Jacqueline-
I wanted to check and see if you're still willing to assist with
Project PM. Although it was clear from your e-mail, and particularly
your choices of anecdotes, that you're considerably put off by my
thinking regarding what I expect (and hope) to happen over the next few
decades and how Project PM and similar efforts can assist in bringing
it about, I don't know the extent of your objections. My best guest is
that you're disinclined to work with me further. If that's the case, I
have a request - would you explain your objection more specifically,
either by phone or e-mail, and give me a chance to try to convince you
to continue with us?
Although I have a number of people who are willing to serve in
the roles that we discussed, I'd prefer to have you doing so. For one
thing, you were particularly enthusiastic about our goals and seemed
particularly interested in the manner in which the blogger network is
specifically designed to achieve some of the more specific of these,
and thus are particularly likely to contribute new ideas both big and
small.
More importantly, the fact that you've already objected this
strongly to what you apparently see as a crucial flaw in my thinking
shows you to be particularly inclined to go with your own
determinations. That makes you potentially very useful to me as an
advisor and similarly useful to the project itself were you to serve on
the legislative network. Hopefully, pretty much everyone who joins will
be an independent thinker to some unusually great extent, but even so,
many may be inclined to agree with me on most things simply because
they've already made such determinations or because I'm able to
convince them that my view is reasonable. I maintain regular contacts
with several of my politic enemies - conservatives of various sorts,
mostly - because adversarial criticism can be very valuable,
particularly on those rare occasions when it happens to be correct; I
was able run a correction recently and thus keep my readers
better-informed than most simply because I was alerted to a new
development by one of the most intellectually dishonest and
fascist-by-sentiment of popular warbloggers, and the development
happened to be both relevant and accurate.
Having said all of that, I think I have a reasonably firm
understanding of your objection, and likewise think that I could
convince you to carry on with Project PM in spite of it - and, of
course, you'll have the chance on this occasion and forever after to
convince me that I'm wrong or silly or akin to a bunch of
self-important anarchists of the sort you've come across or whatever
your exact position is on this. At any rate, I would greatly appreciate
it if you were to discuss it with me. You certainly don't owe me the
chance to try to convince you of anything, but as you acknowledge the
importance of what we're trying to do, certainly it would be worth a
few minutes more of your time to make sure that you're skipping the
chance to help for the right reasons.
All in all, I'm very intent on having you work with me, and
would like a chance to convince you to do so.
Thanks,
Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 7:29 AM, Barrett Brown
<barriticus@gmail.com>
wrote:
Howdy again-
Groovy. I wouldn't need you to do anything of a more clerical
nature than this stuff, and don't worry about getting it incredibly
organized or anything; I mainly just wanted to get all of these
messages out of my inbox and get everyone's name, contact info, and
skill sets all jotted down in one place for now.
Thanks,
Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302
On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 11:13 PM, Jacqueline Plavier
<JPlavier@msn.com>
wrote:
Hi, Barrett -
No one's called me Jac in twenty years. Just don't call me Jackie. I'll
answer to almost anything else.
I'm just confirming that I got the emails and I'll see if I can set-up
some sort of organizational system.
You asked about skills earlier and I thought of a couple of things that
you might want to know. I'm not really good at design. I'm a fine
artist who paints mainly nudes. My knowledge of anatomy is quite solid.
Anyone who experiences seizures while viewing genitalia should use
caution if he or she googles my name. In architecture school I
struggled in the design courses but had the best grade in the
structures class. I can use many of the common graphics programs, so if
you need something in a pinch I can probably do it, but graphic skills
are common and many people are better at them than I.
Natively, I'm strong in spatial abilities, math and that sort of thing.
In terms of experience, I'm strong on language skills. I've taught
English abroad and my French is very good. I've taken university level
classes at Laval, a French speaking university. They were the regular
classes in art history, math and physics, not classes for people
learning French. I've helped French speaking academics put their
papers in English. Unfortunately, I'm not good enough to do English to
French translation.
I'm really, really weak in clerical skills. You need to know this.
Lately, I've been looking in to returning to school for a second
bachelor's in computer science/math.
I've taken classes in drawing comics, although nothing I've drawn has
ever been published.
In most contexts I'd mention that I write well, but that's probably
redundant in this case.
In order to get by, I've done a lot of things: interior decoration,
surface decoration, trompe l'oeil, drapery, grant writing, modeling.
There are one or two other things I'll keep to myself for now, but you
can say I've had a colorful life.
Jacqueline