Boycotts and Etiquette

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

At 1:19 AM 7/22/96, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:

>Honestly, this boycott campaign looks out of place on Cypherpunks, at
>least to me. I mean, we are for freedom of speech, aren't we?
>Sternlight is talking about on-topic things. How come that renowned
>defenders of freedom of speech resorted to name calling and attempts to
>push their opponent out of the public forum?

Note that I have not called for a boycott of Sternlight. The voices you
here adding their name to a list are biasing the statistics. Those who
don't want to respond to Sternlight, or me, or Vulis, Bell, or VZNuri/LD,
should simply *not respond*! A novel idea, eh?

I think I have been relatively polite to David, though I sure do wish he'd
"pull his punches" with his gratuitous insults (e.g., by ending posts with
dismissive remarks about the moral beliefs of his opponents, to name one
example).

I call these "ad hominem" remarks, in that they call into question the
motivations or the basic competence of others to comment, though perhaps
David believes that since they are "true," they cannot be ad hominem. {It
ain't ad hominem, it's truth.) Perhaps a better word is "disrespectul," in
the sense that I get the impression that David thinks nearly everyone who
engages in argument with him is either childish (a term he characterized my
views as :-}), or foolish, or disingenuous, or oafish, or deceiving, or...

Some examples:

"...so your contention is false on its face."

"Some live in the conversation in their head and require that everything be
spelled out. Very well, then:"

"Isn't that nice. Some creep is proud enough of his skill at accessing the
trivially available InterNIC finger data that he posts it to invoke
harassment. And being a coward as well, he hides behind an anonymous
remailer."

"Another attempt to accuse, read minds, and impute motives."

.....

Actually, I started to go back through the Sternlight CP posts I have saved
(*), and found a curious thing: the intelligent comments vastly outweighed
the "one line repartee" insults! I believe the majority of Net participants
(here, in the crypto newsgroups, etc.) lose sight of the good comments
because of the flamish ones. (* Indeed, I may have skewed my sample toward
less-flamish posts, as I delete most of the simple insult posts.)

I believe David would be better served by not yielding to the temptation to
add throwaway lines, such as he used in replying to me: " Where I come from
we call that "theft". Your ethics may vary in California." This is
unneeded, and adds to a tone of ad hominem attack. It is roughly equivalent
to making snide remarks about the motives of Kallstrom, Denning, Freeh,
etc. Not very persuasive.

In fact, in one analysis of the nature of flaming he noted:

"And when on occasion (as happens) I rise to provocation, my take on it
isn't that the other guy posted "flame bait" but that I allowed myself to
be out of control. It's always possible to respond with the standard
weapons against provocation when such is deliberate: rapier-like wit,
reductio ad absurdum, literate sarcasm, or simple silence aka the filter
file. Actual contumely in a response is seldom necessary, except perhaps by
reference on rare occasion. We're not children here."

Good advice. I agree with him here, and will not try to collect more
examples of rudeness...Perhaps we react too strongly to the
"Sternlightisms" and lose sight of the better points?

Still, in my several years of seeing his posts in sci.crypt,
talk.politics.crypto, talk.politics.org.eff (?), and elsewhere, I've seen
that often his policy points get lost in the clutter of arguing with others
on non-substantive points, of getting pulled into nonsensical crap about
"SternFUD," "Bowdark," the "UnDoctor," and whom he has *Plonk*ed.
Personally, as a neo-Calvinist who believes that those with whom I disagree
on matters of politeness and basic morals are best punished by silence from
me, I have often simply ignored threads that involve this kind of
pettiness.

(But, like David himself said, sometimes I, too, get pulled in...)

There is a spectrum of rudeness and "disrepect." I certainly don't hold
myself up as a standard of politeness. At one end are some truly rude
folks, much ruder than Sternlight, me, or even Perry ("Llywarch Hen" and
Vulis come to mind, recently). At the other end are some truly polite
folks, such as Hal Finney and Bill Stewart, who make their points while
avoiding personal characterizations or cleverly-worded insults.

Rather than wasting list space with talk of "pledges" and boycotts, maybe a
better approach is for us all to concentrate on better posts....

--Tim May

(P.S. I don't intend to pull my punches on the "controversial" posts I like
to write, such as about guns, or Ritalin, or "queer rights." While these
posts apparently are "offensive" to some here, this kind of post is
perfectly "fair game" as I see it.)

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,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
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