Day: June 11, 2003

Weblogs, Intellectuals, and Dave Winer

I was a bit surprised at how many people linked to my last long-winded riff on Dave Winer and oddly enough my page about Winer is gradually moving up through the Google ranks — #52 on a search for “Dave Winer” and moving up with a bullet.

The problem is that Winer is so self-absorbed that it’s hard not to pick on him once in awhile. I mean, what sort of person writes this sort of stuff,

When asked for a show of hands of people who care what a blog is, three peoples’ hands shot up: David Weinberger, Doc Searls and mine. I thought, what is it that we three have in common. Politely — we’re all intellectuals. Not so polite — eggheads, professor types, NPR listeners, lefties. We spend time thinking about things that most people think aren’t worth thinking about.

What sort of person goes around pointing out that he’s an “intellectual”? (Hint: people who are intellectuals don’t. You don’t see Daniel Dennett setting up a weblog to declare to the world that he’s an intellectual).

What Dave is describing, of course, is not a group of intellectuals but rather a high school clique. You can almost see John Hughes cutting to Winer in a high school hall way explaining how nobody understands him and his friends, but they’re really the only cool kids in the 10th grade.

The truly bizarre thing is that he follows this “I’m an intellectual” stuff with a post that instantly refutes that claim,

Two years ago today I asked to hear from people who are dead. “So far no emails,” I said then. Still no emails two years later.

Okay, Dave’s got me there — he really is thinking about things that no one else is. I’m just not as confident as Dave is that this means he’s an intellectual (but your mileage may vary).

Ain’t-I-A-Thief-News

Boing! Boing! is pointing to this uintentionally hilarious apology by “Moriarty” over at Ain’t-It-Cool-News.

The short version is that people have been downloading illegal copies of the workprint for the forthcoming Hulk movie, and were posting reviews and commentary about it on AICN. “Moriarty” had a fit, accusing such individuals of being thieves, pirates, etc. for downloading such illegal content.

At which point people in the AICN discussion group pointed out the obvious — that AICN itself is based on theft of intellectual property. The site relies on movie insiders willing to break their NDAs, pass along scripts, smuggle out shots of movie sets, etc. For awhile, AICN was apparently deleting such posts.

But it is “Moriarty’s” response that is hilarious — essentially conceding that yes AICN does benefit from such illegal acts and so, therefore, maybe stealing isn’t all that bad after all,

First, it’s a personal choice. I have no business telling anyone what decision to make regarding the trafficking of stolen materials. And I wouldn’t even if my hands were squeaky clean. Which they aren’t.

How about renaming the site Ain’t-It-Theft-News?

Another Person in Favor of Taxing E-Mail

Weekly Standard editor Christopher Caldwell joins the growing crowd of people who propose taxing e-mail to solve the spam problem. Somebody really needs to get all these folks in a room and actually explain to them how e-mail works and why this idea is about 10 times worse than the actual spam problem (especially at Caldwell’s proposal of 1 cent per e-mail, with the first 5,000 e-mails/month tax exempt.)

Caldwell uses his screed against spam as a screed against libertarianism — i.e. the lack of regulation of the Internet shows what happens when libertarian ideas are put into practice. He writes,

But there is no chance that the Internet will return to its old level of user-friendliness until lawmakers recognize that the decision to leave it unregulated was a serious, ideologically driven mistake.

But libertarians hinges on the ability to easily exercise property rights. The problem with spam is precisely that it is difficult to exercise property rights over bandwidth such that I can efficiently and cheaply keep out people who spam me with herbal viagra messages.

The solution is not a raft of dozens of different regulations — as Caldwell proposes — but rather mechanisms to make it easier to enforce such property rights. This is the beauty of proposals that would require spammers to use real e-mail addresses and tag their messages with “ADV” in the subject line, and offer a bounty to private individuals for tracking down violators.

Yes, the spam problem is bad, but poorly thought out regulation could result in something worse.

Source:

You’ve Go Spam. Christopher Caldwell, The Weekly Standard, June 16, 2003.

