From: Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 12:19:35 +0800
To: cypherpunks@ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: [cpe:4537]  Tim May's defensive racism (was: about RC9) (fwd)
Message-ID: <199711180415.WAA20098@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 20:49:44 -0600
> From: TruthMonger <tm@dev.null>
> Subject: Re: [cpe:4537]  Tim May's defensive racism (was: about RC9) (fwd)

> Austin redneck hippie, Jim Choate, wrote:

OH, that is truly funny...

Just 'cause I happened to be raised by hippies doesn't mean I am a hippie.
Backfield in motion...Sugar Sugar...

> > > From: TruthMonger <tm@dev.null>
> > > Subject: Re: [cpe:4537]  Tim May's defensive racism (was: about RC9)
> > >   Electronic communication is a bare-bones ASCII interpretation of
> > > our intended communication. i.e. - stripped of intonation and other
> > > physical gestures which convey a meaning beyond the mere words we
> > > speak, in themselves.
> > >   Although there are some rudimentary ASCII images (:>) which can be
> > > used to add elements of shared emotional or conceptual constructs to
> > > the message we are attempting to convey.
> > >
> > >   The Medium IS the Message.
> > 
> > You clearly don't read real books...especialy those of the great authors of the
> > world.
> 
>   Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, had no idea what it meant...

Exactly. Thank you for being so obliging.

> > People who believe the spin doctorism 'The medium is the message' usualy
> > spend their time watching television or working for it.
> 
>   Those who *do*not* believe 'The medium is the message' usually think
> that Socrates' world-veiw would have been exactly the same if he had
> been using the InterNet as his means of viewing and communicating with
> the world.

Who's Socrates?

A more interesting question is whether the technology would have impacted his
base psychology...

I know this, way down deep there is a fundamental dialog between people and
all the technology in the world doesn't change that. Those base topics are
what define human societies. If this weren't so then how can the human
experience be so stable over recorded history & cultures? Why do we discuss
the exact same sorts of questions all societies & individuals have asked?

But, to counter your suggestion, please be so kind as to demonstrate your
evidence where the method of expression might have changed the basic
fundamentals of his dialogue? What are those fundamental issues that you
claim have changed so radicaly? While your'e at it, how about extrapolating
that nifty keen cliological analysis to say 500 years into the future and
explain your own biases and bigottries? You can leave the whip and chains
out of the dialog, those never change.

I would propose that there are more fundamental issue than the level of
technology. For example, consider the impact of experimentation on a
basicaly experiential world-view as that commen in ancient Greece. As
another example, consider the reaction when pi was shown to be irrational
and this knowledge was banned upon pain of death. Clearly we have the
technology yet we have not escaped the more base human experience. The
reality would seem to indicate that no, the most base messages of Socrates,
Sun Tzu, Christ, or the cypherpunks are still the same old ones...

 -  People are people, people are strange

 -  What makes one person happy is guaranteed to piss somebody else off

 -  Most people will never figure the first two out even if you tell
    them the answers

> > >   Until the email/communications medium evolves to allow us the ability
> > > to add not only smiles and winks, etc., but also chagrin, doubt, self-
> > > doubt, etc., to our online communications, the medium will remain an
> > > impediment to conveying the totality of our true message, as opposed to
> > > being merely an electronic version of 'pidgin Englich'.
> > 
> > This could happen provided we got rid of television and made graphics harder
> > to print...
> 
>   Right, Jim. Give us your prediction of when this is going to happen...
> (Yes, I *am* laughing at you...thanks for asking.)

Uh...like cold day in hell...

I'm beginning to think your attention span is tuned to those 30 second
blip-verts...and who asked? Are the voices back already?

>   Reality is that even when the medium evolves to the point where we
> can use it to convey the totality of what we are trying to convey, that

"convey the totality"? What kind of double-speak bullshit is that? 

Look junior, the absolutely *ONLY* way to express the 'totality' of an
experience is to be the one doing the experience. You can pop all the
moddies and daddies you wanna but it's still a pale imitation; a rose it is
not in any language. Now unless you have just instantly warped our happy
assess into the far flung future we are a long walk from plugging brains
together, nic's & protocols not withstanding.

> after we have done so the 'powers that be' will flash a graphic of
> us on the computer screen, making us look for all the world like a
> drug-dealing, terrorist pedophile.
>   There will be few sheeple with the dicrimination to recognize that,
> in your case, it is true, in 'my' case, it is not.
> 
> Not that I'm a troublemaker...

Well that's good, you shouldn't be as disappointed at your steady failures.

My suggestion, don't quit your day job, assuming your old enough to have a
job. They can't tell you're a dawg on the Internet.



    ____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                    |
   |    The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there   |
   |    be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.       |
   |                                                                    |
   |                                       -Alan Greenspan-             |
   |                                                                    | 
   |            _____                             The Armadillo Group   |
   |         ,::////;::-.                           Austin, Tx. USA     |
   |        /:'///// ``::>/|/                     http://www.ssz.com/   |
   |      .',  ||||    `/( e\                                           |
   |  -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-                         Jim Choate       |
   |                                                 ravage@ssz.com     |
   |                                                  512-451-7087      |
   |____________________________________________________________________|