Okay, I just hit 99 readers...

[elfs]

So I'm just trying to figure out... who are all those people? Not that I mind, mind you. I have six people I count as good friends, all but one on LiveJournal, and all but one of the LiveJournalers has me listed as a friend of theirs, so... that leaves some 93 people out there who can't really be all that interested in the banal details of my life. Cooking, coding, writing-- gosh, it's such an ordinary existence.

Finally finished Appleseed, by John Clute. I felt that he ran out of ideas; the ending was way too 1970's for my taste. There are some great moments scattered throughout the book, moments that give one a viceral taste for how whole books ought to be written, and the whole told a story, but it was so... deus ex machina in the end. Still, there are a few good ideas in it. I plan on reading Everyone in Silico next, and maybe Jennifer Government after that.

I edited today. I wrote a sonnet yesterday that, sadly, will never see the light of the sun. It is too vicious and mean, too obvious. But today I managed to put in a few good moments, fixed one scene that was going nowhere so that it is now going somewhere. I have a character that I'm sure a few people are going to absolutely hate because she is so completely and utterly politically incorrect. She does something so heinous and horrible that few modern SF writers would ever give a character this particular habit: she smokes.

["Is she on fire?" Linia asked, and then giggled.]

Hopefully, on the way home I'll break file on one of two ideas I've got floating in the back of my head: either the Madships series or the Bridges of Stone story. Madships is a counterpoint to Dreamteam Calamaties. In the latter, a small group of biologicals do something the AIs agree with but which upsets the majority of biologicals; in Madships, the AIs go unexpectedly on a war footing over a first-contact issue that the biologicals don't quite understand and aren't quite ready to fight over.

Or I'll just tinker with another Aimee novel. I've got five of them plotted out.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

So I'm just trying to figure out... who are all those people?

Well, I'm one of them. (-:

Spotted you on food_porn and, having enjoyed your stories and occasionally crossed paths in Usenet, thought, "Oh, look who has a LiveJournal."

I rather like reading about people's ordinary existences, particularly in such non-ordinary times. It's oddly reassuring. Or something.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it was reading something you posted on food_porn that encouraged me to join and read it.

old usenet fans I think

[megalion.livejournal.com]

Well I read you and Omaha cause you're some of Wendor's closest friends and well first you guys are cool people but I'm also interested in you guys because it's another way to know Wendor through the people he's spent part of his life with.

I don't recall if I added you as a friend cause I don't use LJ other than to read and respond to friends' journals as something other than Anonymous.

Anyways... it's quite clear to me that you've cut quite a wide swath across the Internet and have gained a following either through old fans who stumble across you or remember you in a moment on memory lane and decide to see if you're still around.

Heck I had a similiar moment the other week regarding my ex, Emmett who you met when you first met me in person, when I wondered if he'd started keeping a journal yet finally. Answer: yes, on LJ in fact, emmett_the_sane, as well as his current partner, cyan_blue

It's been in my head lately to try and find some old friends from high school... it'd be nice to find some of them...

[tamino.livejournal.com]

And then there's people like me, who follow your LJ religiously but haven't added you as a friend.

I've thought about it at times, but always decided against it, for many reasons, but most articulably because of one little detail: The "friend of" list on the userinfo page. I feel like if I were to add you, not only would I be passively reading about your personal life (which I see as okay, because hey, you choose to make it public), but that by inserting my name into your userinfo page I'd have actually crossed the line into making an invasion.

Incidentally, yours is one of 27 journals I read outside of the context of my "friends list". So it's not that I feel shy about you specifically, but more that I don't quite know how I feel about these issues in general.

I do enjoy reading yours and Omaha's entries, though. Maybe it's an ordinary existence, but it's an ordinary existence that feels good, and spiritually healthy, to read about and experience vicariously.

Thanks. :-)

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Well, as we've already established, I'm a Blast from the Past. :)

[outherelistenin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are a few of those floating around.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

*blink*

Indeed there are. Hi, Adam!

[funos.livejournal.com]

"-- gosh, it's such an ordinary existence."

But a good and interesting one.

