---Ian Goddard <Ian@Goddard.net> wrote:
> IAN: I'd call those who respond to nonpersonal
> dispassionate analytical input with naught but
> personal attacks and mud slinging "unstable,"
> and a few others things too, but I think one
> cannot instill a respect for free inquiry in
> those dead-set on preventing it, even by holding
> a mirror up to their shameful acts of aggression.
>
> Consider the above response. It purports that
> I should not be abused since it gets me upset
> (framing my opposition to abuse as a sign of
> mental instability), and yet the statement is
> inherently intended to do exactly that which
> it says should not be done, and is therefore
> expossed as a willful effort to inflict what
> the author predicts will cause personal hurt,
> any sign of which on my part will then be used
> to frame me as "unstable." All-in-all, it is
> a violate aggression against free inquiry.
>
> I can't figure why a list of a group that I
> think stands for the highest ideals, for free
> and anti-dogmatic inquiry, consistently expresses
> the lowest varieties of anti-inquiry gangsterism.
> But the reason that such reactions are displayed
> by any subset of people is always the same: to
> prevent with noise the signal of inquiry that
> is perceived as a potential threat to existing
> memetic codes... hence the "logic of abuse."
>
> No doubt, as in the past, my objections here to
> personal abuse will result in more of the same,
> all the while the initial nonpersonal, logical
> issues I raised are buried under a mountain of
> noise, which is obviously exactly the intention.
>
> I get the message: Go away and stop threatening
> our memes with foreign-devil ideas and other
> things that frighten us. It's pathetic!
Maybe I act out aggressively to hide my affection for you, Ian.
--Wax