A member of Buddycom should be:
Thoughtful	Considerate	Truthful	Intelligent	Fun	Helpful
Courteous	Kind	Brave	Clean	Reverent	Cheerful
Thrifty	Honest	Forgiving	Gentle	Intelligent	Caring

Buddycom Policy

The basic tenet of buddycom is that the Internet, or World Wide Web, as some call it, would be made available to all the people of our planet. That's a rather all inclusive statement. And we intended for it to be so. We actually believe that the internet and the technology it represents, and by extrapolation, the style of life and the level of affluence which support it, should be part of a normal life expectancy for every member of the genus, species, subspecies group Homo sapiens sapiens. This is a fundamental part of our set of values. Can we be more clear on this point?

Pursuant to the realization of this fundamental concept, we point out the obvious fact that an understanding of the "big picture" needs to be achieved by as many members of our species as possible. Two other obvious facts bear pointing out in this regard. First, the understanding of the "big picture" is achieved by understanding a vast number of details. Secondly, under current social and political conditions, our basic tenet is absolutely and utterly impossible. Members of the poor global communities consider it irrelevant, if they consider it at all. Members of the affluent global communities consider it desirable, only insofar as they have a great propensity for mouthing platitudes, if they consider it at all.

Philosophy

It is the policy of Buddycom to try, with our admittedly limited resources, to be helpful. We wish to help people to use the Internet. At this late point in time the most valuable use for the Internet is to inform people of the state of our planet. We wish to promote the true understanding of the actual condition of the planet. Although it may be possible for us to continue killing off ever greater numbers of species of plants and animals and still manage to secure the survival of the, "fittest," of our own species, we do not accept that we should not stop now. Pursuant to stopping this collective act of mass extinctions, we have some goals. We would like to inform everyone what is happening. We would like to show any and everyone how to make use of the Internet so they also will be able to inform others. The earth is really such a nice place after all. We wish people to be able to enjoy. Apparently, due to the opposition manifest from many sources, the realization of the understanding that these goals are self evidently good is not a fait accompli. We would have liked for these problems to have been solved decades ago, as they should have been, had reason prevailed over traditional values, so that we could live our lives in peace and happiness. Buddycom is a contribution to understanding in our critical times. We wish no more to be Jeremiah than Pollyanna but we seem to be both.

We have sections which are just for fun. We have a section on the sciences and especially ecology for scientists and everybody; what it is and what it isn't. We believe that there is nothing more interesting and wonderful than reality itself. As a corollary, some modified motor-sensory states do not lessen appreciation of reality and it is psychologically puerile to consider them immoral. And we have a big section on web mastering for the ecologically aware and everyone. What makes a "Guru"? Having the right tools, i.e., the software and hardware. That is why we spend a lot of time and effort to let you know what tools you need and how to use them to do the things you want to do with the Internet.

Ethics Ware

We'd like to say a word about ethics. We quote from the forward message in the guide to Bryce 2 by Kai and friends.

" I also repeat my angle on "ethics ware" here: clearly no one could afford all software one might be interested in, just to have a look. So, if you are checking out what this is and does, hey, who are we to stop you? Lets just hope you got the CD-ROM and this concise manual along with it... But, if you use this repeatedly, like once a week, or if you use it for a professional project, then by all means, please invest in your tools and allow us, the toolmaker, to improve and support them and to be strong enough to continue to put out new ones. Doesn't that make eminent sense and have fair play written all over it?

All this being said, we hope that you lose yourself entirely inside these places. Many of you will carve entire new careers out of it. And that is always the most gratifying feeling for all of us here; it's nice to get the big awards and the stars and diamonds the way Bryce 1 already did but, there is nothing like shaking the hand of some kid from Sweden who built a company with his girlfriend making web page logos with Bryce. Or indeed the immigration officer at LAX who stared at my passport and with a stern look on his face finally asked for "your green card and when is Bryce 2 coming out" ... It's then that one realizes how far the circles of technology are extending now, from the days of huge metal boxes spitting out paper tape of " this does not compute" to some egghead in a white lab coat. That was a mere 15 years back. Do take the time to look at these scenes on the CD-ROM and realize that you can start off your explorations from any of these, changing just a parameter here, the fog color there, move the camera or drop a 10,000 foot ball in the Grand Canyon scene... And never mind the landscapes; consider the abstract pieces, the logos, the text treatments, the texture only renderings, the fine art composites, the photo collage work, the Mona Lisa in 3D... so much that can still be done, so much virgin snow without any footprints in it. Maybe you can be the first to find those cool boolean logo shapes or multi-layer color vortex refractions or build a mock-up of 10,000 mirrors focusing light? Even in Bryce 1 some one built a working telescope! And another made planetary models.... With that, we leave you to your explorations and hope you still find time for your significant others amongst all these insignificant digits. Remember, life is good. Kai and friends."

We at Buddycom share this sort of optimistic convictions. As regards software and ethics you should support if you can the makers of your tools. You should purchase those tools you need and use. We at Buddycom can help you to do just that.

