[ExI] hasta be a pony in here somewhere

[spike]

Hi Will,

 

Your commentary suggests you haven’t read the book.  A prole does not mean one without a white collar job.  The proles are every human not in the inner circle or outer circle.  Both of these circles are government workers, bureaucrats.  The outer circle must be watched continuously, for they wield power to some extent, which is dangerous.  The inner circle can turn off their surveillance temporarily.  Proles don’t wield power so they are free to go without government surveillance, along with the animals.

 

PhDs are proles, assuming they don’t work for the government.  Any knucklehead can get to the outer circle, if they kiss the right butts and follow orders.  Proles can wear collars of any or many colors.  I have never been anything other than a prole.

 

Point taken however; there may be many who have not read Orwell in spite of my stern demand that we do so, early and often.  The man was brilliant; saw it all.  His work has special meaning for today’s USians in light of the recent massive fumble in choosing appropriate leadership, much of this having to do with forced transparency.  Ja?

 

No more prole then, until you read the book and realize it isn’t a term for dumb or uneducated or poor necessarily, although I do realize it is often used that way.

 

Sigh.

 

Read the book please.  Let us have a Nineteen Eighty Four discussion.  We need one.

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Will Steinberg
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2016 12:52 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] hasta be a pony in here somewhere

 

Spike, I've been thinking about saying this for a while, but I think your use of the term 'prole' is presumptuous, overused, prejudiced, nebulous, and extremely offensive.  I don't even have a huge problem with elitism but I think the way you throw it around is very distasteful, not to mention often unfounded--show me the part of the article that says this guy is part of the working class.  Does being a goofball with a bike preclude one from having a white-collar job?  Or is it just that having fun must mean you work in a factory?

 

Seriously, I think you are setting a poor example as a moderator of the list, and I think that a random transhumanist with an IQ of 160, but who is the first person in their family to go to college, could join this list, and upon seeing your usage of 'prole', decide that this was a hostile, classist/elitist environment and decide to take their genius elsewhere.

 

I implore you to use greater discretion with that term.  Overusage dilutes semantic content, anyhow.

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