu, or "shit-stick" (kan, dry; shi, shit; ketsu, stick),
was used in old times instead of toilet paper. It is once both
private and polluted. But in samadhi there is no private or
public, no pure or polluted.
He hurriedly took up shiketsu to support the Way. The decline of
Buddhism was thus foreshadowed.
Both minds are in unison; "kanshiketsu" corresponds to the Buddha
as a lid fits the chest it was made for. Heart meets heart in
warmth and intimacy.
o Kanshiketsu!
He is entirely innocent. He adheres to nothing. He is supremely free.
o He hurriedly took up shiketsu.
Unflustered, as quick as lightning, Ummon answered.
o The decline of Buddhism.
Mumon is always saying the opposite of what he means.
-from Kasuki Sekida's translation of "Mumonkan, the Gateless Gate"
Karlos Vladimir Mauvtaque
(Jordan Hayes) writes:
>Brian Reid <re...@decwrl.UUCP> writes:
>
> Everyone knows that "shit-for-brains" is an adjective ...
>
>What's the difference between "You have shit for brains" and "You don't
>have shit for brains" ...? I'm not sure ... *ugh*
This reminds me of a T-shirt I once saw. It was being worn by a man
riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Under a large Harley-Davidson
logo was the following statement:
``If you ain't a Harley rider, you ain't shit.''
-Karlos
j...@ritcv.uucp
Hey! How about cooling it. This whole thing is now completely out of hand,
and I seriously doubt that many opinions are going to be changed. I find this
fast becoming tedious and boring, and I can only shake my head when I think of
the cost of this near useless traffic on the net.
j.r. {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!jrc
"Go ahead and flame me; I have a large disk allocation!"
Kenn Barry
I saved the following article for reply intending one
kind of response, but, after catching up on everyone else's
responses, I think my first reactions are redundant. I'll try for
new thoughts, instead.
>In article <3...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>, weemba@brahms (Wimpy Math Grad Student) writes:
>> his "shit-for-brains" seemed entirely
>> uncalled for, but the rest of his comments seemed fairly routine fare...
I found and read the original article - I agree with Matthew.
From: har...@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad):
>is the rude style also
>to be a hallmark of the experienced net user, along with its apparent
>sympathy for pathological abusiveness? I suspect that the glib
>scatologs and scatologophiles are going to be more vocal in their
>views on this, so the sample of responses will be a biased one.
Nothing like a little insurance if the vox populi doesn't
see it your way, eh? :-)
I've been reading Michael Ellis's articles a long time. I
want to echo what another poster (oops, forgot who) said, in
spades. There is a conscious attempt at art in Ellis's style. The
other poster actually doubted it was really conscious, though he
saw the value in any case. I have no such doubt. Ellis is a
highly non-categorical thinker, and makes no bones about using
the widest variety of possible techniques to make his points. You
may not always like the results - I certainly don't. But, as with
that other nefarious net.criminal, John Williams (hi, John!),
when it works you get value of a kind that drier discourse can't
duplicate.
I don't even need to cite modern classics to defend Ellis's
approach. You want scatology? You want abusive personal attacks?
Read your Aristophanes.
- From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry
NASA-Ames Research Center
*** NOTE NEW ADDRESS *** Moffett Field, CA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW ELECTRIC AVENUE: {hplabs,seismo,dual,ihnp4}!ames!borealis!barry
STella Calvert
In article <2...@mind.UUCP> har...@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
> "rath...@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Really Michael Ellis)
> Organization: 2-3:30PM, tuesdays and thursdays"
> wrote to sci.lang:
> > you are blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice...
> > Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding vicinity...
> > get her ass up here... don't waste your foul breath telling me...
> > male chauvinist pricks... but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all
> > over the place... go shove where the sun doesn't shine... Utter crap.
>
In Lenny Bruce's autobiography, he talks about his trials back in the
early sixties. He was one of the first comics to use publically words
that most of his audience used privately. His failure to play along
with the then-current cultural hypocrisy led to his being charged with
public indecency. And he tells about the policemen, each standing up,
being sworn, and saying "Mr. Bruce said 'blah-blah-blah'". The DA
replied "He actually said 'blah-blah-blah'?". "Yes, sir, he said
'blah-blah-blah'".
Bruce's comment on this? "I realized that they _liked_ saying
'blah-blah-blah'!"
I'm sorry if you find this interpretation of your recent quoting out
of context offensive. I've waited to post till I could do it calmly.
But Mr. Harnad, it's really OK to say "blah-blah-blah" -- many people
do....
[Sorry, net, about the industrial-strength inclusions, but _I_ like
saying "blah-blah-blah" just as much as Mr. Harnad does....]
STella Calvert
Do what thou wilt -- not just a good idea,
it's the law!
Guest Account: {cybvax0|decvax}!frog!sc
HASA Affiliation: S Division
Stevan Harnad
I would like to point out, to those who are genuinely concerned about
it, that freedom of speech is not at issue in the current discussion
about ad hominem abuse on the Net. The issue is much simpler. It
concerns the difference between saying (1) "You're a liar" (which is
ritually intoned frequently by certain posters) and "I believe you are
mistaken," and that between "that's a pile of [suitably abusive
epithet]" and "I'm afraid I disagree" or "I believe there is evidence
that that is incorrect." The issue is whether the tail ends of the
gaussian are to be allowed to turn the Net into a Global graffiti
board, or whether the Net's extraordinary intellectual communicative
potential will be better realized with some humane, commonsense
constraints. The same judgments would have had to be made in
Guttenberg's time, mutatis mutandis.