(why am I here? Intersection of interests: the Shardik Journals and LJ)

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

Well, I lurked on Usenet when I was in college, and saw your postings and read the Journal Entries then (although there are more now <cheers>), so when I saw you on LJ (which I think was a friends list intersection), I took a look. I like reading well-written descriptions of people going about their everyday lives, and that's what I've found in your journal.

You're not the first and probably not the last person I've friended semi-randomly because I like the way they write or know someone [who knows someone] who knows them. As is noted in previous comments, "friends" and "friends of" aren't particularly apt descriptors: "reads" and "is read by" is closer, and avoids the (sometimes inappropriate) emotional connotation.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm told that the "reads" and "read by" versus "friends" argument is an old one on LJ and related sites. I can understand that. I'm rather pleased to see the new mechanism whereby you can read your "friends/users" and "friend/communities" pages separately. That makes things easier for me, at any rate.

And I'm glad you like the Journal Entries. It inspires me to keep writing them.

[aprivatefox.livejournal.com]

I'm here because, quite honestly, reading about an ordinary life is a great reassurance these days - when everything I see is Big News and Big Problems and Big Impacts, it's good to know that there are still people living at the family level, going through all the mundanities of cooking and working and playing.

Of course, none of this is hurt by the fact that I love your writing, and something about the way you write makes it just not-ordinary enough that I can't stop reading it. (Honestly, I'm a little conflicted about the public nature of friends lists. For a long time, I would check your journal without adding you, because I didn't want to be part of that aggregate sum - and even now, I feel like I'm a voyeur into your life, but a voyeur who rings the front bell when I arrive, and occasionally tapes notes to the windows.)

So, there are what, eighty-odd people left? I suspect a lot more voyeurs will be popping out from behind the juniper bush.

[jenk]

Or maybe he'll hide in the bushes himself ;)

[arlon.livejournal.com]

Intersecting circles.

We have some mutual friends from years ago and common interests.

In addition, you live an interesting life. In some ways i envy you for the most important things that you cherish, such as your family and hobbies.

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Everyone in Silico was that great. Jennifer Government does sound interesting; let me know what you think of it.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

so... that leaves some 93 people out there who can't really be all that interested in the banal details of my life. Cooking, coding, writing-- gosh, it's such an ordinary existence.

*smiles* I hate to tell you this Elf, but everyone's life is banal and ordinary. Interest lies in how we each choose to be banal and ordinary in our own individual ways.

As for me, I've known you peripherally for several years now and we've moved in social circles that have started intersecting more and more lately. I found out you had an LJ several weeks ago, then ran into you & Omaha at a party around Valentine's day and had a couple of hours of interesting conversation with both of you. In general, if I enjoy talking with someone at a party, it's safe to assume that I'll enjoy reading their LJ as well, and it's an excellent way to, mmm, stay current with what's going on with other people without the need to be terribly intrusive or nosy.

I'll let other people speak for themselves as to why they're here, but I suspect that for many of them the fact that you've made a point of being an online public figure in several different fora for several years might just have something to do with it.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it might. I've been in a couple of self-inflicted train wrecks, which I think have been healthy-- reminders to some that I'm still human, reminders to me that I need a dose of humility now and then. Having been unable to keep my mouth shut for nearly twenty years now is not without some costs. But the alternative is even more dull.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I'll tell you what gets my attention... the recipes. Yum. OTOH, I'd love to read more about the smoker, being a politically incorrect kinda guy myself.... *VBEG* (Is she on fire? tee hee hee)

That and you come very highly recommended by kendaer, and backed it up the night charlesks moved in.... we had had zero help loading, but the minute we showed up you and Omaha pitched right in and stayed with it until we were done, and fed us a bit into the bargain (don't care if you didn't care for the way the bread came out, *I* thought it was wonderful. :)

I'll jet jenkitty explain her own self. :)

[foxcutter.livejournal.com]

Well, you're on my friends list, because I know you in RL, at least in passing. :) So I'm intersted a bit.

--Fox

[kyriani.livejournal.com]

Well... Since I know you and Omaha in RL and you are friends... ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
I'm also intrigued by the fact that having a sci-fi character that smokes makes them politically incorrect... I can think of a few guy characters in sci-fi that smoke, but now that you mention it, I can't think of one female character who does in anything I have read (and am remembering at this particular moment). My character Night smokes (though my comic is fantasy not sci-fi) though later on in the story (from circumstances that make sense in the story heh). Arg I really have to finish a few pages of my latest side-story, Ive been too depressed/hurting to draw the last week or so. =/
*HUGS* Anyway, you should at least feel flattered that so many people are interested in your writing within LJ circles alone. ^_^

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Well, in modern SF it's always the villain who smokes: consider "cigarette smoking man" from the X-Files as the prime example. Women who smoke are always evil: Sharon Stone's character in Total Recall smoked-- this was the giveaway that she was, in fact, an evil plant and not the hero's wife.

And yeah, in real life, you're high on my list of good people, too.

Well, it's kind of simple, really...

[outfrominside.livejournal.com]

I've met you and Omaha a few times, I think you're really nice and interesting and cute, you're a fellow poly kinky parent (and I *always* learn something from other poly kinky parents about how to deal with being one), you're into food and geek stuff, and I like the way you write. What's not to like? *grin*

Nia

[nukewolf.livejournal.com]

I know you through the Journal Entries and met Omaha once a looooong time ago. Common interests and someone who can write coherent English are both plusses. :)

[elfric.livejournal.com]

Well, I used to work with you at Sprynet and before that I read your writing on Usenet. Since then, it seems I've found another shared interest - poly. And now a girlfriend of mine appears to have a crush on you. So, though you may not remember me, I do remember you =)

[jenk]

Should we confess that we have a mutual gf? Or let him wonder? *wink*

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I'm here because of Kennet. And maybe thundercats too.

When the_maenad said in her LJ that "Simon's favourite writer-of-porn is now on LJ as elfs" I added you straight away.

And since then, I've discoved that you are a good writer-about-food, a good writer-about-programming, a good writer-about-parenting as well as a good writer in the whole kink arena.

So although you're not a friend, you are a "friend".
Make sense?

[timeimp.livejournal.com]

I found the Journal Entries a couple years ago surfing the web, and got hooked. I saw that you joined LJ and added you to my friends list.

It's nice to read whats going on with the person that writes the stories I enjoy, and it adds a personl feel to the Journal Entries, and other stories.

[enigmaticfox.livejournal.com]

I guess it's only polite to introduce myself...I'm also a longtime fan of your writing, from waaaay back on Usenet. So when a friend of mine noted that you had a LiveJournal, I wanted to see what you were up to these days. I don't think we've ever met in RL, unless you visited any of the LMNOP crowd in Pittsburgh from 1990-1994 or so...

I also hung out on A.S.B on Usenet -- long buried under a truckload of spam and trolls -- during that time period (under my own name), though I'd be more hesitant to do that nowadays since it seems all my relatives have internet accounts. :-)

Anyhow, hi!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm trying to get my mother on the Internet. She really wants to get on and see what it's all about, but it's hard doing that from 3,000 miles away. I'm a little nervous that she's going to figure out navigation and nicknames and start googling for her son.

Well, no time like the present.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

In no particular order:

• You write better than 99% of the folks that journal.


• You don't seem to have a "I have a new story up." notification service.


• omahas doesn't post that often.


• Found you intertaining in a.s.b many years ago.


• It confuses you.


• Even though it says 100 (or so) that number is currently including the communituies you've joined. So it's even less than you think.


• Our lives are markedly different. The mundane of YOUR life isn't quite like the mundane of my life, and therefore somewhat of interest to me.

So, where can one find these "Madships" ane "Bridges of Stone" stories?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Well, I try to get omahas to post more often. And I do (sorta) have a "new story" system in place: the JE pages, at any rate, are supposed to flag as new any stories you haven't seen since the last time you visited, as well as any stories that are less than a month old.

As for "writing better than..." I find that surprising. Writing is a little bit like walking-- we're all taught how to do it, takes some real defects to do it poorly. Doesn't it?

[mouser.livejournal.com]

As for "writing better than..." I find that surprising. Writing is a little bit like walking-- we're all taught how to do it, takes some real defects to do it poorly. Doesn't it?

No, sadly. If you don't believe me, try using the "random" link under "find users". Although I'm rather convinced that the most common sentence on LJ starts "I haven't updated this in a while..." it does appear that practice doesn't ALWAYS make someone good at something. Or even passable.

