[arin-discuss] Are we going to vote on this ?

[Dean Anderson]

I'd like to take the tedium offline, both with the Board, and with the
membership.  There are good reasons to get the _FULL_ facts, and it will
take some time to get all the facts.  I do not set the schedule for
member meetings, so _I_ am not dragging anything out. There is a lot
known already, but I don't think its the whole story, yet; I think there
is more to discover.

There is no reason to discuss issue this every day when there are no new
facts. As I said, I'll periodically post a list of questions, and
whether the Board has responded adequately.  Probably the opponents will
want to "discuss" this to death, and will try other tactics to avoid a
real investigation and a real vote on the issues. Lets anticipate and
resist that.

But I'd like to say something about what it means to have objective
versus subjective facts.

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Your claims are based on an INTERPRETATION of objective facts.  ie:  
> It is an objective fact ARIN was at VON. It is a subjective
> interpretation that VON doesen't meeet the criteria of educational
> outreach.

That is correct; That's what it means to have "claims well-founded in
objective facts".  But you are right that the claims themselves are
subjective interpretation of the objective facts.  Law is an objective
fact, too. The arguments I've made are well-founded on objective facts.

> You don't believe it does, and I may not even believe it does. But, if
> the managers at ARIN can make a reasonable argument

Their argument is a subjective interpretation, too. The good news is
that civilization has developed fair, objective ways to determine if
their decisions were reasonable, whether they had a conflict of
interest, and whether they benefited. But the question is really whose
subjective interpretation is actually most reasonable and most in line
with the objective facts. And which will be found so by the members, the
lawyers, and the judge and jury.

I've dealt with a few people on the net who think that they can make
arbitrary, capricious decisions and that there is no way that the
reasonableness of their decisions can be questioned; They think no one
can determine their intentions without reading their mind.  Their views
aren't true: One doesn't need to read someone's mind to determine their
intent and their unreasonable decisions can be proven unreasonable and
improper.  These aren't new problems unique to the internet; the Romans
dealt with the same kinds of things.  That's why such people constantly
and nearly instantly lose as soon as the reasonable, responsible people
get involved.

> argument that shows that VON attendance did meet the criteria of
> educational outreach, and did in fact produce tangible results towards
> that goal, then it makes no difference what we believe, and in fact we
> are foolish to continue believing otherwise in the face of a logical
> and reasonable argument and tangible results.

They have not yet done this. They have merely made blanket assertions
unsupported by further evidence.  No tangible results towards any goal
have been demonstrated to date. Tangible evidence would be an objective
fact that could support their interpretation; they don't have this so
far, so their interpretation isn't based on objective facts.

But even showing some tangible result, there remains the issue of
whether that result was obtainable by more-economically sending an
invited speaker, or whether the additional expenses were necessary to
obtain the same result. When the expense isn't necessary, the money is
wasted and that's a good reason to fire managers, and to remove
directors who fail to fire the managers.

		--Dean


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