Re: Conspiracies and "Ciphergroupies"

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@panix.com>]

This is only of interest to a very limited number of people. Its
basically a flame about private matters. I discourage reading it.

Timothy C. May writes:
> Ironically, just a few weeks ago, Perry was sharply criticizing me for my
> "Crisis Overload" post and was urging me to join him in a serious lobbying
> effort to undermine the Grassley bill.

You are rewriting history. I just asked you if you thought that hiring
a Washington lobbying firm would be a good idea. I didn't urge you to
join anything. I had no intention of involving any of us personally
in any lobbying on the basis that professionals would do it better.

> I declined,

Actually, you were noncommittal.

> thinking it unlikely to succeed and preferring to concentrate on my
> other project (including a new release of SmalltalkAgents, just
> arrived). When I preferred to work on more technical things than
> launching a grassroots political campaign, he got abusive and
> insulting in e-mail and I told him I would no longer accept this
> sort of abuse.

Actually Tim, this is again a rewrite of history. I was having a
perfectly pleasant email conversation with you (the first in a while)
when your tax situation came up and I advised you that you ought to
get some professional tax people to look at your finances. I won't
mention what the situation was since that was private, but if you
insist I'll happily post our exchange. You claimed I was being
"abusive" and went off in a huff. I don't recall urging you to do
anything other than seeing a professional tax attorney.

I just checked my archive of our private mail exchange on the subject,
and it appears that my recollection is substantially accurate. As I
noted, if you insist, I'll happily post the private mail.

As for your activities: frankly, Tim, I haven't known you to do much
of anything over the years. This is, of course, your right. You've
earned your money and you now get to do whatever you like. Don't
claim, however, that I said or did things that I did not say or do.

> Insulting people as "ciphergroupies" because they are not working on one's
> current interest seems needlessly counterproductive.

If you'd read my messages, I listed a wide array of productive
activities. Merely because I feel that polluting the list with
messages about Vincent Foster's shoe size is a waste doesn't mean that
I think everyone has to be a clone. There are dozens of valuable
activities from lobbying to coding to spreading the word that people
can do. However, posting conspiracy theories isn't in the list.

Perry