From extropians-request@extropy.org Sun Sep 19 21:01:09 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA28764; Sun, 19 Sep 93 21:01:08 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.ed (ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu) by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA12338; Sun, 19 Sep 93 21:01:05 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu id AA03904; Sun, 19 Sep 93 23:58:06 EDT Received: from news.panix.com by ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu via TCP with SMTP id AA03899; Sun, 19 Sep 93 23:57:57 EDT Received: by news.panix.com id AA04181 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for exi-maillist@ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu); Sun, 19 Sep 1993 23:57:52 -0400 Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1993 23:57:52 -0400 Message-Id: <199309200357.AA04181@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: September 20, 373 P.N.O. [03:57:34 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Mon, 20 Sep 93 Volume 93 : Issue 262 Today's Topics: META: anyone use it? [1 msgs] The Case Against Gun Control [1 msgs] stealing from the post office [1 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 100148 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1993 20:57:38 -0100 From: carlf@media.mit.edu (Carl Feynman) Subject: stealing from the post office T. C. May writes: >(*) Many claim "junk" mail actually subsidizes the Postal Service. It >is hard for me to imagine that shipping a pound of junk mail for less >than a first class stamp is somehow making letter delivery cheaper. It is in fact far cheaper for the Postal Service to process a mass mailing than a similar volume of first class letters. The reason is that the mass mailer can do some of the processing that would otherwise have to be done by the Postal Service. Look on the mailing label for a magazine or piece of junk mail sometime, and you'll probably see the words "CAR-RT SORT". This stands for "carrier route sorted" and means that the mailer has sorted the mail into hierarchical piles for each city, zip code, post office and mail carrier, and within each mail carrier pile by the order in which the mail carrier will visit the addresses. This means that the Postal Service can move most junk mail in enormous piles, without having to handle individual pieces. It seems to me that the postal service is really quite efficient and reliable, when you consider how cheap they are. If the market were opened to competition, I think they would do well. This makes it all the more stupid that their monopoly is still protected by force. --carlf Internet: carlf@media.mit.edu Home Telephone: (508)635-9238 Office Telephone: (617)253-9833 Fax: (617)253-0377 Office Mail: Room E15-305, 4 Ames St, Cambridge MA 02142 Mail: 1 Gregory Ln., Acton MA 01720, USA Holler: "Yo! Carl Feynman!" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 93 21:06:33 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: META: anyone use it? I'd like to hear from anyone who actually finds the list software valuable. According to the logs, there aren't many serious users. The biggest users are those who run in "exclude all" mode and resend/include threads that they like. Personally. I have never used a kill file and don't use excludes often because I am a fast scanner (I read everything by skimming and reread messages that look good) I've gotten so much into the scanning habit that I can't slow down to send an exclude message. Hitting spacebar is much faster. (I suppose I could hack elm/emacs-mail to allow "exclude at the key press" but it requires users to do the installation) Potential expansion of the software in the future could provide: 1) betting market and arbitration 2) permanent archiving of threads and gopher/wais/www access for easily doing away with newbies (e.g. Mike Morgan, RTFM the gopher thread on anarchocapitalism from the Dale Worley days) Providing we resolve the copyright issue 3) ranking/reputation market for filtering (or linking with Hawthorne exchange) If list access is sold to subscribers then the Thorne can be backed by "list credit" in your account 4) AMIX-like market for selling services and information (consulting, essays, etc) -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 00:59:07 GMT From: russell@eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell Earl Whitaker) Subject: The Case Against Gun Control THE CASE AGAINST GUN CONTROL DAVID BOTSFORD Whoever controls the weapons makes the rules. Political power, that is, the power of one individual over another, rests partly on assent on the part of the ruled, whether through perceived self-interest or belief in the justice of the ruler's claim to power (or a combination of both), and partly on the capacity of the ruler to enforce his power over the subjugated by his control of more physical force than the latter. These factors are related: the majority of people throughout history either have not been in a position, or have not had the inclination, to make up their minds about abstract political ideas and then decide whether or not their current political arrangements suit these ideas; the very fact that the claim or assumption of power is made, backed up with sufficient capacity for violence to enforce it, is enough to make most people not only go along with the wishes of the ruler, but few will question the abstract legitimacy of his right to assert them. State power is a combination, in varying proportions, of violence, fraud, extortion and conspiracy to rob other people. In politics, unfortunately, might makes right, generally speaking. And neither is this true simply of conventional political relationships: psychologists record many cases of victims of terrorist hijackings falling in love with their captors, and in situations, such as the end of the American ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Message truncated because of excessive length. To get the entire article, Send ::resend #93-9-963 to the list at the beginning of a message. The total size of the message is 95591 bytes. ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #262 *********************************