All this righteous indignation on behalf of the "freedom" to be
personally abusive!
Gene Ward Smith
>I would like to point out, to those who are genuinely concerned about
>it, that freedom of speech is not at issue in the current discussion
>about ad hominem abuse on the Net.
>The issue is whether the tail ends of the
>gaussian are to be allowed to turn the Net into a Global graffiti
>board...
There is a contradiction inherent in saying both "freedom of speech is
not an issue" and "are to be allowed". Not allowing something is by defin-
ition coercive and by definition not freedom. Sometimes we want to limit
freedom for reasons which may be good. But be honest and admit that too
much freedom of speech is precisely what you wish to limit.
Incidently, ad hominem arguments are arguments which attempt to show a
position wrong by stating or implying that the one arguing for it is not
to be trusted. This is often a fallacy; and a rather mild example of ad
hominem is your implication that some of the persons arguing for free
speech really do not care about it, and so (one might infer) their argu-
ments should be discounted. An insult is not strictly speaking an ad
hominem in the same sense; as a person with an interest in language you
would do well to chose your own words more carefully.
>The same judgments would have had to be made in Guttenberg's time, mutatis
>mutandis.
One of the first results of Gutenberg's invention was the proliferation
of extremely rude printed abuse.
>All this righteous indignation on behalf of the "freedom" to be
>personally abusive!
I was at a loss as to how to reply, but Matthew recalled an apposite
comment of Sartre's concerning freedom and abuse:
Now we can see the meaning of the sadist's demand:
grace reveals freedom as a property of the
Other-as-object and refers obscurely--just as do the
contradictions in the sensible world in the case of
Platonic recollections--to a transcendent Beyond of
which we preserve only a confused memory and which we
can reach only by a radical modification of our being;
that is, by resolutely assuming our being-for-others.
Jean-Paul Sartre: "Being and Nothingness"
ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
"What is algebra exactly? Is it those three-cornered things?"J.M. Barrie
Eyal mozes
> I would very much like to see a *single* quote supporting your
>statement that Mr. Ellis has proposed that Objectivists should "be removed
>from the newsgroup."
The following is takes from article <4...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>, one of
Mr. Ellis' recent postings to talk.philosophy.misc:
> Personally, I don't "oppose" Randroidism any more than I oppose Christian
> Science or Krishna Consciousness. I just don't think that net.philosophy
> is the place for the dissemination of propaganda for cults or ideologies.
>
> Note how you guys insist on seeing philosophy in strictly "us-versus-them"
> terms -- that's why you are unable to discuss philosophical issues
> in a rational, objective way -- your minds are clouded by "volitional
> commitment" that your puerile beliefs be true -- and that's why you
> people do not belong here.
>
> Get your propaganda out of here and into talk.religion or talk.politics
> where it belongs.
Now, I have a question for Mr. desJardins: you could have just asked me
for that quote; why did you also find it necessary, in the rest of your
message, to attack me personally, accusing me of inability to tell the
difference between censorship and disagreement, and calling me a liar?
That's exactly the sort of thing that upset Mr. Harnad, and he
certainly has my sympathy.
In article <1864.utah-gr.UUCP> do...@utah-gr.UUCP <Donn Seeley> writes:
>Eyal Mozes complains that the Berkeley Mafia
Please note that I never used the phrase "the Berkeley Mafia"; that's
not my style.
>I note that Ellis has publicly welcomed discussion in the philosophy
>group from Objectivists who could concede that other systems of thought
>were worthy of interest.
Could Mr. Seeley produce any quote supporting THAT? I don't recall Mr.
Ellis ever making any such statement. Considering that no Objectivist
ever said anything that can be even REMOTELY construed as implying that
other systems of thought aren't worthy of interest, while Mr. Ellis
did explicitly say it about Objectivism several times; and considering
that the few people on talk.philosophy.misc who post serious arguments
against Objectivism in a civilised manner are always answered; I don't
quite see how Mr. Ellis could have made any such statement without
looking even more foolish than he does already.
Anyway, even if he did say it, my point about Mr. Smith's double
standard is just as valid.
Eyal Mozes
BITNET: eyal@wisdom
CSNET and ARPA: eyal%wisdom...@wiscvm.wisc.edu
UUCP: ...!ihnp4!talcott!WISDOM!eyal
Gene Ward Smith
>In article <4...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> desj@brahms (David desJardins) writes:
>> I would very much like to see a *single* quote supporting your
>>statement that Mr. Ellis has proposed that Objectivists should "be removed
>>from the newsgroup."
>The following is takes from article <4...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>, one of
>Mr. Ellis' recent postings to talk.philosophy.misc:
>> Personally, I don't "oppose" Randroidism any more than I oppose Christian
>> Science or Krishna Consciousness. I just don't think that net.philosophy
>> is the place for the dissemination of propaganda for cults or ideologies.
>> Get your propaganda out of here and into talk.religion or talk.politics
>> where it belongs.
This doesn't say that Objectivists should be removed from talk.philosophy.
misc. What it says is that the kind of claptrap you write (for example)
is not philosophy and does not belong there. Is making this sort of comment
pro-censorship? Really, Mr. Mozes! The point is that the purpose of the
group is philosophy, which requires giving philosophical arguments. Since
you give us dogmatic (and false) claims such as "mathematics is the science
of measurement" which you then fail to give arguments for, you clearly
don't belong on that group. The fact that I think that does not in any
way entail the notion that I wish to censor you or prevent you from posting
there. What I would like to do is teach you how philosophical argument
should be done.
