[p2p-research] Drone hacking

[Ryan Lanham]

On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Andy Robinson <ldxar1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> This discussion is rapidly becoming pointless.


Andy, I mean you no ill will.  I'm sure in a general sense you feel the same
way.

I also realize the political theory of the present and the near future don't
jive very well with that of 150-250 years ago and that those old fellows are
the received canon...of course those old fellows often threw aside their
received canons quite aggressively and judgementally.

I feel as if you are trying to reason about current science by reading
Lister and Pasteur.  Those were interesting mileposts, but times do
change...even in political theory.  Perhaps their are deep abiding social
truths...but as something of a student of politics myself, I tend to doubt
it.

I think it is very useful to have people shouting "totalitarian" "Nazi" or
other academic slurs at those of us muddling through.  It gives one a
passing thought and perhaps some pause.  I for one hope you will continue to
raise the warning flags and keep chucking the epithets even if they are
fired in anger or interpreted in anger.

Those of us who work in government do try to listen and it is worthwhile.
Of course I separate my work strongly from my non-work...including dabbling
here.  But in some ways Eliot the poet was Eliot the banker.

We also try our own methods of coping and moving forward.  I share your
concerns about failures of justice.  There are many frustrating crises of
humanity now.  One huge one, Cuba, sits just a few tens of miles from where
I write right now.  We would undoubtedly view that situation through very
different eyes.  One of us may be right and the other wrong, but I doubt it
is that simple.

How we view the ideals of the future prospects of humanity are where I think
the discussion matters. You are largely driven by a canon.  Your views thus
strike me as quasi-religious...with a strong sense of what is and what is
not orthodox.  It is frustrating for both the holder of a canon and those
who argue with them to try to have a discourse about anything other than the
canon.

Where the interesting possibilities lie is in unexplored turf...where the
canon need not be defining and the received conventional wisdom need not be
dogma.  Maybe it is there we can continue to share discussion.  I certainly
hope so.  It is valuable to deal with incorrigible students.  They do
sometimes correct...or move us to do so. q
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