Re: Bell, Detweiler, Ravings, and Whatnot

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 3:37 AM 3/11/96, jim bell wrote:

>Well, until about  3/4 of a year ago, I spent no time on Internet except
>through a FIDO gateway on Libernet and Libernet-d, so I missed all that.
>I'm a
>bit ashamed to admit that I haven't read the vast majority of Cybernomicon,
>although somebody was nice enough to email me a section on the  subject of
>anonymous assassination markets.  I wondered why you hadn't extended the
>idea to a more general system, but then again that was a bit early if you
>talked about it in 1988.  Without the invention of digital cash, it's a bit
>hard to reward the assassin.

Oh, but you are missing the main point completely. It was reading Chaum's
1985 paper on digital cash that got me thinking about this. By 1988-90,
digital cash was essentially in the same state it is in now. Central to my
points was an anonymous two-way market, such as the BlackNet market I
developed in '93.


>>And your insulting comments about people whom you disagree with, or people
>>whom you think are not taking your ideas seriously enough, are reminiscent
>>of the ravings of the last victim here of late stage Detweiler's Syndrome.
>>--Tim May
>
>Well, maybe at times I do get a bit testy, but most recently on this Leahy
>bill I'm disgusted to see organizations that SHOULD be sounding the alarm
>actually express only mildly guarded support for that bill, "wart and all."
>I'd love to see _most_ of the bill pass, but the one bad section is a real
>killer.

There are many things I find terrible, disgusting, dangerous, wrong, etc.
But I have never been persuaded by people ranting at me and insulting me,
so I doubt that rants and insults from me will be effective. (I'm not
claiming to always be calm and non-insulting, just claiming that the style
of ranting is rarely effective, and I try to avoid it.)

Screaming insults at people, resorting to ad hominem attacks on their
personality (such as Jim did with Padgett Peterson), ranting about how
people are fools and worse, and generally foaming at the mouth...these are
behaviors which cause people to be dismissed as jerks, paranoids, and
killfile occuppants.

Read the archives covering the several months when Detweiler (aka V. Z.
Nuri, aka S. Boxx, aka Pablo Escobar, aka about 20 other pseudonyms) was
foaming at the mouth about how people were mutating his brain, how the
crypto anarchists were ignoring him, how the snakes of Medusa were hiding
in his keyboard, and so on. Then note the similarities to Jim Bell.

I have nothing against you, Jim Bell, but you are coming across as a loon,
as someone who clearly needs some kind of anti-psychotic medication. You
rant, you quote excessively, you dissect short comments with pages-long
diatribes, you ascribe motivations to your opponents that you cannot
possibly be privy to, and you generally act like a fool. I urge you to
moderate your debating style before you're just dismissed completely as a
detweiling basket case.

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" 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."