I find it amusing that one of the net.old-timers popped into the group,
saw our harsh anti-Objectivist flames and went into a dither. It was
suggested by us, between epithets, that he read Rand's "philosophy", and
upon doing so he concluded that it was total garbage, one major fallacy
per page, and gave up reading the book as a result. This was after telling
us in e-mail what close-minded anti-fringe jerks we were. The point is
that if there are flames, perhaps it is for a reason. One must be careful
not to judge too quickly or superficially that "censorship" is what is
intended by someone who is merely pointing out that someone else is a
fool.
>In article <1864.utah-gr.UUCP> do...@utah-gr.UUCP <Donn Seeley> writes:
>>I note that Ellis has publicly welcomed discussion in the philosophy
>>group from Objectivists who could concede that other systems of thought
>>were worthy of interest.
>Could Mr. Seeley produce any quote supporting THAT? I don't recall Mr.
>Ellis ever making any such statement.
From: ellis@peoples-park (the late Michael Ellis)
Subject: Re: defining Mathematics
Message-ID: <4...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
|>> Now, is this "formalist" approach to mathematics valid? I submit that
|>> it isn't. It is based on wrong philosophical principles - clearly on
|>> rationalism, the idea that meaningful knowledge can be gained without
|>> referring to reality, and also on logical atomism and the
|>> conventional view of logic. [Eyal Mozes]
|
| "Wrong philosophical principles" -- this is religion, and does not
| belong in this newsgroup unless you are prepared to support it
| without resorting to cultish doctrines and appeals to the authority
| of the Holy Texts of Rand.
| ....
| As to Ayn Rand's philosophic notes, I think we all agree it's too
| bad you folks don't have your own newsgroup where such things could be
| posted. Have you considered posting requests for the creation
| of "talk.rand" into news.groups? I don't think Randian thought
| should NEVER appear in net.philosophy, but I do think find that the
| enormous vocabulary gap between Randians and everybody else, as well
| as the tendency of Randians to declare their doctrines as matters of
| indisputable fact, will invariably lead to hostility (not to
| discourage cross postings between talk.philosophy.misc & the proposed
| talk.rand).
I think this should make clear that what Michael is objecting to is
not the presence of Objectivists, but the refusal by some such as Eyal
Mozes to do philosophy when on the philosophy group. This sort of flame
happens all the time on many different groups, and is not "pro-censorship".
> Considering that no Objectivist
>ever said anything that can be even REMOTELY construed as implying that
>other systems of thought aren't worthy of interest,
Is Rand an Objectivist? Did she not call Bertrand Russell's epistemology
"gibber", did she not call Kant (of all people) "the most evil man who
ever lived" or some such thing? Did she not dismiss Rawl's "Theory of
Justice" (a very clear and interesting book, by the way) as "utter nonsense"
WITHOUT reading it? Mechanically dismissing other systems of thought is
intrinsic to Objectivism, as far as I can make out.
>Anyway, even if he did say it, my point about Mr. Smith's double
>standard is just as valid.
This "double standard" argument is completely bogus. I don't support
censorship, and you admit yourself you can find nothing whatever I have
said to support the idea I do. This is like saying I have a double standard
because I treat intelligent people with more respect than I do you. This
is a standard, yes: but not a "double" one.
ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
"We never make assertions, Miss Taggart," said Hugh Akston. "That is
the moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell--we *show*. We
do not claim--we *prove*." H Akston, the last of the advocates of reason
Donn Seeley
side, too).
Michael Ellis:
Get your [Objectivist] propaganda out of here and into
talk.religion or talk.politics where it belongs.
Ellis isn't saying that that Objectivists should not be permitted to
post in the philosophy group, he's saying that Objectivists have not
been posting articles appropriate to that group.
Eyal Mozes:
Please note that I never used the phrase "the Berkeley Mafia";
that's not my style.
@i(I) used that phrase. I don't care whether you find it suitable.
Perhaps I should have used the more official 'brahms gang' (tm) instead
of inventing slang which you perhaps are too unimaginative to handle.
Eyal Mozes:
Could Mr. Seeley produce any quote supporting [Ellis's alleged
lack of objections to $reasonable postings by Objectivists]?
Sure.
Michael Ellis (11/27, title 'Rand => talk.religion.misc'):
That is really excellent, Jack. If only the Objectivists would
spend more time trying to understand what others are saying and
less time attacking what they perceive as "opposing
philosophIES", there would be far less objection to their
presence in this newsgroup. I would even welcome communication
among nondogmatic Randroids and the rest of us, just as I
welcome nondogmatic discussions from any religious viewpoint,
but there don't seem to be such folk as "nondogmatic Randroids"
-- they ALL rave on about THE CORRECT definitions and THE
CORRECT philosophical principles as though Ayn Rand's words
were The Final Word on such matters. And their ravings are as
rabid as those of the worst fundamentalist.
Lest there be any doubt, it was exchanges like the following which led
me to believe that the Objectivist postings in talk.philosophy.misc
were no different from the similar earlier postings in net.philosophy...
Eyal Mozes (>>) vs. Michael Ellis (11/28, title 'Re: defining Mathematics'):
>> Now, is this "formalist" approach to mathematics valid? I
>> submit that it isn't. It is based on wrong philosophical
>> principles - clearly on rationalism, the idea that
>> meaningful knowledge can be gained without referring to
>> reality, and also on logical atomism and the conventional
>> view of logic.
