This page is devoted to all those topics which one can't discuss on usenet without threads being overwhelmed by flamewars several hundred posts long. Aiming to be a responsible netizen, I try to avoid trashing my favourite newsgroups by contributing to such threads, but I do have views on them, so here's my own more discrete opportunity to state my case.
Living in the UK, this isn't such an active issue for me, but I do encounter it a great deal in newsgroups. I've seen intelligent, well presented cases for each 'side' on this one, but those are usually swamped by a sea of random reactionary shouting.
Personally, I have no doubt that the greater availability of guns in a society is going to increase the number of violent deaths there. All the statistics bear it out, as indeed does common sense. Sure, it can be argued that people can kill each other with knives and broken bottles as well, which is true, but no other weapon can, in the hands of an amateur, kill as many people as fast as a gun can. Furthermore, my concern is not just with murder rates, but also with the frequency of serious accidents. A ridiculous number of children shoot themselves or their friends every year in America whilst playing with guns they have found. This alone would seem ample reason for regulation, be that only an increased emphasis on the safe storage of such weapons.
As for the argument that anyone who really wants a gun can get one anyway, well, I accept that one is true also. However, that isn't always as straightforward a process as it might seem. The majority of criminal organisations prefer the guns they sell to remain unused - there's a big difference between the scale of police attention they have to deal with for selling something illegally and for contributing to a murder. Often their research and application procedures are more rigorous, in their own way, than state regulation, even in the UK. Further to this, my concern is not so much with those who are prepared to spend days and a great deal of effort getting hold of a gun. For the most part, such people are looking for weapons which they will use against others in the criminal profession (who chose to take those risks when they took that job, so it's hardly society's problem); and they also tend to be more aware of the increased risks involved in actually using the gun. What worries me far more is the ordinary individual who has easy access to guns for ordinary reasons and can easily lay hands on one when in an ordinary stressful situation. For instance, all over the world, husbands and wives beat each other senseless during petty arguments, but where they have the opportunity to shoot each other it's far more likely to be fatal.
This one first started eating up our usenet bandwidth when California got tough, and its usenet lobbyists, on both sides, had pretty much exhausted themselves by the time it reached my shores, but it's still an issue regarding which some people are willing to put up quite a fight.
Personally, I don't smoke regular cigarettes (I used to enjoy cannabis, and occasionally a clove or ginseng cigarette, but I can't really be bothered these days). I have been fortunate enough never to suffer from a nicotine addiction, though I've been around plenty of people who have, and I realise that it's not an easy thing to give up. A former flatmate of mine successfully quit heroin but failed in every attempt to stop smoking. One of my exes actually decided to start smoking because she thought the process of stopping would make her a stronger person, but when I last saw her, four years after that, she still hadn't quit.
Since I don't smoke, and since I have sensitive eyes which are easily irritated, I find it unpleasant to be in close proximity to people who are smoking. Donald's increased vulnerability to lung cancer, following his bone marrow transplant, means that I cannot allow people to smoke here in the House of Kadath. I suspect that a lot of smokers fail to realise how unpleasant the stuff can be to a system which isn't used to it. I discussed these things with the government here in Scotland was we formulated our ban on smoking in public places, and I'm really pleased that went through - still more pleased that it has, now its teething troubles are over, been so positively received. I have no desire to deprive smokers of their rights, nor to force them to give up - though I've seen many who were trying anyway celebrating the fact that they're no longer surrounded by temptaion when they go out for a drink - but in circumstances where one group has to suffer, it seems reasonable that it be the smaller one.
Beyond that, I say, go ahead and poison yourselves if you want to - in fact, please smoke more. The more people who subject themselves to that torture voluntarily, the more research there will be into lung problems, and the more likely I am to be saved from a slow painful death due to the illness which has occurred through no fault of my own. By all means, sacrifice yourselves, that I might live.
This one spawned a famous crossposted thread between alt.gothic and soc.bi which went on for months, and ultimately resulted in me leaving soc.bi, where I had previously been a regular, because the level of abuse I got there (just for being a goth, even though I'd scarcely involved myself in the thread) reached a point where it seriously impeded my ability to participate in debate. As ever, I was saddened to have to leave a group where I did have good friends, but these things happen; it was more irritating in that case because the whole business was so trivial.
