Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Reason: Environmentalism and the Apocalypse: Loony prof wants talented tenth to inherit the earth

Reason: Environmentalism and the Apocalypse: Loony prof wants talented tenth to inherit the earth

Yeah right.

Talented tenth? Seems to me that Reason has an inventive contributing editor. Where has Pianka said anything faintly resembling that?

Implicitly tarring Pianka with the label of "religious" is similarly imaginative.

"Loony" is insulting. "Religious" is imaginary. "... wants talented tenth of inherit the earth" is libelous.

3 comments:

jj mollo said...

There was a product out a few years back that would allow you to post "graffiti" on a web site. That is, you would enter the site through a piece of software that kept track of people's comments about and virtual "decorations" of the site by means of a sort of software overlay. I don't know if anybody still uses it, but it seemed like a great idea to me at the time. Maybe cyberspace is just too big, but it seems like we should be able to warn people about the kind of abuse you are talking about here.

Steve said...

That would be tempting. I guess that's sort of what "hacktivists" do when they deface web sites in the name of some cause, but I've not heard of a product like the one you describe.

jj mollo said...

Well, it only worked for other people who had the same product. It did not really damage the sites themselves. You're sort of doing the same thing by blogging about it; it's just that your comments don't appear any time someone logs onto that site.

I guess when you think about it more, I wouldn't really be logging onto that site for any reasonable purpose. I already know, implicitly, everything I need to know about that site. Same goes for anyone able to appreciate your site. Your comments about that site don't really serve as a warning, because anyone who would be warned, isn't here. We all spend a lot of time preaching to the choir.