"Wrong philosophical principles" -- this is religion, and does
not belong in this newsgroup unless you are prepared to support
it without resorting to cultish doctrines and appeals to the
authority of the Holy Texts of Rand.
I agree completely with Ellis here.
The Objectivists in the original 'net.philosophy' were my original
exposure to a unique form of censorship which can be carried out in
public forums. The strategy is simply to produce so much verbiage on
so many trivial points that it is impossible for a normal human being
to find the time to refute them and still get any other work done.
Since no interesting problems are covered, the readers get bored too.
Eventually all the opposition and most of the readers drop away, and
the conquerors are left to masturbate in peace. Net.music was nearly
killed this way back in the time of the Kate Bush debacle. Net.women
has been under constant assault from men who post messages about toilet
paper or door etiquette instead of women's issues. I'm afraid I can't
scrounge up so much as one crocodile tear of sympathy for Objectivists
who feel they are being censored in the philosophy group.
Sorry,
Donn ('are you happy now?') Seeley
Michael C. Berch
Ellis could conduct their pissing match by private correspondence
or even in talk.philosophy.misc rather than this newsgroup.
Thanks in advance.
Michael C. Berch
News/mail administrator, styx
ARPA: m...@lll-tis-b.arpa
UUCP: ...!lll-lcc!styx!mcb ...!lll-crg!styx!mcb ...!ihnp4!styx!mcb
ro...@celtics.uucp
>> I would very much like to see a *single* quote supporting your
>>statement that Mr. Ellis has proposed that Objectivists should "be removed
>>from the newsgroup."
>
>The following is takes from article <4...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>, one of
>Mr. Ellis' recent postings to talk.philosophy.misc:
>
>> Personally, I don't "oppose" Randroidism any more than I oppose Christian
>> Science or Krishna Consciousness. I just don't think that net.philosophy
>> is the place for the dissemination of propaganda for cults or ideologies.
>>
>> Note how you guys insist on seeing philosophy in strictly "us-versus-them"
>> terms -- that's why you are unable to discuss philosophical issues
>> in a rational, objective way -- your minds are clouded by "volitional
>> commitment" that your puerile beliefs be true -- and that's why you
>> people do not belong here.
>>
>> Get your propaganda out of here and into talk.religion or talk.politics
>> where it belongs.
>
I can fiercely believe that "x" does not belong here, ask "x" to leave... in fact,
demand that "x" leave... and that is not the same as demanding that "x" be
removed.
You and your fellow True Believers can act on that request, or not... no matter
how often it is repeated, and by how many, in in what language. But you
clearly have a fundamental misunderstanding of the English language if you
think the quote you offered supports your attack on Mr. Ellis.
--
===================================
"Speak for the company?! Gee, I have a hard enough time speaking for myself!"
==================== Roger B.A. Klorese
| ///==\\ | Celerity Computing (Eastern Region)
| /// | 40 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701 +1 617 872-1552
| \\\ |
| \\\==// | celerity!rklo...@sdcsvax.ARPA (sdcsvax!celerity!rklorese)
==================== celtics!ro...@seismo.CSS.GOV (seismo!celtics!roger)
Tim Maroney
Ward Smith:
> I find it amusing that one of the net.old-timers popped into the group,
> saw our harsh anti-Objectivist flames and went into a dither.
First, thanks for acknowledging my seniority; I was beginning to doubt my
own identity after tens of people on sf-lovers acted as if I had suddenly
appeared from nowhere in October 1986....
> It was suggested by us, between epithets, that he read Rand's "philosophy",
> and upon doing so he concluded that it was total garbage, one major fallacy
> per page, and gave up reading the book as a result.
True enough.
> This was after telling us in e-mail what close-minded anti-fringe jerks we
> were.
I feel that this sentence is a deliberate attempt to distort the truth. I
did not initiatre electronic mail contact with you; your version seems to
state that I spontaneously wrote you insulting letters. In fact, the three
of you wrote me several insulting messages, to which I responded with calm
and equanimity. I was called a "moron" more than once, but at no time did I
respond with similar insults via mail.
> The point is that if there are flames, perhaps it is for a reason.
I am a long-time supporter of this idea. I also support as an equal
principle that the reason for the flame must always be made clear, and
rationally supported, within the same message. I have at times failed to
obey this myself, being human, but such incidents are usually several months
apart. On the other hand, the discussion of Objectivism when I entered the
group was composed entirely on your side of flames (and flames more
insulting in any one instance than my entire output for a year) with no
rational support given. That has since changed back to reasoned discussion,
which I applaud; but note that even the "Brahms Mafia" have admitted that
they deliberately changed their style in response to requests.
That I agree with the conclusions of your argument does not imply that I
support its form.
> One must be careful not to judge too quickly or superficially that
> "censorship" is what is intended by someone who is merely pointing out that
> someone else is a fool.
Also true enough. Calling someone a gibbering moron is not in the same
league as trying to get someone banished from the net. However, I do think
Eyal has a point about the flames against Objectivists participating in
talk.philosophy.misc . I don't agree with anyone who would try to define a
philosophical work as "not *really* philosophy" just because it happens to
be fallacious, any more than I agree with Christians who would say that
sects with which they disagree are "not *really* Christianity". I feel such
statements are intolerant and have an aim not fundamentally different from
censorship. Still, wishful thinking tending toward censorship is not in the
same league as actual attempts to apply the power of censorship.
