Subject: Re: ACL 6.0 Trial Edition ships with non ANSI reader behavior. From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: 2000/11/09 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3182791388451168@naggum.net> * John Foderaro <jkf@unspamx.franz.com> | You don't flame someone if you want to seriously send them any | information. The intended use of a flame is to vent hostility in | the writer and to amuse everyone else but the flamee. Let me rephrase this: If someone is angry at you, you ignore them, because anger is with the sender and has nothing whatsoever to do with you, what you have done to them, or most importantly of all: what you could do to reduce or remove that anger. Instead, engage in passive-aggressive behavior to ensure that people get ever more infuriated by your attitude and actions. This is a winner, John! This attitude problem tells me one thing above and beyond anything else: John Foderaro never makes mistakes, especiall not ones he is willing to admit could piss people off. If anyone is angry at you, it's their problem, and you are entirely free to piss them off more and more, because John Foderaro is _right_ and the whole goddamn world can go fuck itself if anyone disagrees, is insulted by your attitude (which it is impossible not to be considering your selfish arrogance), or wants to change your mind. On top of that, you are blabbering about Kent being selfish and that that's horrible, which tells me that you aren't a very honest or even introspective person. People who aren't primarily concerned with their own interests _and_ aware of the extent to which they are, are dangerous, because they think they actually speak for and on behalf of somebody else, somebody "higher" than themselves, which sanctifies their position, although _they_ themselves (almost) never want anybody else to speak for or on behalf of them without _their_ consent and influence. All the tragedy in the world that has been perpetrated by people who selfishly (in the short-sighted, narrow-minded way) _wanted_ to think they were just acting in somebody else's interest has told me one thing: People who think selfishness and looking out for #1 is the problem are dishonest people nobody should trust. Once they get beyond that stupid holier-than-thou attitude and realize that it is _which_ interests you hold as your own that is the issue, there is hope, both of _including_ them in a community (which means a lot of people who have usefully similar interests acting together in each their own interests, always free to leave if theirs differ too much from the community's, and in having that community work to solve its real (and not imagined) problems because somebody "unselfishness" prompts them to think about people who are _not_ in the community. (John argues about "target audience", but invalidates the whole concept by rejecting acting in your own interests, obviously not seeing the glaring contradiction that by excluding those who are not in the target audience by means we shall never know, he is acting in a very selfish manner, himself.) Moreover, reacting in this passive-agressive way is a sure-fire way to get people who respond to legitimate concerns while your attitude problem prevents reasonable communication with you, to consider you an asshole on the personal level, removing any desire to take _you_ seriously enough to discuss anything technical with ou, as you have done your very best already to tell people that if they don't agree with you, you can basically just ignore them, _especially_ if they get angry for so being ignored in the first place. I flame people to get them to realize that they have done something wrong. _Very_ few fail to get this message, but those who do fail, get this notion that they are right _because_ they are being flamed, and I just added John Foderaro to that list. The smart ones, in contrast, figure out that even if they would like to believe they have done nothing wrong, that belief _may_ be wrong and they _can't_ ignore the incoming signal that they may be doing something wrong in somebody else's eyes. Now I get the signal that John Foderaro does _nothing_ wrong, so please don't flame him because he can't take it. Your first comment was that I was your friend and you were "shell- shocked". I'm sorry to say that won't consider you a friend after this, because nowhere along the line did you ever pause even to _consider_ what you had done to "shell-shock" _me_. You shattered a trust I had very precariously built in you, in Allegro CL, and in Franz Inc, with a few really stupid moves, and _you_ get sore when I call attention to this fact. How incredibly _inconsiderate_ of my and other people's feeelings and reactions you are, John. How _selfish_, in your terminology, most probably, since you don't seem to distinguish between inconsiderate behavior towards others and being concerned with your own interests. You prove this, too, sadly. No _friend_ has ever insulted me so much as you have in the past few days -- but I'm sure you don't even realize it, because you don't care what anybody else thinks at all. There is nothing more to say to you after this, because if a person is so pig-headed and arrogant and just plain stupid he doesn't even realize that when people care deeply about something, they _will_ get angry at each other if some action or decision or comment poses a threat to that which has been precariously built over many years, such as a community consensus on a specification (which you don't share, anyway), even if that threat is only perceived by one person. The most intelligent course of action is to try to reduce that perception of a threat, not escalate it like you do with your "I'm never wrong, you're just nuts because you want upper-case, and that's insane" attitude. Ironically, the blanket rejection of people who get angry includes John Foderaro, who still harbors hatred and other forms of strong animosity towards both people and decisions in the group of people who defined the Common Lisp language a really long time ago. If we take his word for it, that must mean that _he_ did not intend, and probably _never_ intended, to seriously send the committee members any information