Re: Re: Freedom to Spew

>Which, apparently, makes you very uncomfortable.
>So much so that your message degerates into name-calling.

??



----Original Message Follows----
From: Bijan Parsia <bparsia-vEoVa6Jh+/J4piUD7e9S/[email protected]>
To: "Pete O'Such" <[email protected]>
CC: bonobos-4GNy1lrxftmrG/[email protected]
Subject: Re: [Bonobos] Re: Freedom to Spew
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 23:21:10 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Pete O'Such wrote:

 > The denial of service angle is more direct than are willing to admit yet, 
as
 > both elements of the comparison are means of communication.

Ok.

 >  A DOS attack on
 > monkeyfist.com would end it's ability to serve it's prime public 
function,

Well, temporarily, one would imagine.

 > the dissemination of information, in exactly the same way that absconding
 > with the entire printed run of a college newspaper would end it's ability 
to
 > disseminate information.

For one issue, presumably.

It's still not theft, afaict. Ok, you've found a better "crime" to slot it
in (or better, "wrong"). I can grant that. I thought I did.

 > If something appears on slashdot, no matter what the intent of the man 
that
 > posted it to that forum, and the server subsequently crumbles under the
 > load, then that means that MORE people saw the information it was
 > established to convey, not fewer.

For some value of "saw". Let's say it was a Spanish langauge site. AFAIK,
most of the slashdotters don't speak english so they wouldn't get the
information (well they SAW it :)).

Plus, mere numbers aren't the only factor. What if it were a health site
for AIDS victims and the slashdotting made it unavailable to them. The
information isn't *vital* to the slashdotters.

 >  Despite eventually going down,
 > slashdotting the server resulted in a period of dramatically increased
 > success in its prime public role, disseminating information.

To a certain audience that needed it desperately (in the revised example).

Do you claim that the *diseminating* is what's critical, not the
information? Can I *supress* the information that the earth is flat *by*
burning one issue of a school paper celebrating that the earth is round?

If information is what's important, that closing *some* routes of
dissemination isn't supression. If specific instances of expression are
what's important, then even the one paper burning may be off the table.

(Just think how many *more* people learned about Horowitz's article! I
wouldn't have *read* it if not for the taking of the papers! That's one
reason that taking them is a *bad* tactic!)

 > >then the taking of the papers and burning them may be a
 > >form of speech.
 >
 > No.  Taking one paper and burning it is a form of speech.  Taking all the
 > papers and burning them is the suppression of ideas.

See above. Is it the suppression of some ideas? (Clearly not, they're
widely know, discussed, indeed, even *more* wildly know *as a result* of
the takings and *Horowitz knew that*; it was part of his plan.) Is the
suppresion of an *activity* (the dissemination)? Yes. That's where (as
Mike pointed out) your analogy has strength.

But rights conflict, and I can use mine to sometimes frustrate you.

 >  An apologia for
 > bookburning won't go far outside the Taliban these days.

Note that I don't *endorse* it, I defend it. (So, an apologia.) As in, "I
disagree..but I will defend...". Better, I'm prepared to weigh actual and
comparative harms, and not focus on one bit.

Oh yah, I'm willing to consider unpopular ideas.

 > There are many leftists who would defend burning a flag, but damn few who
 > would defend the forced burning of all of them.

Sure. *forced*. Key little word.

 > You're warming up to the truth when you discuss scale.

Which, apparently, makes you very uncomfortable. So much so that your
message degerates into name-calling.

 >  Think about scale in
 > terms of barriers to expression.

I do. That's a key point of *mine*. Easily surmounted or routed around
barriers barriers seem different from systematic effective ones.

 >  Then learn to resist sophistry and you'll
 > really have something.

Thanks for reading! I'm glad you enjoy the investigation of ideas that may
not be popular or part of received wisdom, too.

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.


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