--
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot
{ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp)
hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)
Gene Ward Smith
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Keywords:
In article <14...@hoptoad.uucp> t...@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>I feel I ought to respond to this description of a recent exchange by
>Gene Ward Smith:
>> I find it amusing that one of the net.old-timers popped into the group,
>> saw our harsh anti-Objectivist flames and went into a dither.
>First, thanks for acknowledging my seniority; I was beginning to doubt
>my own identity after tens of people on sf-lovers acted as if I had
>suddenly appeared from nowhere in October 1986....
Tim is here referring to a well-known exchange of viewpoints one of
whose high points was Tim's stentorian "YOU LIE!!!" to a person who in
fact was telling the truth.
>> It was suggested by us, between epithets, that he read Rand's "philosophy",
>> and upon doing so he concluded that it was total garbage, one major
>> fallacy per page, and gave up reading the book as a result.
>True enough.
>> This was after telling us in e-mail what close-minded anti-fringe
>> jerks we were.
>I feel that this sentence is a deliberate attempt to distort the truth.
>I did not initiatre electronic mail contact with you; your version seems
>to state that I spontaneously wrote you insulting letters. In fact,
>the three of you wrote me several insulting messages, to which I responded
>with calm and equanimity. I was called a "moron" more than once, but
>at no time did I respond with similar insults via mail.
My "version" implies nothing beyond what it says. Your "version" implies
that I am a liar. Whose "version" is right?
This is a good example of why enforcing a politeness standard is
an idea whose time should never come. People's ideas about it are just
too different. I think Steven Harnad was very impolite indeed; Steven
presumably thinks that he was merely serving as the Voice of Reason.
Tim Maroney apparently thinks that in the light of all that has gone
before, implying I am a liar is perfectly polite and acceptable. I think
this is so hilarious as to hardly even be insulting, and (as you will
see should you care to read further) I have my reasons also.
>> The point is that if there are flames, perhaps it is for a reason.
>I am a long-time supporter of this idea. I also support as an equal
>principle that the reason for the flame must always be made clear, and
>rationally supported, within the same message.
Well, let us see if you have succeeded this time. Did I call you a
moron, gibbering or otherwise? Did you carefully refrain from insulting
remarks? Is it possible that we have here a case history wherein it can
be clearly seen that one person or group was gratuitously rude, and should
perhaps pay the penalty of their misdeeds? Inquiring minds want to know!
Let us turn now to the "flames more insulting in any one instance than
my entire output for a year".
First, let us look at the cool and temperate remarks with which Tim
begans:
In article <13...@hoptoad.uucp> t...@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>Personally, I don't oppose Michael Ellis. I just feel that errant fuckheads
>should jump off high buildings rather than inflict their puerile spewings
>on the network.
>Is this some kind of sick joke? This is stupid even for Ellis.
>Shouting insults and nothing else is not about to convince anyone of
>anything, except your own cretinism.
Now we see my violent and savage response (I can't give Michael Ellis'
brutal and deranged attack since apparently he didn't even reply!)
In article <4...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> gsm...@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith) writes:
>Under the circumstances, I question the validity of your observation;
>it seems bombastic insult is what draws their attention. (Another thing
>which seems to work is to post something with obvious flaws, but this
>is self defeating).
> Considering *your* "analysis" of Robert Heinlein a while back, which
>achieved new heights of blind obduracy and general silliness, this complaint
>is a little much to take coming from YOU, boyo!
Stung by these terrible insults which Tim hadn't yet seen, but had
heard about, Tim fires back another calm and reasoned reply:
In article <13...@hoptoad.uucp> t...@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>Oddly, I haven't received Gene Smith's flame yet. Normally, the propagation
>delay from Berkeley would be almost negligible.
>I think it may be interesting to examine how it is that people can post
>such inane flames as those of the anti-objectivists, obviously content-
>free and purely insult, and then insist that they are irrefutable reasoning.
>They have no idea that to someone outside the clique, their constant
>slurs appear not as well-deserved denunciations of incredibly foolish
>people, but as a group of over-inflated geeks inflating themselves at
>the expense of others, though only in their own eyes.
>Observation of these people in other conversations shows that they employ
>insult routinely, in fact whenever possible. The whole reason for their
>participation in public discussions seems to be to show their superior
>intelligence by putting others down, not to communicate or to learn.
>Obviously there is nothing to be learned from such a person.
I think it is clear that Tim has a good point here: obviously anyone
whose last name is not "Maroney" must be an over-inflated geek to insist
on flaming. Only Tim Maroney should be allowed to flame anyone ever. A
consistent application of this useful and logical principle would go a
long way to ending this whole "censorship" discussion and would make
life easier for Tim Maroney besides.
ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
ucbvax!weyl!gsmith "Slime is the agony of water" -- Jean-Paul Sartre
Michael C. Berch
> In article <21...@styx.UUCP>, m...@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes:
>
> > I'd appreciate it if Mr. Mozes, Mr. G. W. Smith, Mr. Harnad, and Mr.
> > Ellis could conduct their pissing match by private correspondence
> > or even in talk.philosophy.misc rather than this newsgroup.
>
> > News/mail administrator, styx
>
> us he is a news/mail administrator, maybe his vote counts for more than
> one. It could also be that my vote counts for less than one.
> Be that as it may, it has not seemed to me that the persons referred
> to were carrying on a "pissing match" at all. Still less does it seem
> to me appropriate to move the discussion they and others have been
> having to another group. Indeed what I find least comprehensible in
> Berch's request is its timing; it's been very quiet on this topic for
> some time now. I was despairing of ever hearing another word about it.
