>From: Natasha Vita-More <natasha@natasha.cc>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: PR disasters
>Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 13:28:47 -0700
>
>At 12:02 PM 6/24/00 -0700, you wrote:
> >Anders Sandberg wrote:
> >
> >> The best defense against this is to make sure the mainstream of the
> >> discussion is held in a polite and understandable manner, to create
> >> clear principles that can help people understand that the extremist is
> >> just that, and overall try to gain a good reputation.
> >
> >Anders, *you have* a good reputation, and I am honored to be
> >associated with you. I dont recall ever seeing an unkind word from
> >you or even a micoflame, even against those who richly deserve
> >it. {8-] However there are posters to this list that I hope I am
> >never associated with, (and they surely feel likewise about me)
> >and I have no control over what they post.
> >
> >There are many cases where we quote a previous post then
> >refute that stated viewpoint. Any debate opponent doing a
> >keyword search would get hits with someone else's quote with
> >our name on it. If they wanted, they could delete out our
> >comment and quote someone elses words under our name.
>
>I think Anders has crystallized the direction of behavior is an aptly
>positive light, but it's often easier to write down the words than to deal
>head on with an adverse poster. If Anders had to defend his reputation,
>how would he do it? For example, if Anders was told something very
>unbecoming about himself or his family, I don't even want to imagine, but
>something that could humiliate or hurt him professionally, would he
>continue politely to respond when the flamer wouldn't let up. Or, would he
>walk away knowing that he did the best he could under the circumstances,
>and better judgment told him to ignore the flamer. I would never want
>Anders to experience such a thing, but it does build character -:)
Unfortunately, Anders has already been attacked in the Swedish media some
months ago. In one of Sweden's biggest newspapers (well, that's a too polite
term, Expressen is a boulevard press rag) he was attacked as the science
editor of the magazine m2. But it wasn't a very powerful attack, and I think
that Anders has a bit to much credibility to be seriously harmed by it.
About all this nonsense of extropians being anti- semitic?
Well, unfortunately it is a very good way for someone without any
credibility of his own to quickly gain some pointers from the PC-
establishment, especially when he's accusing a small group that is not well
known. A possible counter strategy: first value the opponent. If your
credibility is higher you can usually just ignore them, entering a war with
kooks just gives the kooks status. If it is worth bothering with you can
start to scrutinize the character of the opposition- and from the forums
which said person often frequents you can usually find some juicy tidbits
that will probably put him in the same "Nazi" cathegory. Those that accuse
out of desperation that their ideas are not heard often have a dirty laundry
themselves...
That makes your sensible defense all the more powerful.
Transhumanism is starting to get more and more into the mainstream. That is
important, because then "kook- attacks" are less and less dangerous. But the
way to get into the mainstream is through being more serious and
ideologically aware. Transhumanism has to grow up a bit more, and I think
that there should be perhaps a change of some organisational structures to
encourage it further.
I don't know what personal reasons there might have been for this feud, but
my opinion after reading the thread is that some very unfair accusations
have been made about Max, Natasha and extropianism.
Sincerely,
Waldemar
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