Re: Brian Kernighan, maybe I'm not worthy, maybe I'm scum

On Dec 31, 12:14 am, mnemo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Dec 29, 11:20 am, spinoza1111 <spinoza1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mike Godwinas a "libertarian" is uncomfortable about the Hitlers he
has enabled by on the one hand implying that "anything goes", that no
external constraints shall be placed on people, and on the other hand
requiring norms to be repeatedly negotiated by people completely
inadequate to the task.

I'm always charmed to discover that someone claims to have access to
my mental states and yet manages to get so many of them wrong. I could
write an essay just on the ill-chosen words ("libertarian,"
"uncomfortable," "enabled," etc.), but I leave the full deconstruction
of "spinoza" and his comments as an exercise for other readers.

Hi Mike. Yes you are a libertarian, and yes you have unleashed, as a
libertarian, a thought meme which is morphing into an American Fascism
(cf Ron Paul's ravings) under economic pressure as we write. Yes you
did and continue to exert censorship on using the f word with your
law. Yes you are an enabler.

In 2000, you, on the same panel with me, refused to see the need on
networks for equal time for views and essentially you called for the
libertarian game, which always goes to the loudest and wealthiest, to
continue. Professor Lessig was calling for the wealthy to merely share
links, and you wanted them to be "free". Freedom, hoy day, freedom, as
Calibano says.

You made, and you continue to make, a fundamental error, which your
ancestor did not make. No political philosophy should make the rich
more secure except insofar as it raises the level of the least well
off. Libertarianism and its cousins fail Rawls 101. Progress itself
reverses direction in societies, like ancient Rome and America between
1980, where Pareto optimality doesn't obtain, and the rich get richer
and the poor, poorer. Hong Kong might be a capitalist paradise, but at
the same time both the British government and today's Legco
consciously will dampen the gains of the superrich, with the result
that the society is better educated, more peaceful, and, despite the
crowding, more civil than America.

Libertarianism, and in all probability whatever you label your
philosophy today, enables the rich and the criminal class to retain
its gains, to be secure electronically so as to manipulate unseen, and
to force the burden of taxation onto the middle class and the poor,
who are given free software developed by virtual slaves, and the
opportunity, in software, to compete with open source slaves.

If your views have changed do let us know, but as far as I can
determine, they enabled the theft of the election in 2000 and the Iraq
war. This despite the fact that you wrote a very good essay on the
Bush v Gore decision.

You're a fellow traveler. In my book, anyone not clearly in favor of
universal single-payer health care, elimination of all tax cuts for
people making more than 100,000.00 per year, withdrawal from Iraq NOW,
and the restriction of American military forces to the continent and
its shelf, simply enabled the Bush administration disaster.

If you are now in favor of these things I take it all back. I confess
I haven't kept up with your evolution.

Nilges' correction to Godwin's law is that yes, comparision to Hitler
in a "flame" war does indeed converge to unity, because "flame" wars
are mislabeled: normally, they consist of a cybernetic mob beating up
on a minority, usually of one, and lower middle class proto-Hitlers
are flies on *** when they see blood and glass. When the victim sees
little Adolf coming, he's usually calling a spade a spade.

Fascism is coming, and it's time to converge to unity. The Pope has
howled at a mob in Madrid to destroy the socialist government. The
Pope wants to return Spain to civil war. The assassination of Benazir
Bhutto was a fascist crime perpetrated by the Pakistani government.
The theft of the 2000 election which to your credit you addressed in
an essay was the beginning of fascism in Amerikkka. The people who
cyberbully people like Kathy Sierra and myself on networks are the
shock troops of fascism.


I will say that, to me, the choice of "lower middle class" as a
pejorative reveals much about the speaker. (Why add the "lower" to
"middle class" if not to imply something antidemocratic?)

It isn't anti-democratic to acknowledge class difference. Quite the
opposite. As a programmer most of my life, I was lower middle class. I
know how people talk when there's never enough money.


--Mike

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