ERIK NAGGUM -- AN OBITUARY

http://efn.no/naggum-obituary.txt
(Norwegian version: http://efn.no/naggum-nekrolog.txt )

It is sad that Erik Naggum is gone. In the context of Electronic
Frontier Norway he was a prominent, valuable and of course
controversial member. His participation in EFN was divided into
two periods. He joined EFN early, sometime in the 90s, shortly
after it was established. Even though he never took any official
or elected position in EFN, he contributed actively, and not only
with postings and discussions. For example, he represented EFN at
a brainstorming seminar at the Transport and Communications
Ministry (Samferdselsdepartementet) about unsolicited mass and
junk email (spam) in August 2003, and played an active role in
shaping EFN's policy and input to the Ministry (see EFN's position
paper (in Norwegian) at http://efn.no/EFN-antispam.pdf ).

But perhaps his most important contribution was the more invisible
but frequent feedback that he sent via e-mail -- his tireless
efforts to make people think carefully and deliberate about their
views and positions instead of throwing out the first and best (or
worst) impulse or notion that popped out in their heads. He
strived to make people ask themselves and carefully work out /why/
they believe the things they believe.

Erik Naggum was an exceptionally well-read and knowledgeable man,
not only in terms of information technology, computer programming
and computer science (where he began to read college textbooks,
academic papers and large system and software manuals while he was
still a high school student), but also within a wide range of
other fields, including mathematics, logic, philosophy, economics
and history.

I met and became acquainted with Erik Naggum when we independently
around the same time joined many of the same student associations,
pursuing interests like science fiction, Ayn Rand, IT, Internet
technologies and communities, and eventually EFN, which arose at
this time. At some point we had a quarrel that led to a fall-out
that lasted for quite some time, but later we reconnected and
rebuilt the contact in recent years.

For many years toward the end of his life Erik was ill, suffering
from both chronic ulcerative colitis and from herniated disks, for
which he took prescribed drugs to alleviate the pain. The
painkiller drugs exacerbated his colitis, playing a part in
triggering major life-threatening ulcers. Fighting his illness, he
was proud of the 'record' he set by surviving this life
threatening event with the lowest blood values that the doctors at
the hospital had ever seen.

His illness gave him the opportunity and time to read even more,
and at the university library he borrowed -- and devoured -- 3-4
times more books than an average professor. However, Erik never
wanted to submit to the university system, to mentors, curriculum
plans, goal management systems, bureaucracy, moving up the ladders
and ranks, etc. He was highly driven and autonomous within his
disparate fields of interest, and he contributed to a number of
non-governmental bodies, technical forums and voluntary
associations, including but not limited to technical standards for
e-mail, document processing standards (SGML), and a variety of
programming languages, and he achieved international recognition
for his extensive knowledge and contributions in these areas.

His first period in EFN came to a stormy end in November 2003
when, following several months of intensive "flamewar" between him
and Gisle Hannemyr, the "semi-moderation" system was introduced at
the EFN mailing list, EFN's e-mail based discussion forum. Naggum
could not accept this system and resigned from EFN in protest.

Erik Naggum was an uncompromising opponent of everything that he
perceived to be a result of intellectual laziness, unreason,
irrationality, unfounded guesswork and speculation, stupidity and
bureaucracy. In such cases, his engagement would often be
expressed through anger and powerful eruptions that would usually
arouse much opposition from those who thought his outburst was
aimed at them personally, while most of the time Naggum's intent
was to create a loud wake-up call to point back to the "right way"
or at least "a straighter path", leading towards a vision of the
rationality, integrity, personal and social/political progress, a
continuous development of an active intellect -- all the things
that constituted the core values and principles of Erik Naggum's
personal internal operating system.

Erik's background and knowledge gave him an analytical approach to
and interest for many of the issues and cases EFN is working with
and involved in, putting him in a position to discuss and also to
use many invectives without malicious intent towards others -- as
he was interested in principles and their consequences and not in
personalities. It was very difficult for him to understand how and
why people would meet him with antipathy because he used a
communication style that other people would use /only/ when
feeling a strong personal antipathy.

Erik would undoubtedly have verbally grabbed and juddered anyone
who would argue something like the following; but he was an
idealist -- meaning a person who wants to improve things around
him, improve them beyond the use value he would personally get out
of the improvements. So he spent a lot of time in voluntary
technical groups and committees, and he was always helpful and
friendly towards people he perceived to be honest and
hard-working, and he was committed to find or develop long-term
solutions to the problems within his areas of interest.

In the spring 2009, the semi-moderation system on the EFN mailing
list experienced a breakdown and suspension, and when Erik heard
about this, he returned and suggested valuable guide lines,
policies and proposals for the reorganization of EFN's fora.

He had used much time studying computer supported cooperative
work, based on his many years of active participation and
experience in Norwegian and international virtual communities, and
he had a strong desire to find out how online communities can be
organized to function in the best possible way for groups and
organizations. He pointed out that the first draft of what was to
become EFN-agenda lacked a positively stated purpose (it described
only what would not be allowed, i.e., negatives), and helped
formulating positive goals and provided references to Arne Næss
and his recommendations for objective public debate.  Erik also
provided the name of the new forum -- EFN-agenda -- which the
board found to be the best of the four proposed names. He was all
fired up about the possibility of contributing to building up a
collection of documents about argumentation techniques and best
practices, specifically designed for EFN and its members. He was
able to initiate this work before his passing, and we will
preserve and build on it.

It has been said that the human ability to adapt to the
environment is our greatest blessing and curse. Curse because this
ability so easily may lead us to accept and live with the
mediocre, the bad and the unlawful, without resistance.  Erik
Naggum was an uncompromising and relentless opponent of this,
insisting that the specifically and genuinely human consists of
constantly lifting ourselves higher up, adapting the environment
to us at our best.

Erik Naggum was discerning, shrewd, impatient, friendly, rude,
undiplomatic, helpful, rowdy, engaged, provocative up to the
insufferable, inspirational, scholarly, entertaining and
visionary. We need more people like him, and he will be missed.

  ----

Here is an interview (in Norwegian) I conducted with Erik Naggum
for Linux-magasinet, in 2002:
http://efn.no/naggum-intervju.txt

More links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Naggum

Arguing with Erik Naggum:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/93d57c1b833cdbdd?pli=1

Erik Naggum, 1965-2009 RIP
http://www.open-voip.com/blogs/blog1/2009/06/20/erik-naggum-1965-2009-rip
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/06/20/Erik-Naggum
http://xach.livejournal.com/221433.html
http://perpelle.wordpress.com/artikler-og-leserinnlegg/erik-naggum-in-memoriam/

Erik Naggum: digital mausoleum
(A mailing list for organizing texts by Erik Naggum)
http://mailman.gramstad.no/mailman/listinfo/enag-mausoleum

Thomas Gramstad
thomas@efn.no

"If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations."
                                                   -- Erik Naggum