> Second, when he started bagging on "politeness" he pissed everyone off.
Yes, people will react badly when you question their long-held assumptions or their basic values. When we as Extropians question the value of aging and death, or of God, people see that as an attack; when we expound the virtues of boundless expansion of technology to those whose lives are committed to nature, they see that as an attack; when we question the value of our physical bodies and brains in favor of uploaded concsiousness, we should expect angry reactions; when we question the value of centralized control in favor of spontaneous order, people who have devoted their lives to perfecting that control will be threatened. Such reactions are mostly just fear of the unknown or different.
Similarly, when I question the value of long-held beliefs like "politeness" or "restraint", I am not surprized that this is interpreted as an attack even though it is nothing of the sort, and will provoke reactions from those who have committed much time and effort to them. But I cannot let the reactions to my ideas overly influence how I judge them, or else I wouldn't be here. We are all radicals here, questioning many of the basic assumptions of our society; why not examine this one as well with just as much of a critical eye?
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC