Hugh, and this American "authority" business.
Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.DIALix.oz.au)
Sat, 24 Dec 1994 00:12:45 GMT
I wrote to Hugh:
>
>>Have you ever thought to actually write to people in a reasonably
>>agreeable manner in the first instance? You know, get them on side
>>and calmly talking over issues which concern you?
>
He replied:
>
>...gee, that's funny, Gil! That's exactly what I did with you, way
>back when, after I was deluged with complaints about your shenanigans
>on anthro-l. Your reply to my friendly message was what got you booted
>on anthro-l!
>
To which I respond:
Well there you go, Hugh. That's your problem, isn't it. Just can't
see past the end of your own nose, and wrap your brain around what
someone else is trying to get through to you.
What else can I finally write here that you can read and comprehend?
Surely our Australian English is not so different from your American
English, is it? Or our ordinary, garden variety of English from your
swank academic English?
Sigh! Let me try one more time, yes?
What had happened at that time to which you refer above is you wrote
to me out of the blue as one in authority, as someone you call "The
List Owner" in fact, insisting that someone else had been complaining
about me for some reason. Then you went beserk when I replied to you
in the familiar, attempting as I have with all these subsequent events
to try and get to the bottom of the whole thing.
However, please do not fool yourselves into believing that I am
willing to just sit here and submit to your pathetic threat posturing
and intimidation displays. Unlike some on line I do not accept that we
are so closely related to the apes, nor that your professors over
there are akin to "Silver Back" gorillas as somebody once wrote, that
I will respond to your behaving in such a manner.
Were you all to decide to approach me as civilised human beings, or
what passing semblance thereof may be at all possible via this silly
medium, perhaps I will be able to reply differently. Many others do,
and I see no reason you lot can't either.
Yet you have attempted more recently again, Hugh, during last week in
fact, to have my sysop cancel my account. That was the second time in
the past month. Somebody else signing himself Henry W. Collier of the
University of Woolongong, has tried to pull the same stunt.
All you mob can think to do is have me unplugged.
Why? What the hell is going on out there in this crazy "Cybervoid", or
alternatively in your own real material worlds, or perhaps even simply
in your own minds, which would cause you to act so against me. I have
even had this other bloke here, as you all know, with his lawyers and
police with Supreme Court writs chasing after me, since I first logged
onto this stupid Internet thingy.
Why don't all of you, including Rindos, Boot and Wilkins, and if you
wish the entire Anthropology staffs at the Universities of Buffalo,
Newcastle, Wollongong, Adelaide if necessary, and Western Australia,
just get your heads together finally and sort out among yourselves
just what the problem is here.
Then send someone to explain it all to me.
Do it via your own little mailing list, yes? Set up there on your
own little computer especially for the purpose.
Now, do you need it all again, Hugh? Must I repost this time and time
again until you lot finally get your brains into gear?
Or do you want me to start acting like you, and mail all your sysops
to have your accounts cancelled? Without ever bothering to mail you
except to issue threats.
Just bullshit, all this. The broad sweep of human madness concentrated
into screen fulls of ape gibberish from around the globe, as if you
were all trying to have your silly Evolutionary Theory proven with
reference to your own behaviour, insisting that we all carry on like
that.
Never any thought to use it as a medium of communication . . .
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