From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp*lib.org)
Date: Sun Nov 30 1997 - 19:07:58 MST
At 02:08 PM 11/30/97 -0800, you wrote:
>
>
>On Sun, 30 Nov 1997, Max More wrote:
>
>> Actually we are about to make a change. To post to the Extropians list you
>> will need to be a member of Extropy Institute, although non-members will be
>> able to read only.
>
>I may be a little premature in saying this (since you haven't given your
>"hows and whys"), but I think this decision may turn some good people off
>extropy. Having to pay to join an institute to participate on a
>discussion has a culty feel to it, even if the justification is to reduce
>the signal-to-noise ratio.
I can't dispute that you have the experience of a culty feel. But I invite
you to consider the following:
Is the Rotary a cult? is the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies a
cult? Is 4-H a cult? Is the specialty-certified service station I take my
car to a cult? How about the letters-to-the-Editor column of Scientific
American?
In each of these examples, members are selected, and "dues" of one sort or
another must have been paid.
As for participation in discussion, there's always the CRIT engine.
Bidirectional links permit open communication across the boundary, while
keeping the SSNR higher. Kind of like a sodium pump. :)
You say they don't know about CRIT? Well, they'll just have to learn, won't
they? :)
>Also, I don't think being a member of the
>extropy institute implies you make less "noise."
Being born a Presbyterian doesn't guarantee you a seat in the Choir Invisible.
>Some people may join the
>extropy institute for the purpose of making some noise on the list.
Begging your pardon, it doesn't matter what their intent is, it matters
what the result is. Some reasonable people think the SSNR is too high. One
man's signal is another man's noise. Otherwise, why not just have one big
maillist for everyone on the net? Reductio ad absurdum, QED, E Pluribus Unum.
>Others, who would contribute a lot to the list, may not be interested in
>joining the extropy institute, either for monetary reasons or because they
>do not want to incur the wrath of those who would take out their petty
>frustrations on the members of the extropian movement.(ie. misguided
>neo-luddites)
Every decision has a cost. Good people are not doing their best on the list
right now because of the current state of affairs.
>One restriction I would like to see is allowing only list-members to post.
Have you heard about the two message-credit-token plans? :) :)
MMB
(NOTE: Robotlike replies to the above address will fail;
*noncommercial* communications are welcome; kindly
substitute a hyphen for the asterisk in the above address.
Sorry for any inconvenience.)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:45:11 MST