I am mystified by this. I posted my article after wading
through eight or ten articles of the type I referred to. Today there
were four more, sandwiched around Mr. Anderson's article. Perhaps uwmacc is
simply not receiving these articles, in which case Mr. Anderson's remarks
might make sense.
His lengthy diatribe notwithstanding, the issue is not censorship nor
freedom of expression. The articles to which I referred, and which are
still in full flower, are puerile exchanges of the form "X hates
Objectivists. No he doesn't. Yes he does. No he doesn't. Well, Y is a
Randroid then. No he isn't. Yes he is. Does this belong in
talk.philosophy.misc? No it doesn't. Yes it does. No it doesn't. But Z
thinks that Objectivists should be banned from the net. No he doesn't.
Yes he does. No he doesn't. But Y is an Objectivist, so when he says
'abc', he really means 'def.' No he doesn't. Yes he does. No he doesn't."
If Mr. Anderson (or any of the rest of you) can find anything of
meaning in these articles, please clue me in. Perhaps I'm missing
something of lasting importance.
Michael C. Berch
j...@alice.uucp
> In article <14...@hoptoad.uucp> t...@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
> This is a good example of why enforcing a politeness standard is
> an idea whose time should never come. People's ideas about it are just
> too different. I think Steven Harnad was very impolite indeed; Steven
> presumably thinks that he was merely serving as the Voice of Reason.
This is a remarkably ridiculous statement! Saying that Harnad was impolite,
BECAUSE HE DISAGREED WITH YOU, is only self serving. I guess that in your
polite world, everyone would agree with you?
On the other hand, I think that a politeness standard (enforced by
protest, shunning, and voiciferous mail complaints) is essential to the
fabric of society. Since society exists only because of the
cooperation of the people, at least in small things like
civil behavior, perhaps what's being said here is that gsmith really
wants to destroy society. Wonder what he'd like to replace it with?
(Wonder if he even thought about it?)
> >Observation of these people in other conversations shows that they employ
> >insult routinely, in fact whenever possible. The whole reason for their
> >participation in public discussions seems to be to show their superior
> >intelligence by putting others down, not to communicate or to learn.
> >Obviously there is nothing to be learned from such a person.
>
> I think it is clear that Tim has a good point here: obviously anyone
> whose last name is not "Maroney" must be an over-inflated geek to insist
> on flaming. Only Tim Maroney should be allowed to flame anyone ever. A
> consistent application of this useful and logical principle would go a
> long way to ending this whole "censorship" discussion and would make
> life easier for Tim Maroney besides.
The above two paragraphs point out which is the straw man...
Obligitory complaint:
GET THIS OUT OF NEWS.MISC, I DON'T THINK NEWS ADMINISTRATORS CARE, EXCEPT
ABOUT THE THEIR TIME THAT YOU'RE WASTING!
--
TEDDYBEARS ARE FOR ALL YEAR.
"Kiss me, Kate, and cursed' be he who first cries 'Enough!' "
(ihnp4;allegra;research)!alice!jj
Erik E. Fair
administrators network wide, you've got it. Now that you have it, what
do you want us to do? I've been watching this debate since Mr. Harnad
started it, and I fail to see why it continues in this forum for any
other reason than inertia. I have seen no call to remove the "brahms
gang" from the network, and even if there had been such a request
presented here, I have seen no evidence supporting such an action on
my part. All I see is some mild name calling and finger pointing.
For those of you who have been insulted in one way or another, I'm
sorry, but that's not cause for positive action on the part of the
network admins. Neither is the use of scatalogical words and phrases.
As I recently noted elsewhere, the USENET may be viewed as a highway
system, and you all have mistaken the admins for the highway patrol.
Wrong. We're the highway construction crew. There is *no* highway
patrol. We only act when damage to the highway would result from our
inaction (and even then, getting concerted action means convincing the
entire crew that it would be a good thing to do!).
So, if there are specific requests for network adminstrative action,
please present them. If all you want to do is debate who said what to
whom and why, then please take it back to talk.philosophy.misc or
talk.religion or whatever /dev/null is called today...
keeper of the network news on ucbvax,
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fa...@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
Edward J Cetron
>As I recently noted elsewhere, the USENET may be viewed as a highway
>system, and you all have mistaken the admins for the highway patrol.
>Wrong. We're the highway construction crew. There is *no* highway
>patrol. We only act when damage to the highway would result from our
>inaction (and even then, getting concerted action means convincing the
>entire crew that it would be a good thing to do!).
hmm,,,,, highway construction crew....
no lets see, The Reagan administration has threatened the denial of highway
funds and or mandatory seat belt restrictions for states with excessive
speeding and/or drinking ages which are "too" low...
hmmmmm, does the analogy convert???? Does this mean we must all type or post
a little slower???? or maybe we need to raise the posting age (say none of
those undergrad types)..... or maybe we should..........
-ed cetron (with tongue in cheek re: the net, not so happy with
the real reagan plan(s) )
Tim Thompson
# Enough already! If the lot of you wanted the attention of system
# administrators network wide, you've got it. Now that you have it, what
# do you want us to do?
#
# So, if there are specific requests for network adminstrative action,
# please present them. If all you want to do is debate who said what to
# whom and why, then please take it back to talk.philosophy.misc or
# talk.religion or whatever /dev/null is called today...
#
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As the sys admin for news on OHIOU.EDU (unofficially), I can say that this
entire discussion has gotten out of hand, and quite frankly, has gotten
REAL BORING!!
