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Re: [ox-en] [Half off-topic] Walther



On 25 Feb 2004 at 1:42, Jonathan Walther wrote:

There's some Oekonux relevent stuff after. BTW I vote Walther stays
on the list until he proves unrespectful on-list or to a member of
the list. I view his membership as valuable because (a) if he is a
racist we can convince him he's wrong and (b) he sounds like for
whatever reason, he can bring a unique and useful point of view to
the discussions here.

3. Explain this: http://reactor-core.org/secret/

It is my private mental training gym.
[snip]
The only way to win is to know your enemy.  That requires going
straight to the source.  So I spent time gathering the creme de la
creme of right wing thought, those pieces of propaganda that truly
inspire, move, and motivate them.  Not the propaganda they give to
others, but the propaganda they write for themselves.

I've spent some time with a neo-nazi group, even handled their prized
real third reich bone china plates (with special gloves). I've spent
a lot of time in argument with them and my conclusions may be of use
to you - their perceptual world-view results from misinterpretation
of certain values ie; their value system is different to mainstream
society, which leads semi-logically to their ideology. It cannot be
dismissed out-of-hand because really an awful lot of people have some
of the same similarities in value systems (which is why racists
always say "everyone's really a racist, they just won't admit it").
Look at the widespread irrational dislike of immigrants within native
European populations for example. And how many white people will be
friends with blacks but wouldn't marry one or vice versa?

Why is this value system "wrong"? I think it's an artifact of two
innate human forces - the tendency to dislike and prevent change
(fear of the unknown) and the especial tendency of European &
catholic derived populations to believe that they are racially
superior to other almost identical populations (which has caused more
than anything else the European war-creating colonising character,
making us the most barbaric human population which has ever existed).

At WW2 in *Europe* we came face to face with the reality that if
unchecked it means our own self-destruction. The Americans never
quite got that because their country wasn't utterly destroyed and
it's why Europe and America recently fell out over Iraq. Nevertheless
we Europeans can't hide our cultural legacy, we're still coming to
terms with having to control it. The Americans I fear are going the
other way and only the coming collapse of the world economy has any
chance of saving them.

But back to the point - you cannot teach something to someone who is
not ready to learn it. Study the surrounds all you like, but it's
like arguing "why is god a christian god and not some other god?"
with a faith-based christianity-derivative believer. Consider that
the best means of convincing in this situation is to help the person
grow to change their own mind rather than logical or point-by-point
argument refutals.

In such a long term struggle, I need to know the odds for myself.  I
can't trust another persons word, especially when I've caught that
person lying to me.  I believe there are other intellectuals who have
the same viewpoint, and so I have made my researches available in a
form that they can quickly and easily reference.

A word of advice from someone you don't know - if you believe or are
researching something contraversial, either make it very very public
or make it very very secret. The way you've approached it is to
create the worst possible reaction.

I haven't even looked at your site and I don't know anything about
you, but if it's really for research purposes consider interpolating
sections on the same page listing papers advocating the complete
opposite position. Again, it's all perception here - if they see your
far right list of links interspersed with far left or some other kind
of links, you won't get misinterpreted.

I'm in this for the long term survival of the tribe.  Paul Bowman
appears to be in it to have fun beating people up.  What are you in it
for?

I understand Paul's motivations. I have known many like him. He feels
he has a duty to stop racism by any means possible and if you have
ever visited Leeds or other northern English towns where they
regularly have race riots, you'd understand why too.

I don't live with my wife as a result of a long running feud with the
social workers, who took a disliking to my anti-government,
anti-capitalist politics at the birth of my daughter three years ago.

I'm surprised that Canada, especially British Columbia is that bad.
BC is vastly freer than most regions of the US nowadays.

Okay onto the Oekonux stuff. Although I think most of the posts about
this subject are off-topic, I found myself noting something of
relevence to Oekonux theory - how culture affects software
development:

The Americans feel there is a right to free speech and even if you
totally disagree with someone, you support their right to say
anything.

The Europeans know that that policy is daft, and as evidenced by
European law there is no right to say what you like. In particular
Europe has strong anti-racist-speech law which singles out any form
of racist or Nazi speech as illegal. Walther's site would be illegal
in Europe in any form.

Now remember Paul Bowman is from Leeds in the UK and from my
conversation with him, he thinks like a European. As do most of us on
this list. Hence, we (though not quite to the extent of Paul)
fundamentally see things differently to the average American.

Relating to software, the Americans treat software like speech and
tend to think it should be free. Europeans tend though to think it
should be mostly free but with restrictions where those are a good
idea. Legislation in both regions supports the prevailing cultural
view.

This I think is partially why FSF Europe is quite a distinct entity
from FSF USA but interestingly, I can see no practical difference in
how software is developed under either culture. Free software is free
software in both regions.

But is how it's developed because of the similar (crappy) legal
framework (copyright) in both regions or is it because it's how
software is ideally developed by a set of geographically disparate
volunteers?

Also interestingly, while the modes of production are the same, the
software itself is not. Thus you have KDE (a mostly European
production) and GNOME (a mostly US production). KDE is reliant on Qt,
a European proprietary library - thus evidencing that Europeans are
happy to accept impurity of mission for practical considerations (ie;
like free speech shouldn't be unrestricted). The Americans mostly
can't handle that and demand absolute freedom.

Thus I posit that the modes of production are more created by
legal/physical constraint issues, whereas what is actually produced
and its nature is more a function of culture & society of the
workers. Thoughts?

Cheers,
Niall






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