ARI spam? That's a new one.


Michael Stuart Kelly

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ARI spam? That's a new one.

I was researching something else entirely and came across the following blog posts on Wizbang. I don't read Wizbang so I don't know its political bent (it seems neutral on skimming, but I would need to read more to be sure). One thing does stand out, though. Wizbang seems to be a VERY POPULAR and HIGH TRAFFIC blog that deals with politics. This is what makes the following Jan. 1, 2006 blog entry by Jay Tea so weird: So much for their libertarian tendencies... From that entry:

And most of all I don't like being signed up for any lists without my knowledge or consent, where folks simply "shotgun" their thoughts (such as they are) across the 'net, hoping that if they send enough out, they might actually get one or two good results.

It's a form of spamming.

. . .

But every now and then I get surprised by who spams me.

I've never read anything by Ayn Rand, but the general impression I have is that her philosophy has a strong element of libertarianism to it. I've always found that appealing, especially the live-and-let-live aspect.

Which is why I was so surprised -- and a bit disappointed -- to get an e-mail last week from the Ayn Rand Institute with the complete text of an op-ed piece by David Holcberg and Alex Epstein, entitled "The Anti-Life Opposition to Embryonic Stem Cell Research."

The gist of it was... well, dull. Almost 800 words of schlock, hyperbole, scare quotes, and other forms of drivel.

In fact, the most interesting part of it had to have been the notice at the end:

ARI's media releases are solicitations sent to addresses obtained from commercially available databases and from Web sites that have an apparent interest in publication material.

You are subscribed as xxx@xxx.com. If you prefer not to receive future releases, visit our Web site to change your email preferences.

(Address omitted for no real reason)

Ain't that sweet. They like me so much, they're gonna force-feed me their crap until I play nice, jump through their hoops, and beg politely to be left alone.

I don't play those games. And since they were kind enough to include their contact information (David Holcberg -- Media Department, Ayn Rand Institute, Phone: (949) 222-6550 ext. 226 E-mail: media@aynrand.org), I believe I'll give Mr. Holcberg a call come Monday and waste as much of his time as his institute has wasted of mine.

And maybe they'll see the libertarian side of simply leaving folks alone who haven't asked to have their mailboxes filled with his crap.

In the comments to that blog entry, a person named "Elan" made a post that contained the following excerpt:

What interests me most, however, is your unashamed admission that you've not read Ayn Rand. The Bible is the number one read book. Atlas Shrugged is number two. It should be required reading for everyone...

Elan also had the good grace to call Mr. Tea a moron, which fits right into the stereotype Randroid. Mr. Tea responded in the thread and here is an excerpt:

Elan, a simple question: is signing someone up for a mailing list without their knowledge or consent, and refusing to stop unless the recipient follows your rules precisely and politely asks you to do so in your carefully-outlined procedure, consistent or inconsistent with Rand's philosophies regarding individual rights?

If the answer is no, then they are hypocrites.

If the answer is yes, then they're assholes.

Either way, they have not done anything towards converting me towards their beliefs.

Further, I have never written a single piece on stem-cell research, and can only think of a single time I might have mentioned it in passing. Had they asked me if I'd be interested in their thoughts on the matter, or any matter, I would have no grounds to complain. But their presumption is that my e-mail box is theirs to fill with their schlock unless I go to their web site and "unsubscribe" is, to me, morally reprehensible.

(My emphasis.) If this is true, then someone at ARI acted unethically. Period. There is no excuse for that. I wonder if this practice is still in place.

There was a follow-up blog entry to this one on Jan. 3, 2006 after a phone call to Mr. Holcberg: Objectionable Objectivism. There are a few items worth quoting:

Mr. Holcberg seemed a bit surprised and confused by my call. Perhaps he couldn't comprehend that not everyone in the universe was just waiting with bated breath to ponder and marvel at his profound insights, but for whatever reason he didn't grasp the notion that the issue wasn't content, but consent -- I objected to his presuming that it would be just fine and dandy to put me on their mailing list and send me anything they liked, unless I jumped through their hoops and said "pretty please stop it." He used phrases like "you're free to do as you wish" and "that's certainly your right" and "you can just unsubscribe at any time."

He also seemed a bit befuddled by my suggestion for a more ethical way to start up his list -- sending out a one-time mailing asking if people are interested, to reply, and only adding those people who respond favorably.

. . .

Elan, I was going to answer you in a private e-mail, but since you're going to insult others as well, let's keep this public.

. . .

Fifth, congratulations on your FICO score. Would you mind explaining 1) why I simply should take your word for it, and 2) why I should care in the least? It is utterly irrelevant to me, the other readers, or this discussion in general. All it does is show that you wish to assert your superiority over others, to establish a level of credibility and respect so you can get others to simply take your word on matters instead of having to prove your point.

Sixth, the comparison between electronic and paper junk mail is flawed. With paper mail, there is a per-item cost to the sender that poses economic limits on the volume. With e-mail, ther is no scaling of costs -- it costs the sender nothing more to send a million messages than one. All the burden for the volume is placed on the recipients, meaning that there is no incentive on behalf of the sender to limit themselves, and the recipient finds themself on the hook for the expenses of the mailing. A better analogy would be to allow all junk mailers to send their ads postage due, and the recipient unable to refuse the charges. It is an utterly immoral and unsustainable model.

. . .

Eighth, my annoyance at the Ayn Rand Institute is based on the fundamental lack of respect they demonstrated for me from the outset. Access to my e-mail box is limited to those who wish a one-on-one conversation with me. I was added to their list without the slightest bit of due diligence. Had they even done a cursory survey of my works, or contacted me beforehand, they would have known that I have never published anyone else's work, I have never discussed the topic they chose to address, and I have often stated my disdain for unsolicited mass e-mailings and the morally reprehensible "opt-out" model. But that mattered not a whit; as "true believers in the cause" (much like yourself, apparently), they hold themselves above the normal mores of good conduct. As I said above, I do not suffer fools gladly, particularly those who trespass against me.

. . .

Tenth, let's run with that "god complex" one more time, but let's turn it around this time. You say that Rand's books ought to be "required reading." Can you think of a better term for someone who says that every single person in the world should be forced to read a certain book than "god?" "Dictator" or "tyrant" doesn't have quite the same power or connotations.

Eleventh... oh, hell, if I haven't made my point by now, I don't think I ever will. I've wasted way, way too much time on you already.

And this last item is exactly what happens with many important people who receive the smarmy version of Objectivism. They turn off. I have no doubt that "Elan" responded to that blog entry, probably more than once, but his posts did not show up. Mr. Tea was dead serious. He was done with "Elan," and I fear with Rand and ARI for good measure.

Still, I am very glad to see someone kicking the ass of Objectivist spammers and stating what the real issue is: money. Spamming doesn't cost anything and your run-of-the-mill Objectivist spammer is either too broke to invest in the ideas he professes to hold or does not believe in them enough to put his money where his mouth is. (Hey, Elan! Notice that Mr. Tea has an audience you never will have? He earned his. What did you do?)

God knows this was evident during the PARC run and it was quite an annoying job to stand up to it. Let me be clear about that. It was not annoying to defend the Brandens. This is like defending Rand against imprecise unfair attacks and I will always do that in a heartbeat. The annoying part was the smallness and business of the ARI-sanctioned PARC-crowd attackers added to the unceasing blatant in-your-face hypocrisy and smarminess.

Just like all stereotype ARI spammers.

It seems that there is one strain of Objectivist who takes the ability to use a resource for free that SOMEONE ELSE PROVIDES AND RUNS AT HIS OWN COST as a license to hog it (especially for spewing nastiness) and intrude on others with spam.

Granted, the above issue with Mr. Tea was well over a year and a half ago and this is only one side of the story. But it rings true from the experiences I have had personally. I hope things have changed at ARI. It is not too much to expect an organization devoted to preaching a high moral and integrity bar to learn what Internet etiquette and Internet morality is before trying to take the world for a sucker just because it's free (and anonymous, but that's a different irritating issue with many of these Objectivist spammers).

I consider myself an Objectivist, but Jay Tea certainly sounds like my kind of people. That is a person of integrity.

Michael

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You've completely lost me as to what this ARI spamming mess — and I'm surprised, frankly, at your surprise — has to do, if anything, with the PARC controversy.

Are you suggesting that defenders of Valliant's book imposed themselves on others, in various forums, without those others' consent? If not, just what ARE you saying?

Your opposition to Valliant may be a sizable hammer, but that doesn't make every issue into a nail.

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Steve,

My PARC spamming complaint is an old and frequent one. Nothing new there. All you have to do is read the old threads. If you like I will dig up some posts, but frankly, you should do your own research.

Maybe you haven't read those threads because of the spam-like posting by PARC supporters? Here is a link to a list of links if you are interested. I won't hold my breath for you to read all that, though. And I will not criticize anyone for not wanting to read all that crap.

I stopped adding to the linked list in late 2006. Maybe I will update it someday when I have nothing better to do.

Michael

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All insular communites develop certain habits of speach. The most striking example (and I'm not calling people on here religous, please don't misunderstand) in my life has been evangelicals. Saying "just" alot while they pray, the phrase, "with every head bowed and every eye closed" are two examples. Heavily ARI-ized roids seem to have similar habits of speach. Here is Elan's first post -

I'm a little curious about a couple of things. Are you the owner of this blog? I ask because the tone with which you write this essay is rather officious. It seems mean-spirited, as well. What interests me most, however, is your unashamed admission that you've not read Ayn Rand. The Bible is the number one read book. Atlas Shrugged is number two. It should be required reading for everyone, though with its ranking as number two, plenty have read this masterpiece. I just find it revealing that you would be so utterly petty about some business emails, and yet so utterly clueless about Ayn Rand - to the point you actually admit it and do not realize that you come off as quite the Philistine. Or moron, if you will.

"I'm a little curious about a couple of things....What interests me most...I find it revealing" Is it just me or do alot of Roidish denounciations carry this distant, i have no balls, passive aggressive "This isn't an attack, I'm just interested" tone? I`m reminded of a poster on Objectivismonline and 4aynrandfans named Burgess Laughlin who, in my eyes at least, tended to phrase things like so, "I am very interested by what you meant by 'X'. Please give 'X' the thought it deserves as 'X' could substantially impact your place among us."

The tone always seems to say nothing and everything. Like a self ashamed Stalinist interrogater who lacked the requisite nads to come out and say something, always shifting the burden on the accused to be burned at the steak when any (usually semantic) error is seen.

Elan in a later post said something else that remided me of another typical roidism:

I was not that interested in your diatribe as I was about your rude tone

They love to lose interest, its like double think. There are so, so many examples of roids priding themselves on ignorance.

Roid 1 "Here is where I stopped reading"

Roid 2 "Wait, I was pure and Galt like enough in my detection power I stopped a full 4 words before you. You must be a.....a..."

5 minutes later

Betsy Speicher: Therefore, if he weighs as much as this Critique of Practical Reason, he's a Witch!" (Monty Python)

Just my 2 cents

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Well, excuse me for not instantly recognizing every allusion to your own particular set of sectarian disputes. *sheesh* (This board isn't free of them, as I'd once thought. Most here are simply more polite about them.)

Is it that onerous, Michael, to provide a note or two to the perplexed? I've seen your "PARC Facts" post, some time ago, but I've seen nothing about the supposed "spamming" on "their" part (neither of these terms being defined) that you talk about.

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*Making a mountain out of a molehill*

> ARI's media releases are solicitations sent to addresses obtained from commercially available databases and from Web sites that have an apparent interest in publication material. You are subscribed as xxx@xxx.com. If you prefer not to receive future releases, visit our Web site to change your email preferences.

There is absolutely no problem with this since it explains the reason and offers an easy way to opt out.

"Spam", by contrast, is:

i) when you send it to almost anyone and everyone in the universe as a broadcast as opposed to those you found in a narrow-band source (libertarian, conservative lists?) which indicates someone might be interested,

ii) you keep sending it (or further sell the name to third parties) despite the fact they have asked to opt out,

iii) the opt out method is onerous or taxing, intentionally, so people won't opt out.

Michael and others, please don't let your intense dislike for ARI blind you to the fact that if you were running an intellectual organization you would need to find similar ways to prospect for new people who haven't heard of you. And merely sending a mailing which abstractly and vaguely describes what you do without sending a 'free sample" (like an op ed) which concretizes it would not make clear what an intellectual organization is offering.

A final point: Whether the opt out option is a positive action (you have to reply with "unsubscribe me" or click on that field in a link, or negative (you won't get any more emails unless you reply) is an incredibly minor detail. There is a good reason for the first, which is that people, even those interested procrastinate.

Not only is what ARI doing a good way to spread Objectivism (assuming the op ed was a good one and not embarrassing), it is long overdo for Objectivist organizations to do this sort of thing and let new people know of their existence and of their ideas.

Michael and other libertarian-leaning people, no offense, but your mistake here is one of INTRINSICISM: taking the principle of 'consent' in the most literal-minded way and out of its full context.

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A final point: Whether the opt out option is a positive action (you have to reply with "unsubscribe me" or click on that field in a link, or negative (you won't get any more emails unless you reply) is an incredibly minor detail.

No, it is by far the most important point. I can live with a one-time mailing. But people who force upon me a positive opt out ought to be summarily executed. That kind of advertising terrorism makes me really furious and ready to kill. :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

It doesn't surprise me that the ARI idiots resort to that kind of tactics.

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Phil,

With all due respect, I disagree with you on so many levels it is not funny.

1. I don't think you read the issue very carefully. Jay Tea was not against receiving a one-time only email giving a sample. He was against receiving an unsolicited subscription.

2. I don't think you understand the Internet culture very well. There are two kinds of advertising: intrusive and permission (I am using Seth Godin's distinctions). Outside of any considerations of good behavior, intrusive advertising simply does not work well when a person has many options. Here is an example: when broadcast TV only had only a few channels, it was OK to intrude at intervals on the program the viewer was watching with 5 minutes of commercials. There was nowhere else to go. Nowadays with 500+ cable channels, the effectiveness of this has seriously taken a bite out of advertising revenues. Notice that intrusive radio ads are short, not 5 minutes. There's a reason. On the Internet, intrusive advertising like spamming only works for fishing for the converted, not for convincing anyone. For example, hardcore porn is spammed to catch people who like it, not to convince them to like it. Get-rich-overnight schemes are spammed to catch suckers who fall for these things, not to convince reasonable people. One can only presume that ARI spammed to catch other ARI-friendly people, not to convince anyone of anything. Either that or presume that ARI does not have a clue about what it is doing on the Internet (and I think it does).

3. Your observations of spam show that you do not know what it means.

"Spam", by contrast, is:

i) when you send it to almost anyone and everyone in the universe as a broadcast as opposed to those you found in a narrow-band source (libertarian, conservative lists?) which indicates someone might be interested,

ii) you keep sending it (or further sell the name to third parties) despite the fact they have asked to opt out,

iii) the opt out method is onerous or taxing, intentionally, so people won't opt out.

The first part is simply wrong. Here is the Federal Trade Commission's site on spam if you are interested in educating yourself instead of issuing an opinion as to what you think spam should be. Spam is junk mail, i.e., unsolicited hype. Often it is subscription but sometimes it is not. I could go into a long educational diatribe here, but I will let you do your own research.

It is true that ARI added an opt-out method, thus it complied with the law, but making the spam target go to ARI's site in order to opt-out of an unsolicited subscription is sleazy and you know it. The unsolicited subscription instead of an invitation is sleazy in itself, but at least an opt-out link (one time click) within the email should have been included.

4. You definitely do not understand Internet prospecting.

Michael and others, please don't let your intense dislike for ARI blind you to the fact that if you were running an intellectual organization you would need to find similar ways to prospect for new people who haven't heard of you. And merely sending a mailing which abstractly and vaguely describes what you do without sending a 'free sample" (like an op ed) which concretizes it would not make clear what an intellectual organization is offering.

This is so symptomatic of how many Objectivists think that it gives me great pause (and some pretty good ideas for future writing). You prospect COMPETENTLY by offering people SOMETHING THEY WANT, not by giving them something you think they should have. You discover what they want through MARKET RESEARCH. You gradually introduce what you think they should have (your product)—if it is not immediately attractive according to market research—and you convince them with selling techniques. But that is so far removed from the "blinders-on" thinking of how the market should be that is prevalent in Objectivist circles that I don't expect you to even know what I am talking about.

5. Just as a last area of disagreement (but by far not the final one), I read the following with astonishment:

Not only is what ARI doing a good way to spread Objectivism (assuming the op ed was a good one and not embarrassing), it is long overdo for Objectivist organizations to do this sort of thing and let new people know of their existence and of their ideas.

Michael and other libertarian-leaning people, no offense, but your mistake here is one of INTRINSICISM: taking the principle of 'consent' in the most literal-minded way and out of its full context.

Let me remind you of what you just read above:

If the answer is no, then they are hypocrites.

If the answer is yes, then they're assholes.

Either way, they have not done anything towards converting me towards their beliefs.

This was posted by an intellectual on a high-traffic site and was mostly agreed with in the comments thread by Tea's readers. If you bothered to actually go there, you would have seen this.

This is some really concrete evidence that what ARI is doing is not only not "a good way to spread Objectivism," it is causing a negative reaction against Objectivism in a place that is admittedly friendly toward libertarian ideas and does not know much about Objectivism.

In my view, your charge of INTRINSICISM is more than balanced by noting that you simply BLANKED OUT what you just read (or skimmed over it, which is just as bad when making a critique).

My suggestion is that you read more carefully and educate yourself on the issue of spam.