Erik has made an excellent point: Either tell the net what you want done
about the situation (in a none flammatory manner), or take your discussion
to a different place.
Tim Thompson
cbosgd!tgt
--
Timothy G. Thompson AT&T Network Systems Columbus, Ohio
cbosgd!tgt
DISCLAIMER: These ramblings are my own. However, a thousand monkeys pounding
on a thousand typewriters would eventually produce the exact same thing!!
Tim Maroney
anyone's behavior could ever get to the point where either of the following
actions is justifiable:
(1) Recommending that someone's net privileges be taken away.
(2) Writing to the local system adminsitrator to complain about someone
(which amounts to exactly the same thing as #1, and in my experience has
been known to lead to it.)
The only grounds I could see for either action would be libel.
William L. Rupp
I agree, this back and forth name calling was fun to begin but has
long since run out of steam. As opposed to hot air, of which there seems
still to be an ample supply. I for one am very grateful to be able to
learn and share via this medium. A minimum measure of courtesy therefor
seems an appropriate tone to maintain while using the net, but I realize
that not everyone shares that view. More important, net users are
free to decide for themselves what type of language they
want to use.
Let's move on to more rewarding topics, keeping in mind that this is
a very wide open medium which affords us a wonderful opportunity to
share and learn, or, if we choose, to make complete fools of
ourselves on a world-wide basis.
Gene Ward Smith
A number of people have been making the point that the name-calling
here is getting a little stale. Since I am on the receiving end of some
of this pro-censorship stuff, I didn't want to quit before having squacked
my squack. This I have done, and if people will just cease and desist
flaming me with utterly stupid flames in public, maybe it will all go
away. People who can take a hint when offered might look at the "keyword"
up there.
In particular,
In article <64...@alice.uUCp> j...@alice.UUCP writes:
>In article <5...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>, gsm...@brahms.UUCP writes:
>> This is a good example of why enforcing a politeness standard is
>> an idea whose time should never come. People's ideas about it are just
>> too different. I think Steven Harnad was very impolite indeed; Steven
>> presumably thinks that he was merely serving as the Voice of Reason.
>This is a remarkably ridiculous statement! Saying that Harnad was impolite,
>BECAUSE HE DISAGREED WITH YOU, is only self serving. I guess that in your
>polite world, everyone would agree with you?
This is a remarkably ridiculous statement! Just where did I give the
impression that I thought Harnad was impolite BECAUSE HE DISAGREED WITH
ME? WHERE? Your saying that my saying that Harnad was impolite because
he disagreed with me when I gave no reason and in fact, as you could
have gleaned from previous postings of mine, was asserting that he was
impolite because he called someone else "obviously disturbed" and a
"borderline personality" and actively campaigned to have him heaved off
the net is pretty silly, don't you think? (Please take your time parsing
that last sentence. I do not want to repeat myself on this topic, if you
don't mind.) Or do you even know what all this is about? I guess in your
polite little world, people don't try to censor you, eh?
>On the other hand, I think that a politeness standard (enforced by
>protest, shunning, and voiciferous mail complaints) is essential to the
>fabric of society. Since society exists only because of the
>cooperation of the people, at least in small things like
>civil behavior, perhaps what's being said here is that gsmith really
>wants to destroy society. Wonder what he'd like to replace it with?
>(Wonder if he even thought about it?)
If you don't take the point of my sarcasm, let me make it clearer: if
you believe civility and politeness to be so important, why not practice what
you preach? You hypocrisy is showing, I fear. Moreover, if you believe
that intelligent rules intelligently followed are important to the fabric
of a society, and this electronic one in particular, then why did you do
such a fundamentally stupid and anarchistic thing as cross-posting to
talk.politics.misc? Since you believe that writing nasty letters to remove
nasty people from the net is such a good idea, would you object if everyone
who dislikes your position were to write to your boss suggesting that you
be sternly admonished? Why or why not?
Strangely enough, the question of what I would wish to replace society
with is one that had not occurred to me. Maybe you should have cross-posted
this to talk.politics.theory instead of just talk.politics.misc? As
for the politeness standard, I might want to replace it with an intelligence
standard. Very stupid people would not be allowed to post. That would
leave maybe 50 of us on the whole net. You would not be included, judging
solely on your last posting. But I will be magnanimous, OK?
>GET THIS OUT OF NEWS.MISC, I DON'T THINK NEWS ADMINISTRATORS CARE, EXCEPT
>ABOUT THE THEIR TIME THAT YOU'RE WASTING!
GET THIS OUT OF TALK.POLITICS.MISC! IT BELONGS IN NEWS.MISC! And if
news administrators don't care about censorship, or support it, then
THEY are precisely the ones who need to hear it. Fortunately, many of
them DO oppose you pro-censorship types. Unfortunately, many of them are
now tired of hearing about it. You may, if you wish, bring up a separate
discussion in talk.politics.theory concerning society, civility and cen-
sorship in general. (Notice I said t.p.theory.) By starting afresh, you
and others won't goad me to respond to your incorrect finger-pointing,
allowing ME to freely ignore this news.misc discussion.
Talk.politics.misc does not need this "abuse of the net" discussion
in the least. Some groups have standards.
ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
Logicians are apt to call this an *argumentum ad hominem*. Quite so: ..
I am addressing *humans*. I am addressing neither dogs nor logicians.
Roy Smith
> I have a hard time believing that anyone's behavior could ever get to
> the point where either of the following actions is justifiable: [...]
