I don't mind you having a "hostile" opinion. People disagree. If I dissent, then I must respect your right to dissent as well. If I expect you to listen, I must listen too.
If anyone thinks I'm meanspirited, I happily welcome emails telling me so. Even anonymous or public emails. Then I can perhaps alter my style or stop discussing here altogether.
(But if you're interested in my perspective, I suspect I'm used to meanspirited posts in this forum aimed at me, and maybe that raised the threshold of what I consider mean on my own part. Or maybe not, I dunno.)
> >But anarchists warn about this ancient line of discussion. David Graeber
> >writes:
>
> I was in an FM dead zone the other day so I tuned into AM radio. Some
> preacher says, "But Christians know that the arguments of the secular
> humanists are based on that ancient line of discussion...."
Did this preacher happen to be right? Don't lefists too dissect and illustrate (what they consider) faulty premises of a statement which they frequently encounter?
There's a mass of unconscious assumptions behind anything I say. If you can illustrate one, I can then learn from it. (Maybe it leads to a new idea, or trashes a mistaken one.)
> So, there are my creds. Deal. I'm not saying I'm super great at it, but I'm
> certainly not the moron some of you think I am and I'm certainly not the
> anti-linux Bitch y'all think I am.
I don't think you are a moron; it's generally obvious to me that everyone here, certainly including you, know a lot more than I do about a great many subjects.
> My arguments are intended (and conceitedly so) to get you guys to actually
> make an argument that addresses the criticisms. Doug isn't some idiotic nay
> sayer.
I happily recommend Doug's work to others. His book on the new economy was very useful to me. And he, as well as others, offered very helpful answers to a recent question of mine.
> This is whole fucking lot different than what has been presented so far.
> Which, sadly, had been rehearsed on this list every single damn year. I
> almost spit my gum out when I read Colin's example, because we already know
> about the Red Hat model for making money. Doug isn't dumb. Nor am I. Nor is
> anyone else who's offered criticisms and expected some coherent response.
I don't think RedHat or MySQL have particularly great business models either. (Then again, there's far worse out there.) I probably agree with the naysayers, and since I had nothing interesting to add here, I said nothing.
> If you know what a gift economy is and how it works, then explain further.
> If it is so damn important, as worker's cooperatives and worker ownership
> is to me, then I should think you could spend a few moments of your life
> actually making the argument.
Just because I quote Graber, it doesn't mean I happen to agree with every idea which appears in the quote. (I also quote Bill Gates and others.) The "gift economy" is not my interest; it's his. I will not defend this opinion of his, but I think it's evidence that some anarchists do consider these to be useful case studies.
Tayssir