Re: Tim May the Luddite--His Last Message for A While

[Brad Dolan <bdolan@use.usit.net>]

FWIW, here's to you, Tim, from another Luddite:

I learn and use new tools to the extent I think they make my
life better.  ASCII still looks good to me.

Signal-to-noise ratio on this list has fallen to zero.  
Arrogance-to-signal ratio is near infinite.

Brad 


On Thu, 15 Dec 1994, Timothy C. May wrote:

> 
> It may be time for me to move on. More than 2 years on this list,
> since the B.C. period, may be too long.
> 
> I'm fed up with fighting these battles, and no doubt many of you are
> fed up with seeing contentious pitched battles. Cypherpunks is
> increasingly a forum of strutting and posturing about who has the most
> powerful tools, who is spending more of their lives staying at the
> bleeding edge of technology. Depressing.
> 
> The consensus of the active posters in this latest thread (Perry,
> Amanda, Lucky, Jim, others) is that I am a hopeless fuddy-duddy,
> unwilling to begin posting in the latest modality.
> 
> (Funny, Netnews is still 99.999983% plain ASCII, by message count, and
> nobody advocating a more advanced scheme is actually _using_ such ne
> plus ultra formats here on this list. If it's so easy, and so 'punkly
> correct, why not?)
> 
> Jim McCoy wrote:
> 
> > If you are truly interested in making strong encryption easy and
> > transparent to the vast majority of the users of future communications
> > systems you should be leading the MIME charge, not holding everyone back...
> 
> I don't care for this imputation that my views on communicating with
> the list are somehow holding others back. Or that discussing these
> issues is inconsistent with being "truly interested in making strong
> encryption easy and transparent." 
> 
> Bluntly, I'm fucking sick and tired of these cheap shots and personal
> innuendos. Maybe it's the "young guns" syndrome, with a codger like me
> whose first Net account was in 1972 being a ripe target for the newest
> pistoleros with their .486-caliber Linux boxes in their holsters.
> 
> Whatever, I'm fed up. 
> 
> I'm taking a break and unsubbing for a while. If I'm back in time for
> the January meeting, we'll have the "Demo Day" as planned. If not,
> you'll have to play it by ear.
> 
> As they say, you know what a Cypherpunks firing squad is? 
> 
> A circle.
> 
> 
> --Tim May
> 
> 
> -- 
> ..........................................................................
> Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
> tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
> 408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
> W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
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> 
>