From: nguyen@drutx.ATT.COM (Christopher Chu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: Re: [MISC] [ESSAY] Whatizit? SCV!
Summary: About public networks
Date: 27 Aug 92 03:14:51 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Denver, Colorado


Dear Van Y Tran,

I have some opinions concerning the nature of SCV warfare that I want
to share with you. In this article, I read your opinions and states mine.
I hope that we will both be discussing our opinions but not us as
the individuals :-)
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| From: 0005359961@mcimail.com (Van Tran)                        |
| Newsgroups: soc.culture.Vietnamese                             |
| Subject: [MISC] [ESSAY] Whatizit? SCV!                         |
| Message-ID: <1992Aug26.152146.19965@news.media.mit.edu>        |
| Date: 26 Aug 92 15:21:46 GMT                                   |
| Originator: daemon@media-lab.media.mit.edu                     |
|                                                                |
| Whatizit?  Another Thought About SCV                           |
| ------------------------------------                           |
|                                                                |
| Of late we Vietnamese have learned a new concept; that is,     |
| freedom of expression. As ever, we have done so faster than    |
| any other peoples that I know of on the face of this Earth.    |
| Evidences? There are countless newspapers, magazines,          |
| publications, and TV programs in various communities in North  |
| America.                                                       |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
I think most of people in America have been introduced to the concept of
freedom of expression. Many refugee and immigrant people were introduced
to this concept before they come to America. Some people misunderstand
and abuse this concept because they do not fully understand its context:
the concept of freedom and democracy is always relatively subjective to
social law and order.

I personally have not seen any clear indication that the Vietnamese
is a slower social learner compared to other minority groups in America
with respect to the concept of freedom of expression. This is not to say
that rude behaviors in public should be encouraged; it only implies that
we should evaluate ourselves relatively to others and thus, be able to
establish practical goals.

I would appreciate very much if you would read SCC, the social culture
newsgroup for the main-land Chinese, and let us know how their practice
of the concept of freedom of expression is compared to ours. I have here
a list of newsgroups that is available on USENET soc.culture.* that may
be useful for interested readers below (Note: I truncated names that are
longer than 6 characters.)
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| africa americ	arabic	asean	americ	austra	bangla	brazil	britis |
| bulgar canada	celtic	china	czecho	espera	europe	filipi	french |
| german greek	hongko	indian	americ	irania	japan	jewish	korean |
| latin- lebano	magyar	misc	nepal	nether	new-ze	nordic	pakist |
| polish romani	soviet	spain	sri-la	taiwan	tamil	thai	turkis |
| vietna yugosl                                                        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| All the things listed above, however, are not the only mass    |
| communication channels that we have. Don't forget this SCV, my |
| friends. In here we can talk as freely as any free man/woman   |
| can; we can deliver as much -- if not more than -- any         |
| cares to deliver; and, of course, better than those            |
| don't have to worry about word-watchers, namely editors and,   |
| in some places, censors. It is truly a privilege to have       |
| access to this SCV.                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
The opinion that SCV access is a privilege is relative. I argue that this
is only so for people whose computer facilities are not ready to freely
provide them with access to USENET. Most students, regardless of major,
and most technical professionals in technologically developed countries
can have access to this media today.
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| If things have it my way, then, I hope, SCV  would be a mass   |
| communication channel, a public forum where words and ideas    |
| can be exchanged to its fullest meaning. Not only that, it is  |
| a way to protect our hard-earned liberty from hatred and abuse |
| in the New World, to raise awareness on current events, and to |
| comfort each other in this far-away land. But the foremost     |
| purpose, to borrow from de Tocqueville, is to maintain         |
| civilization. Yes, to communicate is to maintain civilization, |
| values, culture etc. and etc. But due the fact that no one     |
| could ever have any influence on this SCV, the way I just      |
| described is more of a wishful thinking.                       |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
One of the other goals that you may consider is not only to maintain
civilization but also to expand it by demonstrating what you think a
civilized person is supposed to be. Clearly, everyone has influence on
this broadcast media because we have a chance to express our opinions
to others. However, I do not think that wishing can make aa positive
influence in this context.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| It is safe to say that it is a privilege for those who can     |
| access to SCV. It's a privilege, not birth-right, because      |
| thousands of thousands people out there who can't access it.   |
| So, as usual, privilege requires certain obligation and        |
| sacrifice.                                                     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
It is relative for one to decide whether access to SCV is a privilege
as I have argued above. More over, the privilege to which you referred
is not in correlation with or not even related to USENET etiquette and
common sense. You see, people who freely used bad and dirty language on
USENET cannot even understand what etiquette and common sense are, so,
how could we discuss obligation with them?

On the other hand, we do not have any rights to suppress people so that
they cannot speak what they want: that is against the principles of
freedom and democracy. You see, you can personally spend much of your
money for your lawyer to sue someone because he/she damage your reputation
in public, but this is not the same as having your own army, using your
own force to get rid of netters that you do not like. I consider this
difference as a major split marker between a civilized and an uncivilized
society.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Let us treat privilege as a limited resource, whereby each     |
| time we use it, it diminishes a little bit, the same way a     |
| mineral deposit does. It means that a large number of          |
| ill-intention posting would be disappeared, greater number of  |
| thoughtful messages would be crafted, and better attitudes     |
| would be produced as a result. Else, think of this: we have to |
| pay for per character per message each time we post something  |
| onto SCV. By the way, some netters do use this kind of service |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
If USENET grew in your scenario, then it would not even exist today so
that we can communicate like we are doing. USENET is the way it is today
because it was meant to be made as free of cost as possible. You know,
one of the major goal of this broadcast is for everyone to hear everyone
else. If you are respectable, netters respect you; if you are not, they
don't. If you think self respect is your responsibility to gain, you write
to people with sincerity and consideration; otherwise, you don't need to.

You see, we need no police on USENET since this is designed to be a great
experimental stage for freedom and democracy exercises. People learn to
argue with politeness as time comes along. More over, it is always important
for some people to express themselves even with anger and rudeness; if they
do not make serious mistake to hurt themselves and others by words, they
would never be able to know what they do not know.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Having said all that, I suddenly ask myself, who would listen  |
| to this ideal stuff? Well, perhaps not many. It is sad. How    |
| can we maintain our selves intact given the current situation  |
| on SCV, much less to maintain civilization as de Tocqueville   |
| once said? I wish MCI Mail Service could take over USENET.     |
| Some SCVers would know by then that talk is NOT cheap. They    |
| have to pay dearly for it and MCI would make a big buck. O,    |
| Whatizit wishful thinking?                                     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
I think if you are not exploded into rude arguments when you object
other's rude languages, you have helped maintain civilization for this
network as a respectable individual. However, I think that the idea
to deal with flame war on SCV that you had proposed was potentially
harmful for this public network: that might have create further
unnecessary arguments.

You see, we can speak here as an individual who want to share our thoughts
but we are not supposed to use forces or physical threat on others so that
they will stop doing what we do not want them to do. And again, whether
talk is cheap or not is relative and is nothing more than an individual
opinion with respect to one's own computer resource.

Contrary to what you have stated, it is my opinion that netter's individual
judgements with respect to USENET etiquette and common sense, but not to
computer resources, make up the living constituency of this or any other
public computer networks.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tra^`n Y' Va^n                                                 |
|                                                                |
| (*) "Whatizit" is borrowed from an Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympic |
|      promotion campaign.                                       |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Finally, I hope that anh/chi. Van Y tran will not consider this article
as another abuse of the concept of freedom of expression :-)

Sincerely Yours,

Chris
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese