Re: virus: Possible Though Paranoid Theory <PiTy PiTy>

zaimoni@ksu.edu
Fri, 20 Dec 1996 09:46:58 -0600 (CST)


On Thu, 19 Dec 1996, Lior Golgher wrote:

> David McFadzean, David Leeper, KMO, Wade T. Smith, Richard Brodie, all
> those ceased their activity on the list.
> At the same period, new handles such as 'XYZ Tech Support', 'Autumn' and
> new people such as Daniel M.J. Adams, CraigSimon and Dave Pape occupied
> a considerable share of all posts.
>
> Now, we may assume that some of those shifts were natural. But clearly
> some of them weren't.
> Daniel M.J. Adams - I believe you're real!-)
> XYZ - You're fake. Dave Pape - I have doubts about you too.
> Of course it's paranoid, and no one can prove he's right and the other's
> wrong. But it's also a great memetic experiment - "Let's watch their
> reaction to someone who denies free will" "Let's watch their reaction to
> someone who denies memetics" "Let's watch their reaction to rudeness and
> irrationality" "Let's watch their reaction to such and such provocative
> claims, such and such requests to explain formerly agreed theories". In
> fact, I might have preformed a similar experiment if I were in their
> places.
>
> What do you think?

You are reminding me of some sociological studies conducted on MUDs
[Multi-User-Dungeons].

This reminds me of a psychological identity test I had to fake up for one
story [how do you persuade X that you're *you* when you've just been
cloned after 60 years of being dead, and the doctors *don't* have
braintapes, just a sometimes-unreliable interface design that they hope
snags *you* back from "the afterlife"?]

"Veracity is optional in all of the following questions."

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