Oh, and the check mark thing doesn't work all that well. It might be IE killing old cookies, but the check marks (Yep, read that!") don't really stick more than a few days. You obviously have more than a few days reading there...

our version of "reality tv"

[megalion.livejournal.com]

been thinking lately about the fact that I've been reading the blogs of people that I peripherally know or who are psuedo celebrities that I'm interested in.

I despise Reality TV and understand that a large part of the draw is the voyeuristic pleasure for viewers to watch everyday people like themselves go through things, either everyday life routines (Real World) or bizarre contests (Survivor).

So why is that I feel a distinct voyeuristic pleasure to be watching the lives of these people through their blogs? It's almost as passive as TV since as evidence by other people coming out of the woodwork for you here, most of us aren't really interacting with the blogger.

The big case in point for me is the blog of an old co-worker who's the one who finally got me started in blogging by turning me onto Greymatter (though I've followed him now to MT). I considered him a friend and enjoyed chatting with him but once he no longer worked for the company, I hardly saw him again after that and once in a while I'll realize that I feel as though I've been keeping in touch cause I've been reading the blog but that it's entirely on my side since I have no idea if he reads mine (it's linked on his site but he has a huge list).

So is this a good thing or what? Haven't been able to make up my mind.

Re: our version of "reality tv"

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you can talk back. And sometimes we answer. There's a certain immediacy to the Internet and print that you don't get with television. Plus, we know that television is facile-- it's only what you see and feel. I like print-- there's a sense of something going on underneath the surface, a notion that there's conscious effort going into it all. It's not just going through the motions.

about "who would be interested...."

[(Anonymous)]

i read your live journal for 2 reasons,first i wanna know when the next chapter of the journal entries has been posted and second i think your about the most complex and interesting person i've ever had the pleasure of learning about.imagon what kinda responce steven king would get if he had a setup like this.always reading.

squishy_pdls

Re: about "who would be interested...."

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Moi? Complex and interesting? I thought I was trying to pull an Ian Banks: "I'm boring and ordinary in my real life so I can be dangerous and destructive in my writing."

Hello!

[nitoda]

Allow me to introduce myself *smile* I remember you from old times on alt.poly and have an awareness of your writings on Usenet and elsewhere (keep meaning to read some/more of your fiction!)... a friend recently asked about your whereabouts and someone replied to them with your Lj username, so I thought I'd look you up again, so to speak. I don't think you would remember me though. I surfaced on alt.poly briefly about six years ago and made friends with Akien and Dawn at about that time, though we lost touch for a while too. My userinfo gives you the gist of my life now in our triad. I was pleased when I found you here. I haven't written much lately - it seems most of the stuff in my life is really someone else's story to tell *wry smile* and I feel awkward posting about some of the stuff that matters in my life right now for that reason.

19.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Wow. You remember me from alt.poly and you still wanna hear what I have to say? I'm, um, very pleased to read that. I thought most of alt.poly had written me off for good.

heh heh

[jenk]

I remember you from alt.poly too ;)

I'm...

[tessier.livejournal.com]

yet another one of those LJ lurkers who happens to read your stories but not have you on my friends list. You are, as you've already noticed, in my 'interests' list though.

I'm a Journals fan, which I found while websurfing one day, and so I largely read your LJ for the literary side of things. I continue to waffle between perverse curiosity and a kind of TMI alarm-state on the squickier bits though.

Pardon me while I blend back into the rest of the crowd now. :)

In case you're still reading these comments . . .

[unexaminethis.livejournal.com]

LJ brandnewbie, here. I don't know you from anywhere, on the net or IRL. I found your journal searching for poly people. The current entry at the time I stumbled in had nothing to do with poly stuff, but was extremely well-written. Can't remember what it was exactly, but as so many others have already said, many of your interests interest me. I discovered the phenomenon of online journals a couple of years ago, but somehow only discovered LJ recently. (Very sad, I know.) I'm still trying to find my way around and I'm such a newbie that this is my first time leaving comments and, further, I have no idea how you know how many people are reading you . . .

evon

Re: In case you're still reading these comments . . .

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I am still reading these, yes.

