h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nickname changed, it was beginning to be yesterday's news anyway, and I take your point Sol.

'Careless talk costs lives' was a slogan in the UK during the second world war, there were a large number of posters supporting it: http://www.homesweethomefront.co.uk/web_pages/hshf_careless_talk_pg.htm

The idea is that if I chatter to my friend that my fiance (who she knows is in the Royal Own Pig-Stickers) is complaining about the fact that he finds it difficult using chop-sticks, we will speculate that they are posted in China Town. Since we don't always know the sympathies of our friends, this information may get into enemy hands. My friend may be right that they are in China Town, and if enemy troops start massing in Leicester Square they will be able to attack the Glorious Pork-Pokers (as they are fondly called) at their chow mein. Deliberately silly, but you get the idea.

So far so simple. But we all assume that the pieces of information we have are trivial, but that is because we don't have the context. If the enemy knows that the Pig-Stickers left the smoke four days ago they will know that the assumption about China Town is incorrect, but they will be able to put two and two together and work out that the guys with poles seen arriving at Hamish McFong's chinese laundry on the Clyde were not there to put up washing lines as they said, and successfuly nobble the noble lads there instead.

So the idea is not to let the snippets loose - you never know who will gather them, and synthesise them into useful information.

Sorry about the self-indulgence of this, but I enjoy whimsey every now and again.

B

Hey, whimsy is good in these dark days...Makes the point pretty well, too.

Let's be clear about one thing though, and it's something that some of the newer users of the site may not be aware of.

When the BBC first took over H2G2 from TDV, they installed a system of moderation that was entirely pro-active. *Every* post on this site went for moderation and was removed if the moderators felt it was innappropriate. It caused a lot of fuss, and a lot of people didn't like it.

The BBC rreasoned that with an 'experimental' service like h2g2, they couldn't take the risk of letting people post willy-nilly. The BBC is a government funded organization, and it has a lot of enemies in the popular preess who would *love* to find an excuse to attack it and attempt to dismantle it. h2g2 is an obvious case in point - not only is it highly combustible, but it has a *huge* number of non-UK, and therefore Non-Licence paying users. If you are Rupert Murdoch, and you are looking for a way to attack the BBC, then a group of 'freeloaders' (the popular presses view, not mine), expressing opinions about a subject like this is a Godsend.

There may be a disclaimer at the bottom of each page, but you can bet the popular press won't tell their readers about that when they print the story 'BBC wbsite says...'. Their readers won't check it, and anything that comes from BBC management after that is, like Gore's flailing after the 2000 election, when the media had declared Bush the winner, so much hot air.

Dagnabbit it...

I forgot the bit where I was supposed to say that through a great deal of effort, we don't have that moderation policy anymore, that moderation is now entirely re-active on h2g2 UNLIKE ANY OTHER BBC WEBSERVICE.

It is a unique privilege which has been given to us, and if people choose to continue to post on subjects they've been asked not to, then I think it's a privilege we may well stand to lose.

Well said Ben.

Well said Everyone, in fact.

Tefkat, at the bottom of page 2 and still reading but unable to comment since everyone else has already put it all so much better.

You are all much more eloquent than I could ever be, thank you.

Some one gave me a link www.opendemocracy.net which has a piece of prose by a Brazilian writer called Paul Coelho. It is entitled Thanks You Mr Bush, and I think that you might appreciate it, if not forget I spoke.

I was just being nischevious about the name, and it was a point well made. It helped clarify a few things for me.

And I do think, too, that it is rather admirable in many ways for the BBC to attempt to maintain a proactive (if irritating) stance of neutrality on this, really. A read a comment by a croat once whci said that one of the things about the war in Yugoslavia as was was how she felt reduced by the situation: no longer a neighbour, freind, colleague, scientist, teennis partner, but merely a croat. She also said - on a related point - that if America's media was all run by the KKK, then.... well you get the point.

Thank you for your explaination, Ben. Whimsy and all. I suppose that is also a responsibility we have as a result of belonging to a site like the BBC.

The point made by the name, I mean.

Thank you for letting me share your insights into the world ,I fined them very intresting and well worth the read ,I must confess I slipped into sleep once or twice while doing so but my attention span is that of a gold fish when I get on this site .... theres so much happening in here ,too much for my brain ... I do miss the chat rooms from (L.D.) anyway Im driftin off so hope to chat again BYEEEE

I'm always glad to help out any insomniacs!

a cup of cocoa called Ben

Loup says Im on the list now , still was nice to get your reply and my name on your page may also get me noticed LOL bye for now .
The billfir as left the stream!!

