Sunday, January 6, 2013  Sobel Wiki: Sobel and the feudal spirit
Back during the golden age of the soc.history.what-if newsgroup
(which is to say, back when I was regularly posting there,
roughly 1999 - 2005), the forum was plagued by a rather peculiar
internet troll. As is often the case with internet trolls, he
appeared under a series of different pseudonyms, as he would be
banned for his trollery, and then return under a new name (and
usually a new ISP). However, despite his many nyms, he was known
among the forum's regular posters by his original pseudonym:
Quonster. As is also often the case with internet trolls,
Quonster was not there to cause random disruption just for the
hell of it. Quonster had a Cause, and for reasons
beyond comprehension he meant to use shw-i to propagandize for
his Cause.  In Quonster's case, the cause was absolute monarchy,
with the attendant institutions of a powerful landed hereditary
aristocracy, and a rigidly defined caste system based on
aristocratic lineage (or "pedigree"