I'm trying to figure out how to say, "Your comment made me happy" without sounding like a sycophant. "I'm flattered" reads fake. I've been journaling on-line in one flavor or another since 1988-- LJ is just the most refined interface for doing so, with the best tracking mechanism I've come across yet for following the people I like to read.

If you look at your own user info (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=unexaminethis&mode=full) entry, you'll see a listing of all of the people who have listed you as a "friend". There's an almost eternal debate about the freighted meaning of that word over on the ljusers community. It really means "people who I find interesting and want to read on a daily basis."

And you are not the oldest LJ'r out there. The kids just make us feel like it.

[outherelistenin.livejournal.com]

There are really two functions of a LiveJournal friends list, for me. The first is that I read other journals almost exclusively in Friends view. If I'm even mildly interested in reading someone, I friend them. The second, more important, function is access, since some of my posts are Friends-only. As such, I add everyone who's friended me and is, presumably, reading, unless I have some pressing reason not to.

I keep my journal as the reverse of yours, though - there's this prickly message on my User Info page dissuading people in my real life from reading my journal. The exceptions to this are people who live far away (and, thus, with whom I don't interact) and the friend who got me a LiveJournal account to begin with. I try to keep my life out of my LiveJournal, and my LiveJournal out of my life... Don't ask me how the logic works on that one, particularly considering the level of flirting between me and some of the guys on my friends list.

I started reading your journal because I've been something of a mild fan since reading your posts to the alt.sex newsgroups and some of your fiction back when I was in college. And, of course, I ran across you on gay_sex_tips.

Which I still think should be renamed "gay_sex_wizards"...

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Maybe "gay sex silence," since the place is so dead most of the time. I saw the "prickly message" and I admit to being a bit puzzled by it; I tend to think that what you say is either public or private, and the idea of keeping two separate "public" spaces struck me as a bit weird, but to each his own.

[creepingcrud.livejournal.com]

Count me as another who reads your lj without having you listed. I feel vaguely weird marking people as "friends" who I don't actually know, and particularly who don't know me. It seems a bit presumptuous. If the terminology were "bookmarked journals" or something like that, I probably would list you. Mainly I read your stuff because it's interesting and you write well, and I'm interested in seeing when new stories go up.

[shadowfae.livejournal.com]

I peek in and read from time to time (but I don't have you listed as a friend - yet :)

I found your journal through my fiance faolan_dubgall. The two of you went to boarding school together and he happened across your journal through a community you joined (I think). I believe he's added you as a friend (and would probably love to hear from you again).

But, don't mind me: I'm just passing through, lol and being nosey :)

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Well, somebody's already said how "friend" isn't what the dictionaries think it means on the LJ list.

Just call me curious.

But I've read your stuff, and I almost wish it had been available to me when I was 15 or 16 (I'm not under US jurisdiction), $MUMBLE years ago, because there's stuff you've written, some in the FAQs and some in the Pendor stuff, which could have answered questions, and maybe saved me some frustration.

Whether I'll keep you on my Friends list, I don't know. Whether you're worth reading isn't the same as whether you're worth knowing, and a journal isn't the same as a story.

I am Uner (it's Elvish; look it up ;-> )

[(Anonymous)]

I became aware of your existence about six months ago while Googling up Usenet reviews of Greg Egan's _Schild's Ladder_ (which I still haven't read). Your name was intriguing to this J. R. R. Tolkien fan, as was the fact that you're mentioned in the Net Legends FAQ, and that you're cheerfully and openly bisexual. I have to admit that I'm not all that keen on the Journal Entries on-line fiction, but your Usenet posts are frequently well-written and entertaining. In the days following my discovery of your Egan post, I made several large collections of links to your posts on a variety of topics from 1990 to the present, and forwarded them to a number of friends and acquaintances. I was also greatly amused to discover you consider yourself something of a Singularitarian
(as in http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/start.html?pg=12 ;-> );
as a one-time poster to the Extropians' Mailing List, I have had my own brush with transhumanism (in fact, your surprise last September that your orbit, as you put it, had brought you to the attention of a certain well-known transhumanist and had garnered an invitation to contribute to his mailing list was due, indirectly, to me -- I had forwarded him the Usenet link collections I'd made).

