[ExI] wikileaks again, was: RE: Afterlife? - my very first post to the Extropians list, 1999

[David Lubkin]

Spike wrote:

> >... Today I found by chance an important bit of personal history: my very
>first post to the Extropians list, on December 6, 1999... Giulio Prisco
>
>My early posts were in that time frame too Giulio, or a year or two earlier.
>Those archives are painful to read: the general internet atmosphere was much
>harsher and edgier then.  Manners and social graces from the real world
>hadn't yet figured out how to spill over into the digital world for the most
>part.  We now have a kinder and gentler internet.

Perhaps I've mentally filtered out, but I've been in remote conversations
since 1976, the Internet since 1979, discussion lists since 1982, and
the extropians' list since its original inception ~20 years ago, and I don't
see any differences in conduct over time except that people are now lousy
at formatting their email.

There have always been fora run by people who won't put up with rude
or hostile. Rude or hostile people either temper themselves or are
evicted. And there are, and always have been, fora where anything goes.

Part of my perception, perhaps, is that I've known some of the less
kind, less gentle people for so many years that I am blind to their rough
edges.


-- David.