[Corpora-List] Call for Papers: Mining User-GeneratedContent for Security - MINUCS 2009

[Linas Vepstas]

2009/8/14 Jordi Carrera <excellens at gmail.com>:
> Dear fellows,

Given that this email ends with an ad hominem attack on me
personally,  I feel compelled to make a brief reply.

> I wonder whether Linas is truly advocating for having e.g. physicists
> discuss the legal implications of their findings

Physicists publish the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" precisely
in order to discuss the legal, ethical and political issues surrounding
bomb-making.  They also have a long involvement with the
Union of Concerned Scientists. There are many Professors
Emeritus around the world who were once involved in assorted
nuclear bomb projects, and their concerns about ethics and social
responsibility continue to permeate down to physics graduate
students, who, for the most part, are aware of the history, and are
receptive to such notions.

> 7) Linas says: "there is a small but growing group of people who believe
>  that this kind of technology could lead to an explosively dangerous
> situation which would threaten the survival of humankind."

I refer to the "hard-takeoff" scenario, and its assorted variants.
Both the SIAI and the Lifeboat Foundation are explicitly funded
to find ways to avoid such existential risks.

> In my opinion, these are all very (very) strong claims.

I meant them to be statements of fact, and are all quite easily
supportable.  You can google around for the evidence on your
own time; you will find plenty.

> Linas, if you have

[...]
The rest of the email was an ad-hominem attack. It is preceeded
by a number of other attempts to discredit me using misdirection
and faulty logic.  You wrote a rather hostile email, and I don't
understand why.

-- Linas

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