From: tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 11:01:42 PST
To: hughes@ah.com
Subject: Re: Detweiler abuse again
In-Reply-To: <9402151547.AA22138@ah.com>
Message-ID: <9402151858.AA05503@tsx-11.MIT.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


   Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 07:47:29 -0800
   From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)

   I desire the public forum.  I desire anonymous speech.  I desire
   pseudonymous persons.  Usenet does not allow these simultaneously,
   therefore it is broken for me.  Therefore I desire usenet as it is
   constituted now to die...

I admire your honesty; a lot of cypherpunks weren't willing to say this
the last time we had this flame war.

I desire that Usenet live for now, because even though it does not
provide simulatneously the features of public forum and anonymous
speach, it does solve the public forum problem relatively well, and as
such, is providing a certain amount of societal good to the world.

If we want both, then we should design and implement a system that has
both.  It doesn't necessarily follow that it's all constructive to tear
down an institution that does what it was designed to do well, and but 
unfortunately doesn't happen meet your new requirements.  Build the new
and better system first, before trying to tear down the old one.

						- Ted