Re: META: Getting the facts straight

From: Brian Manning Delaney (bdelaney@infinitefaculty.org)
Date: Tue Jun 27 2000 - 17:25:39 MDT


Folks,

My inability to resist the morbid curiosity to find out what
inanity gets said next in this mess, along with my inability to
resist letting my attending outrage impel me unwisely, requires
that I unsubscribe for a spell. It's taking too much time, and
doesn't seem to be serving any purpose I think is good.

When people start making accusations of "morphing," and at least
one person makes an ad populum argument to support this
accusation, it's clearly time to go.

The fact that I'm even responding to this is embarrassing.
Anyway, here's a copy of part of a letter I wrote to Max (with
some things added in, in this version):

----------------
Max,

I'm literally sick to my stomach over this.

Carl is a well-known [...] member of [another]
philosophy/transhumanist list. I told him about hotmail a year
ago as a way of having regular email despite leaving grad.
school temporarily in [location deleted]. He's a very sweet
young guy who likes me and thinks I need defending here.

Carl told Stan I was being attacked, and that Stan should not
use his normal email address if he wanted to defend, me becuase
of the gun talk, and suggested hotmail.

[....]
---------------

To any lawyers who might be reading this: has slander or libel
or malicious threatening or something occurred? -- against
anyone, for that matter? I'm not familiar enough with the law to
know. If so, this should go to court. This has gone so far
beyond civility no other remedy will work.

Silence from the leadership here is chilling to me. (Although,
_perhaps_, my expressed desire not to be supported by friends
might have been taken to be a more general claim than I meant
it.)

A quick word about Max's response to Stan. Although Stan is one
of the people with whom I have talked extensively about this
recent mess, and I believe it's clear that the main reason he
posted his recent "META" post was simply to get people to stop
worrying about 19th century "ultra" uses, it's conceivable that
his anger over this business might have brought other
motivations to bear on the issue, like a desire to have Max
apologize yet again for things for which he's already
apologized. If so, I definitely don't share that desire. Once is
enough. The desire for more is petty.

As for the _new_ apology for the "new" issues. Accepted. For the
record, I recall the events slightly differently. I'm not sure
if the difference matter much. At this point, discussing any of
this mess publicly, here in Extropians, seems to be serving
other purposes than clarification.

I remain angry about many things here, including some that
haven't been discussed at all.

Still, I remain interested in the many questions that have
arisen here. Definitely worth discussing. But not here, not now.

I have told everyone I know in even firmer terms not to jump in
here (I almost removed Carl's modem from his computer at one
point). It seems the only way I can reign myself in is likewise
to leave. (I might get on the digest version, though, which
seems to intrude less into my mental space.)

A great loss for me, since there are so many interesting people
here. Them, I will greatly miss.

Towards the Good!
Brian.

P.S.
A request: no one email me about any of this, ever again,
unless:
1) we've exchanged email in the past (on anything),
2) you're writing to apologize (I don't care much about
apologies at this point, though), or
3) you're Natasha.

P.P.S. Apologies to Zero Powers for the too general statement of
yesterday (or whenever it was). I hope you can appreciate that
someone spending a lot of time thinking about anti-Semitism
recently might emit a typo or braino based on an unconscious
assessment of the meaning of silence in this forum! (Even if
such a meaning is completely absent.) I mean, compare what's
been said about me and my friends to my ONE-liner retort to
Natasah!!!



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:14:39 MDT