[Cialug] SysAdmin FYI

[Matt Stanton]

It is no doubt that he wrote his presentation for a target audience.  But, that means that it is the general consensus of that audience that the American public, along with foreign targets, are just silly wannabes who can't secure their systems and are ripe for the "pwnage".  Maybe everyone there doesn't feel that way, but some majority of his intended audience obviously does.

Maybe I'm too patriotic for my own good, but if anyone is going to trample on my constitutional rights and invade my privacy, adding insult to injury by telling me I "just got PWNED" is not the way to get on my good side.

-- Matt (N0BOX)

Sent from my ASUS Transformer

-----Original Message-----
From: Zachary Kotlarek <zach at kotlarek.com>
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group <cialug at cialug.org>
Sent: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 5:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Cialug] SysAdmin FYI


On Mar 25, 2014, at 2:57 PM, Matt Stanton <matt at itwannabe.com> wrote:

> these people really need to be more than just network gamers if our security and freedom are at stake.


That’s the heart of the matter here — you’re pigeonholing “these people” as “just” this or that based on some small sample of writing (one for which you have little context at that). I’d suggest it’s perfectly possible for someone to both be a competent and respectful professional AND sometimes use ‘lite-speak, even if you personally wouldn’t use the same language.

It’s fine that you wouldn’t use the same language, and if you were part of the target audience it would be useful for you to let the author know that their language wasn’t effective for communicating with you. But the fact that you prefer different language is not a rational basis to reduce another human being into a mere stereotype, or ascribe malice to them.

	Zach