>I dunno. He is wrong, and he's quite fanatic about what he's saying...
>But he's certainly not insane by any definition I'd like to find in common
>usage. And was he that rude? I've seen many an extropian say FAR worse
>about liberals.
>
>Granted, I wouldn't want to argue with him, as he's certainly not open to
>new ideas, but I also don't feel the ad hominem is appropriate.
Dan: My comment was not in response to what he said to Michael, but in
response to what he said to me.
Since others of you will no doubt come across Ian Cruikshank, I'm going to
paste in bits of some of his letters. Since he continued to send me abuse
after I asked him to cease communicating, I have no compunction about
posting this drivel publically:
>To: coward <MAXMORE@primenet.com>
>
>So, I suppose you have fatedly been required to ignore me, and sit seething
>by your selfish, egotistical lonesome. Have enough ideas in your head to
>respond, for a change? p u s s y
>
>Fuck you, eternally, you intolerant, stubborn, decadent, and
>utterly dogmatic capitalist bigot. You have demonstrated in
>numerous insults and attacks just how STUCK you are in your
>current views, how dogmatically your closed mind rejects new
>ideas and information, how utterly selfish and thereby stupid
>and non-holistic, doomed to fail, your ideas are.
>Might I congratulate you on the excellent manner in which you have
>integrated your Extropian Principles into your own life? I mean,
>you have just exceeded all expectations of mine, in terms of your
>self-transformation and adaption... You communicate so freely and
>spontaneously, I just WISH I could be so smooth as you.
>
>NOT!
>
>-iAN cRUIKSHANK
>
>P.S. While you're looking me up, look up my buddy Jim Legg,
>who helped construct my homepages. You might remember him
>from the Extropy Mailing list--you know, the guy you tried
>to tamper with his messages, masquerade as him and make him
>look bad, destroy his threads, and slowly, systematically
>DELETE his posts from your self-centered Extropy mailing
>list? Your own behavior and the actions of those you call
>your friends is what will bring you and your mission down.
>We are keeping track of it all. Just look at Jim's bookmarks
>page and you'll see the evidence arranged for all to see.
>Your actions and attitutes are self-defeating and eventually
>self-destructive. We'll be waiting. Count on it, Min Less.
["Min Less"?! How old is this fellow? I did contact Jim. He turned out to
be reasonable and disapproving of Cruikshank's tactics. In discussion with
him it turned out that he recognized that he was in error and that his
posts had *not* been tampered with. Cruikshank's comments were
irresponsible slander.]
Just to show that he doesn't reserve all his nastiness for me:
>Now, without any further ado, just listen to the extropians discuss this
>topic, in their own inimitable scuzzy manner. The following passages come
from
>"If Uploads Come First: The Crack of a Future Dawn", by Robin Hanson.
Max
Max More, Ph.D.
more@extropy.org
http://www.primenet.com/~maxmore
President, Extropy Institute: exi-info@extropy.org, http://www.extropy.org
EXTRO 3 CONFERENCE on the future: http://www.extropy.org/extro3.htm