From: Sean Hastings (whysean@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Dec 16 1996 - 13:34:02 MST
Kennita Watson wrote:
> However (to paraphrase), "One can die as surely from a million pinpricks
> as from a single sword thrust.". I get plenty of junk mail from random
> ad agencies -- et tu, Chris? (Max, actually, in case he's still following
> this.)
>
> The danger in the snowball and all chain letters is their exponential
> nature. The note isn't just sent to 100 people and back -- it's sent to
> "everybody you know". I personally could make it to over 1000 people
> easily -- I wonder how many each of them can reach? Follow that exponential
> growth curve out a few steps and the traffic could become dizzying, and
> well-connected people could end up getting dozens of copies without sending
> out a single one -- no wonder chain letters have such a bad rep! Some
> net.gurus I know have been predicting the meltdown of the Internet backbones
> for a while now (apparently it's already started) -- this sort of thing
> certainly doesn't help matters.
>
> Kennita (wondering why she doesn't just fiddle while Rome burns)
>
Do you object to the viral nature of the information even when the
content is interesting?
For an ideological life form like a chain letter to survive, it must
have some sort of worthwhile content or it simply will not be copied. I
often find that the people who scream about chain letters (because they
have a line saying "copy me" somewhere in the text) are the same people
who send me junk mail containing the latest net jokes and cute ascii
pictures.
I'm curious as to how this 'anti copy me' meme has arisen. Any ideas?
--Sean H.
--E-mail: mailto:whysean@earthlink.net
--V-mail: (504)825-1232 or (800)WHY-SEAN
--S-mail: 5500 Prytania St. #414/New Orleans, LA/70115
--U.R.L.: http://home.earthlink.net/~whysean
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