Anti-Fishing Activist Attacks Breast Cancer Survivor in Op-Ed

The thing about the animal rights movement is that routinely they make bizarre, absurd pronouncements that lead one to think, “Okay, they’ve finally hit bottom — surely they could never get more offensive.” And then, of course, they do.

A reader sent me an e-mail pointing to an unbelievable column written by Don Hendershot in the Smoky Mountain News (North Carolina). The column concerned a group called Casting for Recovery — a group for breast cancer survivors that,

Provide[s] an opportunity for women whose lives have been profoundly affected by the disease to gather in a beautiful, natural setting and learn fly-fishing. Our weekend retreats focus on wellness and incorporate counseling, educational services and the sport of fly-fishing to promote mental and physical healing.

For Hendershot, this is, as he puts it, “macabre.” Hendershot writes,

Now, I can see the healing connection of a flowing river and the peace and serenity gained from spending time out of doors. I highly recommend it.

But when the connection to that environment is the painful, life-or-death struggle at the other end of a fly rod, of a creature that, an instant before, was simply going about its everyday concerns, the connection gets tenuous.

And when I look at this particular case ? the idea that it?s great therapy to have people who have recently or who are presently experiencing pain, fear and suffering, inflicting pain, fear and suffering on unsuspecting creatures ? there is, in fact, a glaring disconnect.

In fact, for Hendershot the pain a woman experiences learning she has breast cancer is equivalent to the pain that fish feel when they are caught,

You feel OK; you’ve just gotten that promotion; you’re packing your bags for a well-deserved vacation and the diagnosis comes ? cancer. It?s a jolt; maybe like a hook setting in your jaw. There?s pain, there?s fear and then there?s struggle.

I am not trying to trivialize cancer. And I’m not trying to elevate fish to the status of human beings. I’m trying to point out that fear, pain and suffering are universal and that often we have a choice about the degree of our involvement. Of course, when we are the victim, we don’t necessarily have that choice. But when we are the ones inflicting or inducing fear, pain and/or suffering, we do have that choice.

Well at least he’s right about one thing — he’s not trying to elevate fish to the status of human beings, he’s simply doing it.

And, of course, what is any good essay like this without hints of an insidious plot by the fly fishing “industry” to hook poor, frightened breast cancer survivors on fishing,

. . . I wouldn’t think twice about a fisherman or woman diagnosed with cancer wanting to get back to his or her hobby. But I doubt that someone who had never fished and was suddenly faced with cancer would, out of the blue, think, ?Wow, I sure would like to learn how to fly-fish.?

And for an organization funded, in part, and supported, in part, by groups who have a vested interest in promoting the fishing industry to seek out cancer patients with the idea that catching and/or killing fish will certainly make them feel better is, to me, macabre.

The odd thing is that occasionally Hendershot himself has dismissed efforts to alleviate suffering experienced by animals. For example, in 2001 he wrote a column critical of the trap, neuter and release approach to controlling feral cat populations. Hendershot wrote,

Alley Cat Allies, an organization that supports TNR projects across the country, states in its literature that the impact free roaming cats have on bird populations is insignificant. But research findings they publish note that birds make up 20 percent of the diet of free-roaming cats. Twenty percent of the kill of upwards of 80 million (feral and free roaming pets) cats is a substantial number.

. . .

TNR needs to be studied in controlled situations to determine its effectiveness. If it is found to be the solution its advocates believe, I am sure it would be embraced by biologists as well as animal advocates.

But to implement it nationwide simply because it alleviates some of the suffering (don’t forget that these animals are left out there to dodge cars, larger predators, diseases, etc.) of one particular species may solicit support and donations from “cat people,” but it is poor science.

Henderson should apply that same standard to understanding the difference between nociception and experiencing pain (fish almost certainly do the former, not the latter), and leave the breast cancer survivors alone.

Source:

The Naturalist’s Corner. Don Hendershot, Smoky Mountain News (North Carolina), May 21, 2003.

The Naturalist’s Corner. Don Hendershot, Smoky Mountain News (North Carolina), February 21, 2001.