Re: >H MEDIA:guidelines for transhumanists

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 14:53:04 -0700 (PDT)

> Eliezer, with all due respect, this isn't the first time that
> Natasha has thrown around these kinds of accusation,...

I'd just like to slip in a request that if you're going to air your dirty laundry in public, at least give us spectators a program so we call follow along. Twice now you've referred to some alleged "accusation" of Natasha's, but since the posts that did so did not include reference text, I don't know what you mean. The only thing even remotely provocative I can find in the archives is this one rather inelegantly worded paragraph:

"...the fact that you are now putting together media material cannot discount earlier materials put together by people who have been doing this for years. Also, the fact that we have been doing this for years does not discount the work of your or other people who are putting media materials and press kits together..."

I suppose if you really stretched the limits of the language you might be able to interpret that as an accusation that you've ignored earlier efforts for some unspecified reason, but I certainly don't read it that way. It reads to me like just idle chest-pounding: Hey! Look at me! I've done that too!

Natasha is fairly articulate, and certainly not timid, so if she wanted to accuse someone of something I think she'd have no hesitation to do so clearly rather than subtly. The awkward paragraph above I'm sure is just a result of haste. If there's some actual clear accusation I've missed, or if there's some offline reason for you to believe that Natasha meant one of her comments that way, please enlighten us. Otherwise it just looks like you're overreacting to a misunderstanding and Natasha's just being her usual vocal self. 

--
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