From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFFector Online 3.06: Bruce Sterling
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:23:44 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org

In article <1992Oct5.154656.1522@nntp.hut.fi> jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:

>Now, what makes me annoyed to this discussion is your use of rhetoric
>such as "fantasy", "herous", "drugs" etc.

Well, look, Jyrki, it would be far more hypocritical of me to use
euphemisms, wouldn't it? Brad Hicks's theory is a fantasy in the truest
sense of the word. It's something he made up in order to comfort himself
in his views, and it has no correspondence with the real world.

The business about drugs is not relevant because drugs are inherently bad
(I don't think they are), but because most of us find it difficult to
accept as altruistic the acts of a person who committed crimes and sought
to be paid for these crimes in drugs or in money with which to buy drugs
(as in Hagbard's case) or in money with which to buy new computer
equipment (as in Pengo's case). Source: CYBERPUNK, by Katie Hafner and
John Markoff. (Hafner interviewed Pengo personally.)

>  In the previous discussion
>a very annoying thing to me was your use of the fact that you
>personally know Cliff Stoll and "know" he's a good guy, ethical and so
>on.  I don't see these as good arguments on discussions like this - to
>the contrary, they make the conversation to focus on the side issues,
>irrelevancies and personal characteristics of the authors instead of
>the matters themselves that should be the topic.

Jyrki, to say I know Cliff Stoll is *absolutely relevant* when Brad Hicks
makes personal generalizations about Stoll--as when Hicks questioned both
his sanity and his morality. When Hicks says Stoll is a raving paranoid,
it makes perfect sense, and is perfectly relevant, to say "I know Cliff,
and he's not a raving paranoid."

I think it shows a double standard when you take me to task for defending
Cliff as a person, yet you embrace Brad Hicks's postings, which attacked
Cliff Stoll as a person. This shows something less than fairness.

>I would hope we could just discuss simply the issues without dragging
>the personal authorities, loyalties and life stories of every author
>in.

Have you mentioned this to Brad Hicks?

>That aside, I didn't read Brad's writing the same way as you.  I took
>it to say just "here's an alternative viewpoint - perhaps one should
>also look it from this angle".

How did you take his reference to me as someone who did not know, or who
denied, American strategic-weapons policy at the time of the Cuckoo's Egg
case?

>And _that_ is what I applaud in Brad's
>writing.  I didn't exactly see him claiming that they were any kind of
>heroes or thought themselves to be such, just that you can look the
>issue from that angle also - it ain't so simple and one-sided as
>just demonizing them with "evil empire", "drugs" and such rhetorics.

I have never used the term "evil empire." I use "drugs" in reference to
drugs. Would you prefer me to use a term like "illicit pharmaceuticals"?

>>It should be noted that Hicks has shown a willingness to misrepresent the
>>facts (as when he said that no one remembered what American strategic
>>nuclear policy was) and to backpedal ferociously (as when he discovered
>>that Cliff Stoll was reading this newsgroup, and tried to disavow all his
>>comments about Cliff and tried to suck up to Cliff in e-mail).
>
>In my humble opinion, that comment is very childish.  Again, I would
>hope we could discuss issues without resorting to silly personal
>attacks.

I find it hypocritical of you to chide me for responding to personal
references when you don't bother to criticize Hicks for making personal
references. Perhaps you apply a different standard to me than you do to
Brad Hicks? If so, what does this say about your fairness?


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"Liberty resides in the rights of that person
mnemonic@eff.org| whose views you find most odious."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --John Stuart Mill
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd