detweiling

I've been studying "detweiling" in old archives
as this issue is raised here every so often.

imho the lesson of detweiler has nothing to do with
detweiler, but in fact more to do with his
targets. effective "detweiling" would be impossible if it
were not for the large egos of his quarry. he
selects his targets carefully based on the size
of their egos, presses their obvious
buttons, and stands back to watch
the fireworks ensue. the larger the ego, the
more easy it is to do this. (i.e. larger
fireworks/provocation ratio).

detweiler took a lot of pride in how much reaction
he could get with just a few posts or barbs. he is not
really apparently responsible for ever actually
mailbombing the cpunk list from what I can tell.
he believed he was perfecting the art of playing
with people's egos. a sort of depraved cyberspatial
psychology experiment.

the amusing thing about "detweiling" is the way
that it is something like a bad, self-perpetuating
virus among those with big egos. detweiler took
great glee in starting the virus wherein these 
people with big egos blame all their obvious 
personal problems on him (i.e. atrocious lack of 
interpersonal skills). since the virus propagates
not because of any action on his part, but because
of the inherent psychology of those with big 
egos, it continues on this list even though 
there seems to be no evidence that Detweiler
has had anything to do with this list for
perhaps over a year.

the cypherpunks is a rabid breeding ground for
this detweiler virus, because of the vast array
of throbbing egos. the flamewars are routine
because of the immature psychology of many posters,
esp. the more "prominent" ones. even anonymous
or pseudonymous posters defend themselves because
of their large egos, and those with big egos feel
they have to defend themselves against anonymous
or pseudonymous accusations, or take intermittent
jabs at whatever hapless pseudonym-of-the-week 
is thought to be detweiler.

imho from what I have seen (which is admittedly
not everything, as the detweiler stuff is rather
endless), detweiler is not really destructive in himself.
but he is an amazing catalyst to those that already
have destructive tendencies within themselves,
and he tweaks them into erupting. in a sense it
is almost a public service in helping people with
big egos temporarily relieve their "painful
flareups".

but I see no sign that he has been anywhere near
the list for a long, long time, and I think all
the ranting and scapegoating of him is quite
strong evidence of all the big egos and small minds
that litter this list.

there is nothing new about detweiler's approach.
there was a classic greek who was put to death
for the same reason: not provoking people by calling
them names, so much as asking them questions that
embarrassly exposed all their ego problems.
his name was called "socrates" and he was put to
death for refining his art beyond that which was
tolerated by a power structure largely populated
by those with the ego problems (power structures
are always dominated by these types, it is like
flies and dead meat, or moths and flames).

the joke of course may be that detweiler could have
been dead for a long time, and people here would
still be blaming him for their problems. perhaps
we have a new convenient substitute for Satan in
the cyberspace age. "the detweiling made me do it."
(hee, hee). "projection" was identified by freud
in another century as a basic device of the ego,
a pity that few in our modern era are aware-- or
perhaps it is not such a pity from detweiler's
perspective. <g>

(p.s. I imagine quite a few people will accuse "me" of
being detweiler. I assure you my amusement will at least
exceed or match that which detweiler ever obtained.)

On Sat, 23 Mar 1996, Anonymous wrote:

> imho the lesson of detweiler has nothing to do with
> detweiler, but in fact more to do with his
> targets. effective "detweiling" would be impossible if it
> were not for the large egos of his quarry. he

This is true. Without realizing it (until I took a look a the alleged
Detweiler web pages), I've been Detweiling on a number of Neo-Nazi lists
for a while. This type of psychological warfare is pretty interesting.

> detweiler took a lot of pride in how much reaction
> he could get with just a few posts or barbs. he is not
> really apparently responsible for ever actually
> mailbombing the cpunk list from what I can tell.
> he believed he was perfecting the art of playing
> with people's egos. a sort of depraved cyberspatial
> psychology experiment.

It's not an art. It's just being an asshole, and there's nothing new 
about it. the alleged Detweiler had a few interesting observations, but 
most of them were cypherpunk-specific.

I do see a real tension between the norms of anonymity and full
disclosure, though, which I'll have to think about a bit more before
committing it to Tim May's eternal data haven with my name atached. 

> the amusing thing about "detweiling" is the way
> that it is something like a bad, self-perpetuating
> virus among those with big egos.

I should have a good example of this on the Stormfront list shortly.

> there is nothing new about detweiler's approach.
> there was a classic greek who was put to death
> for the same reason: not provoking people by calling
> them names, so much as asking them questions that
> embarrassly exposed all their ego problems.
> his name was called "socrates" and he was put to
> death for refining his art beyond that which was
> tolerated by a power structure largely populated
> by those with the ego problems (power structures
> are always dominated by these types, it is like
> flies and dead meat, or moths and flames).

I'm not so sure. I'd say that these types are more concentrated in
political activism (where I would place many political cypherpunks) nad
in mid-level politics and bureaucracies, not in high-level power
structures. The people who come to power, and stay in power, have learned
to transcend ego and paranoia. Nixon, who had been very good at this,
lost it. Clinton seems to be holding up quite well. (This is not to say
anything about their politics or characters, just their temperaments.)

> the joke of course may be that detweiler could have
> been dead for a long time, and people here would
> still be blaming him for their problems.

Read Milan Kundera's _The Joke_ for an interesting twist on this. Or 
maybe _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_.

-rich