conran@roll.DEC (08/08/84)
Whoa!
I don't mind Arndt. I don't even mind Dyer. They provide comic
relief. I do mind extremely long discussions. Anything worth reading can
be said briefly. The rest is just rationalization.
On another note, when Plunkett made the comment about the "growing
public health hazard caused by your bedroom activities" I almost choked on
my morning coffee. Please recall the problem is caused by a virus, not by
homosexual affection!
/chris conran/
DEC Advanced Semiconductor Development Group
(DEC E-NET) ROLL::CONRAN
(UUCP) {decvax, ucbvax, allegra}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-roll!conran
(ARPA) conran%roll.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
conran%roll.DEC@Purdue-Merlin.ARPA
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) (08/08/84)
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.
Perhaps I should be like the great, silent majority of net.motss readers
and let the group die from neglect or being overrun by Miss America comments,
or degenerating into nature/nurture discussions. Some of us (not just me)
won't have that, and if it takes a public comment to change things, we'll
speak up.
If more people participated in net.motss, this kind of monopolization of
the group, both by topic and by contributor, would vanish. I'd LOVE to
be a small fish in a big pond, as I surmise would the other handful of
serious contributors here. Crank postings would be viewed as anomalies
instead of a large percentage of the volume.
So how about it? What about monogamy (a remarkably uncontroversial
topic, it seems.) How about one's experience in the workplace?
How about money issues, etc., when settling down with someone?
There's lots to discuss other than this meta-discussion.
--
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca.ARPAgtaylor@cornell.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (08/10/84)
> >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) ________________________________________________________________________________