On the Oberlin alumni mailing list, I’ve often debated my old friend Bob Hayes, who is as far right as I’m far left. This morning Bob accidentally emailed something to the Oberlin list that was meant for a role-playing game list he also participates in. I thought y’all might enjoy the exchange that followed… even though I think Bob got the better of me.<\/p>\n
My email to the list, quoting Bob’s mis-sent email:<\/p>\n
> for an NME-equivalent in the phlogiston: some type
\n> of wood (bred by the Elves, no doubt, and highly
\n> prized) that reacts against the phlogiston – allowing
\n> you to row around, even out of the current.<\/p>\n
More typical right-wing arrogance from Bob. Why assume the Elves are the only ones who can breed such woods? Given sufficient opportunity and education, perhaps funded by goverment grants, there’s no reason that half-orcs could do just as good a job of breeding specialized woods. What it comes down to is, Bob doesn’t WANT to spend his hard-earned tax dollars training half-orcs to breed phlogiston-reactive trees, and to my mind that’s just plain selfish.<\/p>\n
Barry<\/p><\/div>\n
Then Bob’s response to the list:<\/p>\n
Standard hyper-egalitarianism, unmoored from quotidian considerations of genetics or reality. If half-orcs could breed specialized phlogiston trees – or even had any interest in that direction – wouldn’t there be some evidence of that happening in the 11,391-year history of the Realms?<\/p>\n
Look, we all care about the half-orc problem. Attacking motives is simply a left-wing substitute for not having any workable policy ideas.<\/p>\n
Bob ’90<\/p><\/div>\n
Geeky, us, yes.<\/p>\n
(By the way, when I emailed Bob asking permission to post this on my blog, he responsed “Knock yourself out, orc-hugger.”).<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the Oberlin alumni mailing list, I’ve often debated my old friend Bob Hayes, who is as far right as I’m far left. This morning Bob accidentally emailed something to the Oberlin list that was meant for a role-playing game … Continue reading