🚀 go-pugleaf

In <20812@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:

>There is nothing new here.  People have been writing letters since
>the post-Renassaince spread of literacy (and before).  During some
>periods, writers went out of their way to say things like "your humble
>servant" to placate the reader if there was offense.  At other times,
>people wrote flames and just expected that was what letters were like.


     One of the first major uses of the printing press, in Europe, was a
massive flame war between Luther and his friends and various Catholic
theologians.  Flame wars are at least as old as print, and are probably
a necessary side-effect of literacy.
     (Literacy is, of course, virtually a prerequisite for democracy.  The
poster that Nick was responding to commented about rumours of a government
move to kill the net, and this would be entirely in keeping with the
general assault on literacy being waged by the government and its
backers....  Follow-ups to alt.conspiracy?)
                                                Dave