> (2) Writing to the local system adminsitrator to complain about someone
I disagree. As the SA for phri, I am responsible for things
running smoothly; that includes seeing that people don't make public fools
of themselves. This is a public invitation to anyone on the net to write
to me if you think somebody here is acting in a grossly anti-social manner,
and the direct approach has proven fruitless.
We have a pretty professional group here, so I don't ever expect to
get one of those letters, but if you feel the need to complain, I'm willing
to listen. I won't promise I'll do anything specific about it, but I will
look into the matter. It is unreasonable to expect any more or less of an
SA (this is, however, my personal opinion).
I have on rare occasions (I think twice in 3 years), taken it upon
myself to write to another SA complaining about somebody. In one case, I
got back an obnoxious letter from the person I was complaining about; I
think it was somebody's single-user system. In the other case, the SA told
me that the account from which the problem postings were eminating belonged
to somebody who was no longer there, and aparantly the account was being
used by somebody else and would be closed.
--
Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
"you can't spell deoxyribonucleic without unix!"
j...@alice.uucp
Mr. Smith, in an ad-hominem reply to my comments on his regarding
Harnad, states quite clearly that I believe in censorship. He also
quotes my words, which advocate complaining to the source
you don't like, rather than to their boss, or what
have you. This, regardless of what Mr. Smith says, is
not censorship, it is simply expecting the writer to take
responsiblity for that which is written. I do not, and let
me state this clearly, advocate censorship, in any form, for
any actions that are legal and maintain at least a pretense
of civility. I believe that breaches of civility are entirely
permissible in places where they are expected, and should
be treated with (private) scorn where they are NOT expected.
The statement that I advocate censorship is a straw-man argument,
clear as simple, and is an utter mistatement.
It appears that such mistatement is part and parcel of this entire
and * deliberately fabricated * discussion of censorship.
Furthermore, Mr. Smith states again, and again incorrectly,
that discussion of this fabricated crises should happen in
news.misc. Given the nature of this discussion, its obvious
overtones of political and personal philosophy, and such, it is
clear that it does NOT belong in any news.* group, but that it
rather belongs in talk.flame (if such exists), talk.politics.<something>
or perhaps some other group of which I am blissfully unaware in which
individuals demonstrate their pre-primate ancestry.
Harry Henderson
the use of news that don't fit into a more specific context (such as
software bugs, etc.). I could see someone quoting flames from
talk.philosphy etc. as part of a discussion of what kind of writing is
appropriate, although I'm sure you've noticed that flaming is
contagious (flammable) such that discussions about flaming have a
distressing habit of bursting into flames themselves. But why do the
"philosophers" have to carry on their arguments here? Yes, they have
the "freedom" to do so, but misusing a newsgroup simply makes life
harder for everyone else who has to wade through inappropriate
messages, not to mention pay for them. The result is counterproductive
in that it's hard to give a fair hearing to the philosophical views of
people who insist on scrawling them over every billboard in town.
Gene Ward Smith
>Mr. Smith, in an ad-hominem reply to my comments on his regarding
>Harnad, states quite clearly that I believe in censorship. He also
>quotes my words, which advocate complaining to the source
>you don't like, rather than to their boss, or what
>have you.
As I pointed out to "jj" when s/he e-mailed me a reply (see that
up there? E-mail?) I assumed that s/he was talking about mailing to
"the boss, or what have you" because (key point coming up!) that is
what this whole discussion has been about. If anyone wants to abuse
me in e-mail, fire away. But don't write to my system manager with
complaints!
> This, regardless of what Mr. Smith says, is
>not censorship, it is simply expecting the writer to take
>responsiblity for that which is written.
I DIDN'T say that. Gosh-this-is-stupid.
>The statement that I advocate censorship is a straw-man argument,
>clear as simple, and is an utter mistatement.
The mistatement is the one you made, which I interpreted in the
obvious way given the context. So what are YOU so sore about??
>It appears that such mistatement is part and parcel of this entire
>and * deliberately fabricated * discussion of censorship.
"Deliberately fabricated?" Did I fabricate the fact that people have
written to my sysadmin? Did I fabricate the fact that as I result I have
been accused of things I didn't do? Did I fabricate the fact that as a
result certain persons have been (temporarily, I think) muzzled? If you
don't know what the facts are, then shut up. The censorship is real, and
your calling me a liar is not especially helpful.
>Furthermore, Mr. Smith states again, and again incorrectly,
>that discussion of this fabricated crises should happen in
>news.misc.
It is about the net. What IS your problem? If you ever get censored, I
don't want to hear about it. That's fair, right?
> Given the nature of this discussion, its obvious
>overtones of political and personal philosophy, and such, it is
>clear that it does NOT belong in any news.* group, but that it
>rather belongs in talk.flame (if such exists), talk.politics.<something>
>or perhaps some other group of which I am blissfully unaware in which
>individuals demonstrate their pre-primate ancestry.
Talk.origins, I suppose? By the way, you are maintaining a remarkably
high level of inconsistency by both calling me an ape an a liar AND insisting
on a high standard of net civility. I'm not sure you even know what you
think or what you want.
John Cornelius
>In article <21...@styx.UUCP>, m...@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes:
>
>> Ellis could conduct their pissing match by private correspondence
>> or even in talk.philosophy.misc rather than this newsgroup.
>
[Much, much more]
Very well, where do you propose that responsible persons go to carry on
courteous, responsible, and hopefully productive discussions?
--
John Cornelius
(...!sdcsvax!piaget!jc)