Let's see. Everyone who disagrees with you is dishonest,
and motivated either by money (right. I'm not making a nickel off
this) or the "drug-like high of manipulating others." Well, I don't think
I'm manipulating people, and I'm certainly not getting high by doing
so; maybe you are. And I don't think you can divide this loose
whatever-it-is CoV into two camps that are at war; at most, you may
convince everyone to attack you, thus enabling you to feel like a
martyr and avoid refuting any of our arguments or acknowledging
when someone else refutes one of yours.
One example of a refutation: your original assertion was
that the Internet is the best known forum for rational discussion.
Several of us have said things like "no it isn't," "then why does Make
Money Fast keep spreading?" and "prove it." Your response is to claim
that the fact that we're having this discussion online proves your point.
Fine, is there anyone on this list who can meet me in a Chinese
restaurant in New York City? If so, we can prove, by continuing the
discussion there, that New York City Chinese restaurants are the best
forum for rational discussion. All the discussion here proves is that it is
possible to have a rational argument on the Internet--that's
very different from proving that the Internet is the best place for having
one, or even as good as other known places. (I could discuss
planetary astronomy at a football game, but that doesn't mean it's a
particularly good venue for such a conversation.)
Vicki
rosenzweig@acm.org
http://members.tripod.com/~rosvicl
----------
From: owner-virus
To: Church of Virus
Subject: virus: Re: Anti-Virus Protection
Date: Monday, February 03, 1997 2:31PM
One fundamental choice people have is to be honest or dishonest-to figure
out
reality or evade reality. No one can force anyone else to be honest or
dishonest. For instance, when I showed why the ideology promoted by the
Church
of Virus is bogus, some people chose to ignore me. There's nothing I can do
about that. However, just as a parasite is dependent on its host, the
dishonest
members of CoV are dependent on honest members being duped and confused by
such
dopey ideologies. For most of these dishonest members, the big payoff is a
drug-like high of manipulating others. However, for the few most cleverly
dishonest members, the big payoff is financial-their *livelihood* depends on
manipulating others.
How do we fight these human viruses? With Anti-Virus Protection! I am
about
to introduce a new concept that will make it possible to detect and
eliminate
all such human viruses. This new concept is called NEOCHEATING!
What is neocheating? An amazing discovery was made in the mid 1970's
through the game of poker. There are techniques to become an invincible
player
by cheating in such a way that no one could possibly catch you. It has to do
with skewing the odds unnoticeably in your favor. This phenomenon was then
discovered to exist beyond the card tables-in the sphere are daily
life-where
dishonest lazy individuals can create casino-like odds in their favor to
usurp
money and power from innocent hard-working individuals.
Here is a formal definition of Neocheating as defined by Dr. Frank R.
Wallace who discovered it:
Neocheating: 'The undetected usurpation of a livelihood-the unsuspicious
stealing of money or values through clever manipulations of dishonest non
sequiturs and mystical notions. Neocheating means *new cheating* for
usurping
values earned by others. Actually, shrewd, dishonest, lazy people have used
neocheating for 2000 years in hidden, unnoticeable ways. But, the techniques
of
neocheating were not specificallly identified until 1976. Thus, neocheating
is a
new identification rather than a new technique. Before that identification,
no
one could define or even notice a neocheater, much less stop his or her
neocheating. Now anyone can spot neocheaters and render them impotent.'
Neocheaters are typically down-to-Earth ordinary looking people who play
a
role of "external authority" for other people and then manipulate those
people
while pretending to benefit them. Examples of neocheaters include: all major
politicians, almost all clergymen, many psychotherapists who manipulate
their
clients' emotions so that they feel dependent on therapy, various social
science
professors who poison students' minds by advocating bogus nihilistic
ideologies
(like notions of language creating reality), bankers who make money through
government frauds, lawyers who stir up cases where none should exist, and
journalists who use facts out of context.
The act of identifying and eliminating neocheaters is a form of virus
protection that has a different dynamic than, say, the philosophy of
objectivism. Objectivism is protection from bad ideas, while understanding
neocheating is protection from destructive people. As a result, objectivism
is
like a passive vaccine that filters out nonsense. But identifying and
eliminating neocheaters is an aggressive attack on certain individuals, in
which
neocheaters are publicly humiliated and then vanished.
To give a clear example of neocheating techniques, let's take a look at
some
of Richard Brodie's responses to my last post when I identified why the
internet
is a better forum for rational ideas than the forums of the non-cyberspace
world. Now, of course we have an absurd situation in which people are
arguing
over the internet against the idea that the internet promotes rational
discussion, but let's leave that aside. The following interactions
demonstrate 2
commonly used neocheating techniques-1) posing as an external higher
authority
and 2)distorting context.
I wrote:
>> When people interact in cyberspace, they are usually alone,
>>thinking
>>independently, without the influence of a collective group.
Richard wrote:
>I completely disagree with this one. I've been traveling around the
>country predicting that the Internet will speed up memetic evolution by
>creating many more pockets of self-reinforcing conversation (such as
>this one, by the way). I'm also a bit disturbed by your implicit
>approval of thinking alone, without the influence of others. Does your
>model of a supremely sane human being depict a life-long hermit?
He's saying that his position has merit simply because people look up to
him
since he gives lectures all over the country. Does this make sense?
Then he distorts context. The context I was coming from was that
non-cyber
forums discourage independent thinking, unlike cyber forums which encourage
it.
Does this have anything to do with being a life-long hermit?
Here's another example of distorting context:
I wrote:
>> Ideas can be edited, modified and developed much more easily than,
>>say, a
>>courtroom or political debate where people who sound best when they are
>>put 'on
>>the spot' can "win".
Richard wrote:
>Granted, but I must say I don't spend much of my life in courtrooms or
>political debates. Lunch conversation works just fine for idea
>development.
The context of what I was saying had nothing to do with courtrooms or
political debates per se. I was making a point that on the 'net you cannot
"win"
an argument by having a "quick comeback" or because the other person has no
time
to express what they think. This is different than a lunchroom conversation,
where you can easily say, with insincere politeness, "Thank you for
contributing. I gotta get going."
Tad made a good point that on the internet, people of like minds can find
each other. The Church of Virus is becoming divided into 2 different camps.
And
in case you don't know it, this is WAR!!!
-David
Rosdeitcher