From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 96 08:59:44 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: on being elitist...
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960117165241.006c49c8@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 07:48 AM 1/17/96 -0600, Ed Carp, KHIJOL SysAdmin wrote:

>I would say that an "elitist" is one who believes that the masses (or the
>great unwashed, depending on your point of view) are somehow "not
>deserving" of surviving or "not worth it"

The contemporary PC definition of elitist is "One who believes that people
are capable of excellence."  And an anti-elitist is "One who believes that
people are utterly incapable of excellence."  Hence Public Education.

I'm sure that some on this list think that people will prosper at different
rates but I don't think too many expect a great die off of the masses
because of their inability to compete.

The cypherpunks relevance is that some members of this list want to use
cypherpunk tools to protect their differential income from *greedy*
governments who want to get their bloody hands on it.

DCF

"And Hillary said, 'Bill Gates is greedy because he has amassed a fortune of
US$15,000,000,000 but the US Government is a helpful Village because it
takes US$1,400,000,000,000 from us each year and does good things with it.'"