Xref: utzoo alt.config:119 talk.bizarre:12460 Path: utzoo!hoptoad!xanth!kent From: kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: alt.config,talk.bizarre Subject: Re: _Everybody_ For President Summary: You folks deserve a tongue lashing, and far be it from me to decline. Keywords: alt.president Message-ID: <5239@xanth.cs.odu.edu> Date: 12 May 88 04:48:28 GMT References: <1039@X.UUCP> <14741@oddjob.UChicago.EDU> Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (KentPaul Dolan) Followup-To: alt.config Distribution: na,alt Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va. Lines: 190 In article <14741@oddjob.UChicago.EDU> matt@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (Yes, *THAT* Matt Crawford) writes: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Teensy little ego problem here? I never heard of him. You? >I agree with STella - a whole newsgroup devoted to one boring little joke >is absurd. > >Today a newgroup message for alt.birthright arrived here from >umd5!grebyn!inco!klortho. When talk.bizarre spins off new newsgroups, >that exceeds my tolerance. I rmgrouped both the new group and >talk.bizarre from my site and I do not pass either group to any of my 10 >neighbors. > >I encourage others to delete at least the new newsgroup, if not >talk.bizarre itself. > Matt Crawford [Info copy to talk.bizarre, followups to alt.config.] Sigh. With thinking like this, it is surprising we have a consensually governed net at all, much less an alt configuration of newsgroups. Do any of you supposedly responsible people take the trouble to investigate what you're condemning before acting, or is this kind of thinking typical of net administration? The email chaos is, in the latter case, rather easily explained by sheer incompetence at the top. Had you bothered, which you did not, to look first, then decide, you would have learned: 1) The Birthright Party is _not_ about electing KENT FOR PRESIDENT IN '88 despite the presence of just such a phrase in the .signature files of many readers of USENet and gatewayed nets. If you had ever met me, you would have some idea just how ludicrous such a notion is; a less suitable candidate would be hard to find. That _does_ represent a convenient catch-phrase or rallying cry by which to attract interest to the effort, however and is being widely seen in that context. You have confused the seeming with the substance. 2) The alt.birthright newsgroup was _not_ the idea of the Birthright Party membership (96 net subscribers and growing; since the lurker/writer ratio on the net is roughly 100 to 1, if talk.bizarre and comp.sys.amiga are typical examples, this represents roughly 10,000 interested readers to date); on the contrary, we resisted the proposal and actively argued against it where it was proposed in talk.bizarre. (That may be a royal "we;" but since I'm responsible for this effort, I do get an executive voice at points along the way.) 3) All representations "favoring" the Birthright Party effort in this forum have been made by those most actively opposing it; hardly a good lens through which to investigate the possible worth of an idea such as alt.birthright. 4) The Birthright Party does address a real lack in the USENet community; the lack of a forum for organizing real political activity to espouse and promote causes dear to the heart of the scientifically sophisticated net user. In our case, this cause is the promotion of a vastly enhanced and expanded space program for the U.S. and for humanity. 5) The Birthright Party does state clear goals which have been and are being argued around the net: political actions to promote exploring space, exploiting space, and settling space. 6) The Birthright Party is _not_ a spin-off of talk.bizarre; many of the members are at sites where that newsgroup is not even patronized. While most Birthright Party activity takes place by email (of which I have saved onto floppy some 1.2 Mbytes), talk.bizarre has been used as a common assembly point for lack of a suitable newsgroup. The "talk.politics" group is explicitly _not_ such a group; talk is not what the Birthright Party is about; its activities have extended to the production of "movies" for the net, attempts to create local chapters on college campuses, reprogramming of campus idle screens to display the Birthright Party banner, and active recruitment of membership. One member went so far as to get his sysadmin to subscribe to talk.bizarre (a real burden if ever there were one) strictly for the purpose of following the 5% of articles there concerning the organization of our effort. 