"They misunderestimated me."
George W. Bush —Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

There is nothing funny to write about at the moment, though cynicism and paradox are rife. Too many years ago I was on the Front Line: “What do we want? Disarmament! When do we want it? Now!”; “Meat is murder”; “Free Nelson Mandela” (with every purchase?); “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out, out, out!”. A collection of Anti-vivisection badges jostled for position with the CND logos and red stars which emblazoned my leather bomber jacket. Hours in front of the mirror with the Boots hair gel, getting the Mohican to stand up in all its glory, praying it wouldn’t rain, perfecting the urban guerrilla look which announced my alternativism to the World at large and especially to the “Them” of the moment.
Today the Che Guevara lies folded alongside the “Gibt Nazis keine Chance” and “No to the Poll Tax” T-shirts. I sport a tie and a bland haircut. I teach in a bank. Maybe I haven’t yet become “Them” but I’m happy to take “Their” money. I watch the No War demonstrations with a mixture of envy and nostalgia. They make me feel sad, not hopeful, just sad. I admire the simplicity, like the joy and purity found in naïve art.
Am I for or against the war in Iraq? The answer is a quite definite “Yes!”. After all, “They” all have God on their side. “People shouldn’t behave like animals, we should show humanity.” I disagree, I’ve never seen a rabbit with an AK47 and as far as I know, murder is pretty much a human habit. This is the kind of “humanity” that is being shown at the moment. The unspeakable in search of the unfindable. As George W. said "I am a person who recognizes the fallacy of humans"*. There is nothing funny to write about at the moment.
I carry guilt for not watching it on the television, for no longer believing anything I hear and the worst guilt of all at being happy that me and mine aren’t there. War happens to other people, as does Death. The future "belongs to the brave," said Reagan, I think it belongs to the living. “They” can keep my allocation of oil; I intend to live forever or at least die trying.

*George W. Bush printed in the New York City edition of the Daily News, September 20, 2000

(Chairman Mei would like to apologise for this pause in thoughts and hopes to resume normal cynicism as soon as possible.)

damn those speech marks!

"They misunderestimated me."
George W. Bush Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

There is nothing funny to write about at the moment, though cynicism and paradox are rife. Too many years ago I was on the Front Line: "What do we want? Disarmament! When do we want it? Now!"; "Meat is murder"; "Free Nelson Mandela" (with every purchase?); "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out, out, out!". A collection of Anti-vivisection badges jostled for position with the CND logos and red stars which emblazoned my leather bomber jacket. Hours in front of the mirror with the Boots hair gel, getting the Mohican to stand up in all its glory, praying it wouldn't rain, perfecting the urban guerrilla look which announced my alternativism to the World at large and especially to the "Them" of the moment.
Today the Che Guevara lies folded alongside the "Gibt Nazis keine Chance" and "No to the Poll Tax" T-shirts. I sport a tie and a bland haircut. I teach in a bank. Maybe I haven't yet become "Them" but I'm happy to take "Their" money. I watch the No War demonstrations with a mixture of envy and nostalgia. They make me feel sad, not hopeful, just sad. I admire the simplicity, like the joy and purity found in naïve art.
Am I for or against the war in Iraq? The answer is a quite definite "Yes!". After all, "They" all have God on their side. "People shouldn't behave like animals, we should show humanity." I disagree, I've never seen a rabbit with an AK47 and as far as I know, murder is pretty much a human habit. This is the kind of "humanity" that is being shown at the moment. The unspeakable in search of the unfindable. As George W. said "I am a person who recognizes the fallacy of humans"*. There is nothing funny to write about at the moment.
I carry guilt for not watching it on the television, for no longer believing anything I hear and the worst guilt of all at being happy that me and mine aren't there. War happens to other people, as does Death. The future "belongs to the brave," said Reagan, I think it belongs to the living. "They" can keep my allocation of oil; I intend to live forever or at least die trying.

*George W. Bush printed in the New York City edition of the Daily News, September 20, 2000

(Chairman Mei would like to apologise for this pause in thoughts and hopes to resume normal cynicism as soon as possible.)

Hi Mei

Yes - I have never felt so disenfranchised or so disempowered in my life, as I did marching with 1,000,000 people in the UK, and 11,000,000 world-wide against this war. And even though it is over so fast, I fear the peace more than I feared the war.

B

The obvious question now is: Who's next? And, do they deserve it? As I understand history Iraq is only a Bristish invention of three independent former states anyway, so it goes...

yes it is... but the preceding states were not independent... many empires have come and gone in the mid east, the last prior to the British intervention being the ottoman empire (and the enduring legacy of THAT empire was one of the reasons for the otherwise inexplicable conjunction of three otherwise discrete and very different states)

On another point (to hark back to some of the earlier comments in this thread)...

I'm reminded of other numerically small, but otherwise rabidly fanatical groups, who did what all right thinking people thought impossible: Nazis -v- & after the Weimar Republic; Communists -v- & after the Tzars. There are many others... but one thing for all moderates to keep in mind... unless you actively keep the fanatics at bay, you will be undermined and overtaken, because they are working actively to that end...

Sorry for the bummer thoughts, but I don't think that you can ever cry wolf enough