Talk:Timothy C. May

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[edit] Racism

Maybe it\'s not noteworthy, but over the years, especially since 2000, Tim May\'s vitriol has acquired an increasingly racist tone. Don\'t get me wrong; he has always made racist posts to the Cypherpunks mailing list and to Usenet, however in years past this racism was usually qualified somewhat. These days, most, or at least the supermajority of his posts are all-out racist rants. e.g. at the time of this comment, the following Google Groups Usenet archive of Tim May\'s latest posts, sorted by date, all contain racial slurs: [1], mostly against Blacks, but occasionally against Hispanics and Jews. Occasionally he also rants about homosexuals, as well.

His political views could also be considered as conspiracy theory.

I\'m not sure if he would count as a net.kook, but maybe.

My opinion is that Tim May's intolerant or racist posts aren't intended as serious argumentation, but rather, he just enjoys irritating PC liberals. Browsing over his recent usenet posts, a clear majority of them are spiced with words that are intended to push peoples' buttons. I know for a fact that, years ago, most of his usenet posts were more serious in nature, but even then, he did a lot of trolling. But I've also seen him maintain a highly respectful and polite persona on a more closed, serious listserv. I also gather that he has quite a few prominent friends in the Bay area, some of them Jewish. I've seen some of them refer to meeting him in person; nobody ever gave even the slightest indication that he's hard to be around. So, I suspect many of the elements of his net persona are meant to annoy the people he disagrees with.

Snacky 06:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I wonder why his racism was hidden behind the "unique brand of libertarianism" euphemism. Or maybe it's the same kind of racist libertarianism that Eric S. Raymond espouses, but if that's the case, it's no longer unique, is it? rone 07:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that's really Tim May? A lot of old-time usenet regulars have gotten slandered, it appears. 74.78.98.109 (talk) 19:29, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If so, that's really sad, to see such a great engineer go batfuck insane. I'm not sure I believe it's him, though. 74.78.98.109 (talk) 19:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

It is really him. The postings go back over a decade. Pmetzger (talk) 18:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be best to simply put a few of Tim's own words into the article. Then there is no need to characterize them per se. I would suggest a look at http://groups.google.com/group/misc.survivalism/browse_thread/thread/dfefbf807703ede4/9be1bd4ad0a33c50?lnk=st&q=author%3Atim+author%3Amay#9be1bd4ad0a33c50 or at http://groups.google.com/group/misc.survivalism/browse_thread/thread/f4af97e4d77ea446/709e9a452e110b1e?lnk=st&q=author%3Atim+author%3Amay#709e9a452e110b1e A few choice words from either of those would allow people to come to their own conclusions. Pmetzger (talk) 18:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)