I believe there's also something of a power play involved. Imagine 2
friends/acquaintances trying to get together. One says (in effect) "if
you want to see me, you drive all the way over here; you bring the food;
you put in the effort; if I feel like it, I'll answer the door, but I
might be in my pajamas, and I'm not going out of my way to entertain
you." The other says the same thing. Now that could be a matter of
laziness, but I think there's some one-upping going on. It is a way of
saying "my time and effort are more important than yours." "I'm the
princess; you're the pea."

Thus with usenet (or any communication). In a perfect scenario, the
typer would make an effort to communicate effectively and clearly. The
reader would make a reasonable effort to figure out what the typer meant
and answer appropriately. But sometimes that's not what happens. The
typer puts forth the equivalent effort to the host who won't drive to
see his friend. He says "I'm going to use all lower case. I won't
punctuate; I'll use ellipses or tildes between my phrases instead. I'll
mispell my words. That saves me time. If you want to figure out what
the hell I'm talking about, you put in the time and effort, but I'm not
going out of my way to make it easy for you." That's not laziness.
That's a play for power.

(I quietly killfile anyone I don't think puts forth a reasonable effort.
I have no objection if someone quietly killfiles me.)

--Lia


Frogleg wrote:


> Uneducated doesn't mean stupid or worthless. Refusing to pay attention
> to education indicates, um, laziness?