When it comes down to it, I really don't care whether an individual's sexuality (or other basic personal characteristics, for that matter) are the result of nurture or nature. I think people spend far too much time worrying about the origins of such phenomena at the expense of working out where we go from here. To me, nature or nurture is a valuable debate only when it could lead to an understanding useful in eradicating serious hereditary disease and suchlike. From a scientific point of view, I very much doubt that something as subtle and complex as sexuality has only one cause or determining factor.
It seems to me that this debate, with all the opportunities for bigotry and name-calling which it offers, is basically a downgraded version of the old free will discussion, like Jerry Springer holding court for John Stuart Mill. I wonder how many of its regular participants would continue their diatribes if forced to first read the countless and often tedious philosophical diatribes which preceeded them. Ill-informed reactionary politics is infinitely more fashionable these days.
I think Hitler is overhyped.
In saying this, I certainly do not intend to downplay the seriousness of the Holocaust or of the enormous suffering faced by so many on all sides during World War Two. Where I take exception to popular opinion is on the matter of Hitler's being the sole cause of it all. I tire of seeing this one man held up as the epitome of evil, as if in so doing everyone else could be excused their part in what happened, and as if there exists such a simple, overwhelming force of evil that a man possessed by it might have no other complexities and motivations.
With regard to the first point, I feel that any reasonable person must acknowledge than a disaster on the scale of the Holocaust cannot be the work of just one man. Hitler was elected. He enjoyed a considerable amount of popular support, abroad as well as in Germany. Anti-Semitism was rife in the popular culture of the entire western world. It's still far from rare. There also remains a good deal of prejudice against disabled people, despite it now being unfashionable to say so; and homophobia is still sufficiently strong that many books and films about the Holocaust fail even to acknowledge that people died in the concentration camps for being gay. Hitler may have been instrumental in raising a small political party to national status, but he didn't start the process of hatred, he merely fed what was already there. A lot of people carried out his orders without question, or simply preferred not to think about it. Are they not culpable also? Are not all of us culpable, whenever we contribute to a climate of hate?
Secondly, I have a deep distrust of the fashion for believing in the outright evil of any individual. It may be comforting to imagine one's enemies as so extreme that one could never be polluted by a degree of similarity, but to do so is to ignore the way those enemies actually think, and if one fails to understand motivations how can one anticipate moves? How can one fight an enemy with one's eyes closed? This seems to me entirely impractical. Further, it would seem to be folly to insist there is never any evil in our own hearts. Of course there is. If a stranger hits you, don't you want to hit back? Yet, the reason for the incident being unknown, might it not be wrong to do so without further investigation of the matter? There is aggression and hatred in our instincts, triggered often by small things. Since we are human, we will never eradicate it completely. If we acknowledge it, we might at least be aware of its influence and better able to contain its expression.
There are any number of trollish crossposts made these days about American Wrestling. It seems that one is expected to feel strongly on this 'issue', one way or another. I would just like to say that I don't give a shit about wrestling and I think it's all a big pile of pants, so there.
Some say that LiveJournal is the death of Usenet. Personally, I don't mind it being a little less lively; it was always more useful when its population was smaller, and when it appealed mostly to certain particular types of people (those in academia, those working at the forefront of the computer industry, and those with genuinely passionate special interests). LiveJournal has provided an alternative home for trolls, spammers, and those only interested in phatic conversation. A bit of fluffy, lightweight conversation on usenet does no harm at all, but those who pursued it as their main interest seem happier in the LiveJournal environment, and good luck to them.
LiveJournal doesn't work for me because I enjoy the dynamic, open atmosphere of Usenet. I like the fact that I may be subject to criticism - it keeps me on my toes, and makes me think more carefully about what I write. It gives me more incentive to be honest with myself. I don't object to the fact that others may prefer LiveJournal, but I do object to evangelism about it. By now, everyone knows it's out there. People can make their own choices. They might do the decent thing and choose to give it a rest.
Last updated 8th June, 2008