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- Path: jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu!not-for-mail
- From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
- Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.misc,comp.sys.amiga.audio
- Subject: Re: Open Response to Richard E Depew
- Date: 15 Feb 1996 19:19:02 -0500
- Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
- Message-ID: <4g0ihm$sac@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>
- References: <824160406.9068@spence-n.demon.co.uk> <slrn4i2g1j.p6b.grendel@unix5.netaxs.com> <4ftou2$n73@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> <4ftrku$ih5@emerald.tufts.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu
- Cc:
-
- In article <4ftrku$ih5@emerald.tufts.edu>,
- Saul Tannenbaum <stannenb@emerald.tufts.edu> wrote:
- >> >USENET, for the most part, exists on private property. Even if there
- >> >were a feasible way of holding votes on issues, there is no way to
- >> >bind people to those decisions.
- >> There is no way to bind {sum of leaders, police, judges, etc.} to "democratic"
- >> decisions in real life, either. If they were to ignore votes you would have
- >> as little recourse as you have on the net when the appropriate group on the
- >> net ignores the votes.
- >In real life, your recourse would be revolution and armed insurrection.
- >With Usenet, things are simpler. You can just start another one with
- >rules more to your liking.
-
- Usenet has a huge advantage over any possible competitor for a very simple
- reason: it's big, and it's already there. Claiming that I can start another
- Usenet if I don't like this one is about equivalent to claiming that if I
- don't like Microsoft, I can start another one. Microsoft is a standard, not
- because it's good, but because most people already have Microsoft products and
- compatibility with what people already have gives them a huge boost.
- --
- Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, karromde@nyx.cs.du.edu;
- http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~arromdee)
-
- "An alien invader has entered our galaxy! It has now entered our universe,
- clearing Saturn... radial velocity KMS minus 8. It is now orbiting directly
- for Earth." --Bad American Dubbing #2 (quoting ???)
-