Michael

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The mountain gets bigger! :) Seriously, ARI shouldn't give gift subscriptions to its service. I didn't think much of Jay Teal not reading Ayn Rand, but to each his own. He seems to have a strong political orientation. I look for ethical commonality in people I'm interested in. Unlike when I was much younger, I don't see ethics as a weapon to chastize and convert the heathen. It's too hard to "prove" ethics anyway. All I can say is "Look," and here are my reasons for what I think is right. My views on the ethics of individual rights, though, are much, much stronger and absolute. If it's not right to violate rights then you are wrong when you violate them, etc.

Phil, you are much more with ARI when it comes to Objectivism than not--with Objectivism a la Ayn Rand while she was alive. I'm not. I don't think the ARI does much good beyond confusing young, inexperienced people with unjustified absolutism and a mummified, impractical philosophy beyond the reason part.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Brant,

I don't mind ARI gifting subscriptions. That is sound marketing. Any competent Internet marketer will teach that gifting a free subscription to a how-to-do-it course, for example, is a wonderful tool for making your advertising offers. The trick is to let the receiver decide if he wants the course, and for that, you have to appeal to what HE wants, not what THE SENDER wants. This is called "permission advertising." The receiver gave you permission to sell to him and even looks forward to it.

My issue is with "gifting" subscriptions to people without their consent and, in my view, in a totally incompetent manner. Imposing on people garbage that they have to throw out is not really "gifting." I don't consider junk mail a gift. Admittedly it's a mixed bag and sometimes the offers are worth looking at (like when you get coupons for free or discount goods/services), but if they don't give you something you want, it is just garbage you have to throw away.

I agree with you that I don't think much about Jay Tea not reading Ayn Rand, but I am sure of one thing. Mr. Holsberg did not convince him that Rand was worth reading. Mr. Epstein did not convince him. The hapless "Elan" did not convince him. But they did do some convincing and that they did with pristine competence. They helped convince him that Objectivism is a cult of alienated fruitcakes and that his original view of Rand was correct. Jay Tea made sure his readers knew it, too.

Good show, ARI!

:)

To be fair, the present policy ARI is doing of providing free online videos of Rand (and others), the Lexicon, etc., for those who register and provide their emails for building a list is competent permission marketing. That works on the free market. Spam never works in the realm of ideas without a dictatorship to back it up.

Michael

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*defining spam down*

I really detest these endless internet "tempest in a teapot" debates and don't wish to have to post five more times to swat down the mistakes of Michael, Mr. Teas, Dragonfly . . . and some puritanical government agency *over-defining* spam so it can use the force of government against business once again.

I do agree with this one point: ARI should have provided an easy link or a single step, not called it a 'subscription', and not asked them to go to their website to hunt down a way to change their email preferences.

But the basic principles about putting someone on a list but making it a no-brainer to get off that I listed remain valid -- I see no reason to repeat in slightly different words the the common sense reasons I gave.

...Michael, Dragonfly feel free to have the last word - erroneous as it may be. :-)

(PS, By the way you are misusing the word "subscription": simply because the ARI people are abusing the English language, doesn't mean you should follow suit.)

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Phil,

You really should educate yourself on Internet language. ARI made a horrible mistake, but abusing the language was not it.

Subscription is the technical term on the Internet for periodic reception of messages with different content from the same source. (RSS means Really Simple Syndication and commonly used in the phrase "RSS Subscription" for instance. I suggest you look into a Google reader and subscribe to some feeds. It's as simple as pie and free. As an educator, you should do it, too. It's a great way to learn and a powerful teaching tool.)

Your opinions, floating use of the word "principles," unsupported claims that the other is "erroneous" and so forth will not change facts nor cover up lack of knowledge. Not when you face someone who knows what they are talking about.

How's that for a typical Objectivist mistake? As the saying goes, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

:)

Michael

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Phil,

Just for general information, if you had made your observations about a year ago, I might have agreed with you. It so happens that I have been doing a lot of study. There are reasons some people successfully market and others (often with a superior product) do not. I decided to find out why, so I started doing a lot of study (probably about 400 hours or more so far) and I have only scratched the surface. I want to market successfully. That is my motor.

Like any discipline, after you learn, you start knowing what you are talking about. I don't know everything but I know enough to say what I did with full confidence that I am right.

