On 6/26/07, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
...If he were to use the list as a way to barrage us with his politics, such that long threads would revolve around him. Some of us would respond to him, but nobody but David would really be interested in his position and the threads would degrade into fairly predictable exchanges
Then it would be relatively easy for someone in dissent of another's opinion to 'degrade' the thread into 'predictable exchanges' on purpose to suppress interest or cause the list members to don their flame-retardant underwear. That's a working definition of a "TROLL'. It's an ugly tactic that at least one poster to [pen-l] is quite accustomed. "The main reason Chinese officials and scholars do not talk about communism is that hardly anybody really believes that Marxism should provide guidelines for thinking about China's political future," he wrote. "The ideology has been so discredited by its misuses that it has lost almost all legitimacy in society…. To the extent there's a need for a moral foundation for political rule in China, it almost certainly won't come from Karl Marx." --Daniel A. Bell, Political Science Professor, Tsinghua University Beijing LA Times: Marx loses currency in new China Teaching socialism is mandatory, but learning it is monotonous for today's students, who revere money more than Mao. By Mitchell Landsberg, Times Staff Writer June 26, 2007 <http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/columnone/la-fg-marx26jun26,1,2565437.story>