The level of available software programming has reached a certain critical mass or threshold level whereby it has become possible to obtain all the tools you need at costs which are the merest fraction of prices ten years ago. If one makes wise and informed choices about one's software or hardware, the need for unethical practices as for example, software piracy simply disappear. Twenty to fifty well spent dollars here and there and a few free sources as well as two or three key multi-hundred dollar purchase and you are set. And you have your tools safely on CD. They are safe from predatory would be hackers and viruses coming through the telephone lines and from mistakes and mishaps as well. It is worth considering also that purchasing software can be thought of as a necessary inconvenience which exists until that time in the future, which some of you reading this will live to see, when fiber optic lines are finally in place and all software capabilities will be conveniently provided by what are now just dial up access providers. At that future time security will be much improved as well. Until such time Buddycom will provide members with the information to make the informed choices necessary for obtaining the tools they require.

In addition, most seriousness aside...

One needs to be aware that were all of the members here at Buddycom central, (yes, there are several distinct corporal entities), to materially manifest their brain power, there would not be enough gray matter to fill a thimble. We altogether failed the wet paper bag test of programming ability. Some of the wiser ones of us crawled out the open end of the bag but, some are still in the bags trying to program their way out. We're nothing but a bunch of gap-toothed, gaggle-eyed, leap-frogging toads. We'd be in a real quandary if you asked us who we idolize most, Mortimer Snerd or Alfred E. Newman. After thirty or forty years our parents tired of cosseting us as pets, gave us computers to pacify us and occupy our time so that we would be out of their hair. We wouldn't be offended by the most cutting and derisive of insults and epithets 'cause we just plain don't understand what it is that you are saying. We would be honored if you would compliment our intelligence by calling us cretins or idiots or imbeciles or neanderthals or morons or even if you would just whistle and say, "Here boy, come here!" Of course some of us are girls, but that doesn't matter, we wouldn't know the difference anyway, we're just too stupid. In fact we are proudly dumber than a box of rocks. We know what you may be thinking, right? Who wrote this? We didn't. You overestimate our lack of intelligence.

Image from the collection at WebMuseum, Paris. Nicolas Pioch.
For original image, 963 x 627 pixels, click link
ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/david/socrates.jpg

We generally prefer to apply the Keep-It-Simple-Stupid principle. It is simple to prove our lack of intelligence. We esteem truth and justice. The world at large actually abhors these things. In fact, the quickest and surest route to become despised is to tell the truth. Best Website awards are not given to ones dedicated to truth and justice. Some of you may remember how fate rewarded Socrates for his conscientious adherence to truth and principle. Reason is not the stuff by which men are made and endure. It is instead values which have preeminence. Form is, has been and will ever remain, not only more important but, far more important than substance. It is no accident, no mere coincidence that the world's greatest linguist and expert on semantics, Mr. Noam Chomsky, tells us that misinformation and fallacy are much more effective tools for mind apartheid, manipulation and enslavement than fact, reason and truth. This is especially true in a democracy with its plurality of opinion and relativity of that which is perceived as truth. Add to that the appalling decline in the quality of education in America in the last half century and you have the makings of our present chaos. Where there is action it is either superfluous and superficial or directed in ill conceived and opposite directions leading to ridicule, gridlock, and complacency. Politicians intentionally confuse education with training and insist we need to improve it. A broadbased liberal education in the traditional sense is largely unavailable in America and for good reason. Thinkers make wise decisions at the polls. And in a world where the important thing has always been not what you know but, rather, who you know, it all works out anyway.

Voltaire, who is more often quoted than read, a satirist par excellence, a sayer of things left unsaid, a blasphemer of the sacrosanct, an examiner and chronicler of the paradoxical, a clastor of icons, is a Buddycom idol and possibly a pagan one at that. Some believe Voltaire was a philosopher. He was not. He was a satirist. Are we satirists or merely pagan idolators? Righteous peccatophobes have suggested the latter. Of course, we would certainly hope the former and not the latter. The eschatological consequences would be uncomfortable to say the least. Voltaire wrote a book entitled Candide. He even got it published. Candide, one of Voltaire's most colorful characters, travelled the world and witnessed numerous egregious examples of the handywork of the four riders of the apocalypse, death, disease, poverty and war. He complained incessantly to his buddy, Dr. Pangloss. Dr. Pangloss liked to say that we live in the best of all possible worlds. For proper perspective one needs to be aware that the name, pangloss, means something akin to blowhard, or windbag. He liked saying that we live in the best of all possible worlds so much that whenever he made the statement, he usually said it twice. Candide liked to say the opposite. Life just doesn't make any gosh darned sense. Life is full of paradoxes; in fact human existence is nothing but a big fat paradox. Pangloss, a quintessentially optimistic individual, essentially noted, in a very loose translation of the French, that in a less than perfect world, "What would we have to gripe about?"

So it is. Which do you prefer? The satirist or the optimist? Could we truly be happy with nothing to gripe about?

Consider the following quote from Alan Bloom:

"There is one thing that every professor can be absolutely certain of: that every student entering the university believes that truth is relative. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2+2=4. These are things you don't think about. The students backgrounds are as various as America can provide. Some are religious, some are atheists; some are to the Left, some are to the Right; some intend to be scientists, some humanists or professionals or businessmen; some are poor, some rich. They are unified only in their relativism and in their allegiance to equality. And the two are related in a moral intention. The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it. They have all been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable natural rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society. That it is a moral issue is revealed in their response when challenged-a combination of disbelief and indignation. "Are you an absolutist?" ...The danger they have been taught to fear is not error but, intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness (in modern American democracy) and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for the last fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness-and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings- is the great insight of our times. In the (absolutist) the true believer is a real danger. The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you (or anyone) is right at all... American education has evolved in the last half century from the education of democratic man to the education of the democratic personality."