Michael

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Michael, I'm with Phil on this. This is a huge overreaction. ARI sends out press releases to the media; somehow this guy's email address ended up in a database of news media email addresses. He should've asked ARI what database they got his email address from, and taken action to be removed from it, if he does not publish press releases. I don't see how you can call it "spam." I looked in my spam folder for a representative example. This is what spam looks like, it's an email from "Emma Mata" [eqcdt@dec.bbdo.es]:

"Try a variation of the Fortune Cookie Icebreaker, using greetings for the new year instead of quotes on education and learning. " I just refunded a fee because the client felt that our self-assessment worksheets were too much work.

I knew that the resume I wrote would be the only information employers had about my client before the interviewed him. Party Monster The Mo. Blue Sky Resumes Blog: The End of Resume Spin?

Please come on over and subscribe to the new feed.

But with a tight budget, high expectations, and only months before the wedding, the pressure is on for Tony who has to pull out all the stops for the bride and groom to be.

Stupid CSS Positioning - WebDeveloper. Or by maximizing your LinkedIn presence. Anatomy of an Aircra.

Seth is tracking traffic to the new generation of websites that allow people to collaborate, share contact and network online.

Unspun Hero Leading up to the Pete Burns Unspun premiere tomorrow on Living tv in the UK, another clip, in which the reality of Elton John and David Furnish's love for each other is questioned.

Rachel and Dave both work in high pressured jobs in PR in the capital's financial square mile and are looking for a quiet retreat they can both call their own.

Use them to fill the buckwheat crepes along with thinly shaved country ham and bits of Brie. I worked with a client who wanted to leave one industry and move into a very different one. And this doesn't just apply to senior-level executives. This is such a shame. Luckily for me, this client knew not only the field he wanted to work in, but also the specific company he was targeting. She wrote "if I had time to fill out all that information, I'd have time to write my resume myself. I'm terrible at sports."

I hope the ARI press release made more sense than this. :P

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Laure,

It's not all that hard to convince ME that Rand is worth reading. The problem is to convince people like JAY TEA, who was Rand-friendly before that and not at all a libertarian "intrinsicist."

If you think that the spamming method ARI used worked, there's not much to say. What I have read and presented shows the contrary.

The free market does not forgive.

I hope ARI has stopped that. There are respectable ways to generate a huge email list without buying one or harvesting (both admitted by ARI). All we need is for people to start equating Objectivist press-releases with offers for equity home financing or penis enlargement.

Michael

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> All we need is for people to start equating Objectivist press-releases with offers for equity home financing or penis enlargement.

Wait just a minute: I thought Objectivism -did- promise penis enlargement?

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Steve,

My PARC spamming complaint is an old and frequent one. Nothing new there. All you have to do is read the old threads. If you like I will dig up some posts, but frankly, you should do your own research.

Maybe you haven't read those threads because of the spam-like posting by PARC supporters? Here is a link to a list of links if you are interested. I won't hold my breath for you to read all that, though. And I will not criticize anyone for not wanting to read all that crap.

I stopped adding to the linked list in late 2006. Maybe I will update it someday when I have nothing better to do.

Michael

Damn Michael. That's a great compilation and gathering of facts! Wish you would update it, but I understand having better things to do. :)

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~ Play with all the lexicographical and l-e-g-a-l definitions one wishes, but, spam is unwanted (can one say repetitive?) attention-grabbing ads/mini-infomercialized-lectures, be they tv, mailbox, or e-mail (or, ye olde door-knocking). No different from nuisance telemarketing callers...who keep calling back.

~ One-time knockers/callers/e-m'rs, (religious or otherwise) I can put up with. But, the repetitive ones... :getlost: :angry2:

~ Such e-m'rs who require you to go to their website to jump through their hoops so you can hope they stop spamming you (and we know what that accomplishes in this cyber-age) are no different than junk mail advtsrs who say they'll stop filling your mailbox with their crap once you go to their store and fill out forms A->Z.

~ I'm with MSK and Tea on this; sorry Phil.

LLAP

J:D

Edited by John Dailey
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ADDENDUM:

~ I've little grind (though some, not relevent here) against ARI's...information-techniques. I think they're doing a great job...over-all.

~ But not this style of setting up a requirement-on-one-to-expend-special-effort to avoid their chronic 'door-knocking' which, as I argued in another forum about telemarketers, is grabbing-one's-attention and manipulating it. --- Such is like a salesman with their initial attention 'grab' (no-prob-and-ok with that, so far) who won't let go of you (here there be BIG-prob-and-NOT-ok), or stop knocking, unless you do...whatever 'they' demand.

~ Sounds like ARI blew this one...PR-wise.

LLAP

J:D

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