i do recall pyramid taking on all comers, your deference to his brand of contempt warms me to your explaination. however, i beleive that identity spoofing and devil's advocacy of this nature in cyberspace, especially on serious topics, degrades the overall credibility of the medium. people who ought to know better do themselves and the subjects at hand a disservice. despite the fact that your post made me laugh, it's really not funny.I think we have to learn to adjust to a new type of credibility. We will never make cyberspace into a mirror of the physical world. Information must be processed in a very slippery, radically functional way. Someone who falls in love over the internet should know that they have fallen in love with a source of words. Or perhaps they have only fallen in love with the internal effect of the words. It's damn uncomfortable, but extremely interesting. I *like* the degradation, because what is left is purer.
it reminds me of a tack i took in demonstratng the logical conclusion of 'the bell curve' would be to immediately jail all those with congenital brain disorders, and so i argued for it. i don't understand exactly why this medium brings out the worst in us, but nonsense like that should be left in more private fora.Would that really be the only logical conclusion? (I haven't read "The Bell Curve", but if you can set up the argument for me, I'd be interested.)
still in all, your post is a better recant than i'd likely compose. whereas there is no difficulty in reposting usenet material, your personal letter to me will only accompany the original post with your permission.If you could rename the html document and give it a new title sans "niggers", I'd really appreciate it. Anyone who looks up "basketball" on Alta Vista right now sees "niggers and basketball" with my name right next to it. (I *really* don't like that word. I was conditioned hard against it. If you notice, even in my spoof I carefully avoided it.) If you rename the html document, next time the Alta Vista spider zips by it will delete the old document and replace it with the new one.
I'd like to have my defense posted with the original post. It has many interesting controversial concepts swarming about it. If you get any especially thoughtful or intense responses will you forward them to me?
Thanks,
----------------- S. Taylor sttaylor@mechanon.com