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From: gtaylor@cornell.UUCP (Greg Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: tidbits
Message-ID: <195@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Aug-84 11:16:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: cornell.195
Posted: Fri Aug 10 11:16:39 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Aug-84 00:49:35 EDT
References: <3159@decwrl.UUCP> <888@bbncca.ARPA>
Reply-To: gtaylor@gvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor)
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 38

>
>If you look at my responses to Arndt, you'll note that they are brief
>and to the point.  I take your claim lumping both Arndt and myself together
>as "comic relief" as a personal insult and a cheap shot, and it betrays
>a complete inability or unwillingness to discriminate among the various
>postings to net.motss in the past few months.
>
>This kind of response is typical, it seems, not only here on USENET, but
>in today's society.  One becomes a target for cheap shots, not on the content
>of one's comments, but from the fact that one cared enough to comment.
>All ideas are equivalent and have equal merit, and one side is as obnoxious
>as the other.

You've got a point, Steve. It is hard to be taken seriously sometimes, and
even harder to realize that when you act with the courage of your convictions,
you wind up providing entertainment for the masses. If you hung out with the
Marxists, you could put it down to the petit bourgeoise ( It never worked
for me, but :-) ).

You know what was wierd about your posting, though? I wonder what sort of 
response you'd get if you wnet through the above quoted section of your
posting, chose four "controversial" (bad word, I know, but.... y'know
net.politics, net.women, net.religion.....) newsgroups, and re-edited your
article to refer to some regular poster in that newsgroup and some deeply
held conviction/position/orientation (I know, slippery verbal ground again)
common to discussion there. You think the responses would look at all similar?

I suppose that a corollary would involve wondering whether anyone would take
the above "thought experiment" as a serious one, or just put it down to more
head games at the expense of the seriously involved and committed....

Take Care,

________________________________________________________________________________
If you ask me, I may tell you   gtaylor@cornell
it's been this way for years	Gregory Taylor			 
I play my red guitar....	Theorynet (Theoryknot)		  
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