Re: Response to Perrygram

[Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>]

On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> At 2:04 PM 2/14/96, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> 
> >Perry and Tim,
> >
> >Why don't you two have sex already? The tension around here is getting
> >unbearable...
> 
> And why don't you stop cluttering up the list with supposedly cute stuff
> like this?

I was quite serious.  I find it immensely entertaining and valueable.  
Mr. Metzger in many ways, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps by design, forces 
the list to evaluate and consider how wide the scope of crypto actually 
reaches.  Everytime he asks "what does this have to do with crypto" he 
tends to be responded to with some quite creative and original connections 
(and some not so creative or original).  Everytime Mr. May points out 
arguments for wider topicality the reverse is true for the code purists.  
Discourse.  Extremely valuable in my view.  I'll refrain from commenting 
on Mr. Hettinga's comment.

> The couple of fairly short messages I've written in response to comments by
> Perry are *as nothing* compared to the tons of verbiage in the Jim Bell
> flame wars, the VZNUri/Detweiler flames, and even the Black Unicorn vs.
> Netscape battle.

Mr. May takes my point the wrong way.  Again, I was quite literal.  I 
think the conflict is the best thing since crosstalk.  It hits right on 
the money as to what this list is about from two extremely opposed 
parties, one with a more liberal (literal, not political) view as to what 
is on topic, and one with a more conserative (again, literal, not 
political) view.  As to my own Netscape rantings, well, I'll leave that 
without comment too.

> (If anyone can point to examples where I have engaged in protracted--more
> than a couple of short messages--flames, please send me pointers to these
> examples in private mail. I claim no especial morality, but I do think I've
> stayed out of ongoing flame wars. I haven't even commented on
> "assassination politics," even though it's just a watered-down and
> poorly-thought-out version of what I wrote about in 1988...easier to just
> delete the ramblings.)

As I state above, I think the argument is a long running theme for which 
Mr. May and Mr. Metzger are the opposing camp figureheads.  I wouldn't 
call your discussions "flame wars" (with the possible exception of the 
occasional low barb by Mr. Metzger) at all.

> And yet people like Bob and Uni feel compelled to throw their two cents in
> about what a spectacle this is.

Again, I was pointing out the value and interest of the specticle, not 
its lack of merit.  It is my view that empassioned discourse is among the 
most devine of human expressions, but then, legal education tends to 
indoctrinate that view.

> Get real.

I was being quite real.  I'm sorry you took it as sarcasm.  The pair of 
you should start a PBS show.  Seriously.

> --Tim May
> 
> Boycott espionage-enabled software!
> We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
> ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
> Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
> tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
> W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
> Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1  | black markets, collapse of governments.
> "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

---
My prefered and soon to be permanent e-mail address: unicorn@schloss.li
"In fact, had Bancroft not existed,       potestas scientiae in usu est
Franklin might have had to invent him."    in nihilum nil posse reverti
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