Sunday, February 19, 2006

crimes of counterfactualism

Nicholas Kristof starts today's NYT column with:
"Suppose that Anne Frank had maintained an e-mail account while in hiding in 1944, and that the Nazis had asked Yahoo for cooperation in tracking her down. It seems, based on Yahoo's behavior in China, that it might have complied."
Call me crazy, but I think Otto Frank was far too smart to have been letting his daughter do e-mail from their Secret Annexe. Not to mention that I don't think Yahoo! would have still been operating in Amsterdam in 1944.

1 comment:

jeremy said...

I know. You kind of expect more from the NYT, though. Plus, it's just so weird to be asked to imagine Anne Frank typing away on Yahoo e-mail.