7) The Birthright Party _is_ an attempt to explore use of the global electronic village, the wider Net, as a mechanism for leveraging the political influence in worthwhile causes of those citizens technically sophisticated enough to make use of its resources. It is an example of politics for the well informed. We have already seen this kind of activity succeed in a narrower issue, where the direct interest of many net readers was immediately evident. I took some small part in the effort to organize the letter writing campaign which eventually influenced the FCC to decide not to extend the proposed $5 per connect hour "connection fee" (actually pure profit to the Baby Bells) to communications suppliers leasing long distance provider interstate lines for a fixed fee to provide telecommunications traffic to private users, as does PC Pursuit, for example. The question is whether a similar organizing effort can succeed where the issues are not so clear cut to the net community, where a common approach must be hammered out, but where the eventual benefits are much higher. In the case of the Birthright Party effort, these include a new sense of national purpose, a new global prosperity and a shift to an economy of plenty rather than a steady worsening of the economy of scarcity, relief of stress from human industrial and food gathering activities on a dangerously overstressed global ecology, outlets for the presently self destructively focused energies of the young and restless, and possibly the raw survival of the human species and the only life of which we have evidence, if we can achieve space homesteading but cannot achieve nuclear peace. It is a part of real life politics that such activity should face active opposition by the "entrenched establishment," even if the opposition to the Birthright Party to date has been that of the rather pathetic posting privilege limpets of talk.bizarre. I've taken up almost enough of your time. This morning the alt.birthright newsgroup was added to the system for which it had been primarily targeted, xanth. This evening, an rmgroup message arrived for the same newsgroup. That is pretty schizophrenic behavior, either by one person, or between two people unable to agree. In between, several postings were made here, and the group also arrived carrying a couple "Aha!" type postings from Birthright Party members. I don't have a burning need for the alt.birthright newsgroup to exist, although if carried widely it would serve as a convenient focal point for Birthright Party and similar efforts and might relieve the irritation on two rather childishly unwilling to share members of talk.bizarre. I do have a burning need that people in charge of making decisions that affect what I do, make those decisions responsibly, and after investigating to learn the facts in the case under consideration. That responsible behavior is clearly lacking here. Matt Crawford, your actions have been the actions of a vandal. You should hang your head in shame. You have evidently used this hapstance as an excuse to deprive your user community and those around you of a forum of long standing but not to your particular interests. May some kind soul treat your favorite news forum as irresponsibly in return. The rest of you in administrative roles have nothing of which to be proud in this case either. Further communication with me on this subject should be by email. I am _not_ interested in becoming a voice in how the net is run, telecommunications is for me a tool, not a passion. I am _not_ interested in entering into verbal warfare in this newsgroup with those who challenge the right to exist of one who believes there is hope for the human species; I have other, important affairs on my agenda. I subscribed to this group long enough to make one posting, and I plan promptly to unsubscribe so quickly as this is on its way. I will know of your decision, should you bother to bestir yourselves to make one, by the iterated reification of alt.birthright, or by its absence. Don't bother bickering over the newsgroup name, it is good enough and already provides recognition from the ongoing .signature campaign; the news.groups alt group listing should contain something like "politics promoting goals of the technically competent," and if folks are interested, they will find us. Follow this up until your are blue in the face, I won't be listening. I didn't come here to make friends, I came here to chastise blatant administrative incompetence. I have done so, to my satisfaction, though probably not to yours. Just remember to take into account what it is you are opposing, and what a heavy burden of responsibility that puts on your shoulders. I am one human being, I am capable of being defeated, and I am mature enough not to let that possibility deprive me of the will to try to make the future a safer, better place for my three children. I am also contrary enough not to let the possibility of fomenting further opposition frighten me into letting stupid behavior affecting me go unremarked. Thanks for the "listen." Kent, the man from xanth. [A short note in memorial of Robert Anson Heinlein, born 21 October 1907, died 8 May 1988, provided thought provoking entertainment to millions in the interim with his science-fiction writings. "Thou art God," Robert, and you will be sorely missed by the generation whose ideas and ideals you helped to mold.]