From: wrat@unisql.UUCP (wharfie)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: The Imminent Death of the Net
Date: 15 Sep 92 13:24:37 GMT
Reply-To: wrat@unisql.UUCP (wharfie)
Organization: UniSQL, Inc., Austin, Texas, USA


	Ah yes, once again the demise of Usenet in general and this
newsgroup in particular is upon us.  The event arrives with the predictable
regularity of deer season, and as noisily.  Like that other seasonal
event, it _sounds_ like the Apocalypse but it's really just a bunch of
drunken yahoos shootin' at cows.

	Life imitates art, or is it the other way around?  Once upon a
time the Grateful Dead were our own personal minstrels, an accidently
and mysteriously well-kept secret celebrated by the knowledgeable few.
Once upon a time, Usenet was also such a secret.  And like the
Grateful Dead Usenet proved impossible to maintain as a private
garden, mutating uncontrollably into a 6 ring circus complete with
piles of elephant manure on the floor.

	As in that other scene we've been invaded by troublemakers who
don't know the unwritten rules, by troublemakers who deliberately
break the rules for their own profit and amusement, by the untutored
who never knew what the rules are, and by drunken yahoos who're too
damn stupid to know what the rules might be.  But what's the answer to
the problem?  Should we all just get accounts on the Well and move
virtual reality to a different processor?  That solution turns a
public resource into a privilege for the elite: besides connect time
to pay for you need a terminal, a modem, money for the local Bell
affiliate, and enough time outside of work to spend hours in
telecommunication.  Should we all simply abandon this nonplace to the
uncivilized and unenlightened persons enumerated above?  I feel that
simply refusing to participate any longer is a mistake and a form of
moral laziness.  In the early 80's I stopped going to Dead shows for a
while.  I felt that the music had deteriorated and that the scene had
changed into something I didn't like as much.  I now regret this,
knowing that I missed out on many wonderful experiences because of my
refusal to participate.  And I missed out on the opportunity to guide
the whole thing down a more...civilized... path; maybe if I'd started
picking up garbage 5 years sooner we'd still be playing Hampton and
SPAC.

	No, the only thing we can do is to keep on keepin' on.  If we
abandon the net to assholes and yahoos and ignorant college kids we're
not only cutting ourselves off from a wealth of experience - at least
those of us without the wealth to privatize - we're also giving in and
giving up.  We're saying that the forces of entropy are beyond our
control, and that we're so incapable of teaching (and learning!) that
we'd rather not play any more.  It's a copout.  

	I feel a real sense of responsibilty here.  I've been around
from the very beginning, and I will not cede my inheritance to 17 year
old weenies who've learned to hack mailing lists.  I will not mouth
artificially sweetened ASCII to mollify baby whiny weasels who can't
stand forthright language.  I will not grant these wannabes and
pretenders and scrofulous cretins control over my electronic life.  I
ask those of you who haven't yet given up to remain in solidarity.
Ignore the quagglias and hugos the way you ignore sloppy drunken
zeroes who scream during Stella Blue.  We can take back the net!, or
at the very least make it look to our selves that we have...

I have not yet begun to post!  "The only thing he knew how to do was
just keep on keepin' on, like a bird that flew...

						...tangled up in blue",

								the wharf rat
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead