ms@ccieng5.UUCP (Mark L. Stevans) (11/02/83)
I wish to respond to Michael Stimack's posting, in which he refers to USENET as "a collection of the best organic minds in the history of the human race." I believe that Mr. Stimack has ignored many factors in his calculations, such as: 1. Is the human mind "better" in 1983 than it was, say, in in the European Renaissance? There is absolutely no data of any kind to answer this question, whether you consider "better" to mean more artistic, of higher moral standards, more "intelligent", or anything else. 2. There have been no studies, to the best of my limited knowledge, that have shown any positive correlation between a user's "betterness" and his quantity of USENET interaction. It is possible, and, in my opinion probable, that the correlation is in fact inverse. On a more flaming note, I do not think that the sort of elitism suggested by the statement in question enhances its veracity. In summary, Mr. Stimack's statement should be amended to "USENET contains some of the best organic minds...", because, after all, any sufficiently large sample of humanity will. Mark Stevans ritcv!ccieng5!ms