but only wanted to vent his own hostility towards their decisions. I have had people who side with his view tell me in private communication that they think people who want all upper- case symbol names _are_ nuts. Sure, _that's_ going to help you get a good standard and community consensus for a compromise! The jury is still out, I guess, but my impression after watching John in action consistently refusing to get any point of view but his own, is that _he's_ nuts, not for wanting something other than other people have wanted, but for never relenting enough to make room for them so they _wouldn't_ have to fight him and he them. It's just like watching Israel and Palestine, the most unintelligent peoples to engage in hostilities after WWII. Even beliggerent, supposedly legandarily impatient _me_ have room for people being a lot smarter and knowledgeable and experienced and competent and what not than myself in some specific areas, they only need to show me what they are, and trust that I have some such areas,too. John Foderaro doesn't have that space for other people's competence with differing views that makes it possible to work within a community setting. I cannot trust someone who does not even understands _what_ people are objecting to in what he has done to be able to make any _correct_ decisions, either. | This one-to-many communication medium is flawed. *laugh* Right, John! Right! You just can't handle it, but that doesn't make it anywhere near _flawed_. One-to-many communication media have always been hard to master, and very few really do, but that lies solely with the communicator, not the media. But sure, blame the medium -- that's so _frighteningly_ consistent behavior! | We've gotten calls from people who got the wrong impression from | reading the newsgroup. Really? So the damage control team has discussed your damaging behavior and you're now receding into oblivion because "the medium is flawed" and people get "the wrong impression" from what you're saying? There's _still_ no relation between what you have done and people's reactions, apparently. That's just _too_ pathetic. | One to one communication is far more effective. That's right, John, at least 3000 years of propaganda machinery and the _very_ successful techniques developed by thoroughly evil people like Joseph Goebbels and less evil but still as manipulative people in the advertising and popular culture to make hundreds of millions of people behave exactly same way are using techniques that are not as effective as one-to-one communication. This has _nothing_ to do with your communication skills, of course. You don't make mistakes at _all_, John, do you?, especially none that would cause people to laugh in disbelief, be insulted by your very, very low opinion of people in general or feel strong animosity towards your willingness to destroy their trust in the language they love and the tools they really would want to use. So of course it's obvious to you that if we only communicated with people one to one, we would have much more _effective_ communication in politics and sales and entertainment and just about everything. Let's shut down _all_ the mass media and the churches and the public meetings, too! Clearly, it is much more _effective_ to have each person talk to each other person on a one to one basis because there doesn't have to be any consistency to worry about and if you say something that is actually wrong, you can probably fool whoever you told it to. Not to mention that nothing would be embarrassing, anymore, since if you give "wrong impressions" when you clearly state your opinions, surely you will continue to do so in one-to-one communication, only nobody else will be there to share with the hapless victim of what you told them. Matter of fact, one-to-many communication media are much, much more _effective_ than one-to-one communication, both to influence people and make people change their minds. What's required, however, is a lot less ego investment in what is being said. This requires that people are fairly intelligent or willing to think more before they act, as really stupid people tend to think that if someone changes their mind, that'a a drawback and a problem you can pull out of the hat if you want to hurt them later because it is somehow shameful to have been wrong in the past. The shameful thing, however, is to be wrong in the _present_ when you have sufficient information to know what's right and act accordingly. When you don't want to do that, and lots of people see it, of course one-to-many communication is a serious problem. I would have been impressed if you had been able to express regret that you angered people so much, had at least been able to exercise sufficient introspection and observational skills to realize that _you_ have pissed someone off who once considered you a friend, too, so much so that he is unlikely to want to deal with you again, and actually consider you a liability to his future dealings with Franz Inc because of your rabidly anti-standard, anti-community stance and utter unwillingness to listen enough to contrary opinions to even understand what people are objecting to. The saddest part of this is that I cannot trust technical arguments from you after this, either, because I have seen what happens when you make mistakes and never, ever admit it: It's everybody else's fault, the whole communication medium is _flawed_, for crying out loud, and _nothing_ is learned from a negative process. My trust in people relies on their processes of learning and fixing mistakes, not in what they specifically think is right, and I have _no_ trust in your mistake-fixing processes at this time, John. _None_. I will support Franz Inc _despite_ John Foderaro's influence after this, but if he is not curtailed and limited from destroying more of the trust I still have in the company and their products, I shall need to look elsewhere pretty soon. What would make _me_ happy? I have decided to post that separately to avoid the stupid attitude problem that pissing me off gives me no right to have technical opinions, which John Foderaro harbors. #:Erik -- Does anyone remember where I parked Air Force One? -- George W. Bush