Hi all,
1. Observation
There are those who wonder why so vociferous if not obstreperous
attacks on free software and particularly Linux occur, and who
postulate that perhaps the people doing the attacking are paid
to do so.
2. Observation
In these modern times, with capitalist globalization in full swing
and many jobs being "shipped" from rich countries to poorer countries
to yet-poorer countries, there is no reason to believe that any
job that can be shipped overseas won't be, if the new site offers
an adequate labor pool, or if any negative consequences of offshoring
will not appear in the short term. Capitalists are always trying to
reduce labor costs and doing so benefits individual executives who
promote the idea.
3. "Assertion A"
If a company is paying X number of dollars to market their products,
and to denegrate competing products, it is only logical that their
attention would be drawn to Usenet because Usenet reaches a segment
of the public and there is no cost involved in transmitting a message
to recipients.
4. Inference
If Assertion A holds, and if capitalists wish to minimize labor costs,
then a thoughtful executive will want to act upon Usenet by hiring
Third World workers to perform marketing or other work on Usenet,
so long as they can type sufficient English and represent themselves
as knowing enough so as to make a difference. Which is to say,
of course people (probably Indians, Eastern-Europeans etc) are being
paid
to post to Usenet.
5. Observation
In many an American political Usenet group, one can observe people who
perform attacks on "liberal" (American leftwing) ideas and people,
which often are nonsensical, incoherent, incorrect English, without
termination, often without apparent point except "attack for the sake
of attack".
6. Inference
Given the screwdness of the current US rightwing regime and their
willingness to sink to any new low, and if Assertion A holds (political
ideas being the 'product'), then it is reasonable to say that rightwing
American political leaders will want to offshore any attack-dog work on
Usenet to the cheapest English-capable providers, which would be in any
Third World country where there are English-capable workers.
7. "Assertion B"
Whereas the term FUD (fear uncertainty doubt) describes a novel
but non-attacking marketing technique, what I am describing is
something
which is novel for a different reason: it is the marshalling of
cheap foreign labor in the pursuit of not so much marketing, by
"psy-ops"
(psychological operations) since ultimately the attack-dog work
is intended to
- intimidate
- demoralize
- emasculate
- subjugate
the opposite camp.
8. Definition
IDES != FUD
IDES = intimidate demoralize emasculate subjugate
-Yib
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