Anyway, you're an interesting patchwork -- an in-your-face atheist and Dawkins-contra-Gould Darwinian, a technophile and transhumanist, a moral rationalist (or rational moralist) almost to the wound-up degree of the Objectivists (except you're -- fortunately -- **not** an Ayn Rand fan). In spite of a right-of-center tilt, you're an enthusiastic promoter of gay rights (I am gay, BTW) -- which a lot of Objectivists (and a lot of transhumanists, I'm afraid) are not. And you even liked C. S Lewis's _The Great Divorce_ though you don't believe in its metaphysics (as did I, and as I do not) --
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=852f1d%243ki%241%40brokaw.wa.com

So yeah, I've got my eyes on you, Mr. Sternberg ;->

Cheers.

Jim F.

Re: I am Uner (it's Elvish; look it up ;-> )

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Actually, most of the Objectivists I know are "pro-human rights" to the extent that they want all humans to have the same rights. I'm like most anarchistic rationalists in that I think a law, any regulation backed up with the threat of state-sanctioned violence if one does not comply and against which violence there is no reasonable hope of retaliation, which is the philosophical definition of "law", must be examined closely with the very issue in mind: is violence or the threat of violence, arguably a tactic of last resort, appropriate to righting a wrong? If not, then a "law" is not what is needed.

I think the notion of a "civil rights" law at any level is dubious. Racism is expensive. It costs money to cut off from yourself viable economic entities on the basis of qualities that have no bearing on their economic value. It costs money to police your territory to enforce racist, or sexist, or whatever, views. If you asked people, "would you be willing to pay an additional $3000 a year in property taxes so you could guarantee your neighborhood would never have any gay people in it," few would say yes.

I haven't yet figured out if this assessment is at odds with my support for the war in Iraq. I do know it's not at odds with my utter loathing of George W. Bush.

Re: civil rights

[(Anonymous)]

Hi again.

You wrote:

> Actually, most of the Objectivists I know . . . want all humans to have the same rights. . . . I think the notion of a "civil rights" law at any level is dubious.

Hm. When I called you an "enthusiastic promoter of gay rights" I wasn't thinking of the legislated kind of "rights". I was thinking more along the lines of the informal kind of social reinforcement through which folks ally themselves with some people and show their contempt for others. I gather that the snottiness toward homosexuals that has been noted among Objectivists derived ultimately from Ayn Rand's own personal distaste for homosexuality, and her classification of it as a "moral error". Anyway, it was a bit of a personal disappointment to me to find out that some transhumanists I had communicated with were a bit squeamish about (and even a bit contemptuous and condescending toward) homosexuality (whether or not because of any putative link between transhumanism and Objectivism). You, at least, are not willing to take any crap about your sexual preferences. Nor are you willing to keep publicly quiet about them simply out of deference to somebody else's squeamishness or out of fear of a contemptuous reaction. You're a transhumanist who's vociferously and unmistakably on "my side" in that department, IOW ;-> .

For the rest, unlike the Objectivists (and some prominent transhumanists, for that matter), I incline to be dubious about attempts to deduce either factual truth or moral truth about the world from first principles. Epistemologically and ethically, I am a coherentist rather than a foundationalist. In the field of ethics, Bertrand Russell summarized this position very succinctly in a recorded interview I have:

RUSSELL: [I]t's very difficult to separate ethics altogether
from politics. Ethics, it seems to me, arises in this way: a man
is inclined to do something which benefits him and harms his neighbor.
Well, if it harms a good many of his neighbors, they will combine
together and say, "Look, we don't like this sort of thing; we
will see to it that it **doesn't** benefit the man." And that leads
to the criminal law. Which is perfectly rational: it's a method
of harmonizing the general and private interest.

WYATT: But now, isn't it, though, rather inconvenient if
everybody goes about with his own kind of private system of
ethics, instead of accepting a general one?

RUSSELL: It would be, if that were so, but in fact they're not
so private as all that because, as I was saying a moment ago,
they get embodied in the criminal law and, apart from the
criminal law, in public approval and disapproval. People don't
like to incur public disapproval, and in that way, the
accepted code of morality becomes a very potent thing.

-- LP "Bertrand Russell Speaking" 1959 52 min. (Woodrow Wyatt Interviews)

Jim