Subject: Re: Nagging Naggum
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2002 03:07:45 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3219188859931741@naggum.net>

* Rajappa Iyer <rsi@panix.com>
| Well, one could reasonably argue that Erik's rants are harassment too and
| he has stated that his diatribes are aimed at improving the quality of
| exchange in the group.  Logically, there is little if any difference
| between the two approaches.

  Not to you, but you are part of the problem, not the solution, by your
  own admission.  Why does it surprise you that you do not get the point?

  About 1 in 20 people go _mental_ when criticized in an unexpected way.
  (I have the empirical data to support this number.  Trust me.)  They are
  probably psychologically _unable_ to deal with unexpected disagreement,
  since they usually come up with "you attack everyone you disagree with"
  (which is what they do, and nobody else).  Some people react hysterically
  to any experience of cognitive dissonance, and would rather die than have
  to change their mind on something they are not specifically prepared to.
  This is _very_ easy to detect when you know what to look for and it tells
  me that most of what else they believe is utter hogwash, as they have a
  real _effort_ to reject everything that could contradict their beliefs.
  That impression has to date _not_ been refuted by a single specimen of
  the non-thinking subhumans.  To think (specifically, to concentrate) or
  not is perhaps the only choice about which we have free will, but some
  people never actually make that choice -- they somehow manage not to die
  at a young age even while being wastes of space, parasites on society
  like a non-hunting member of predator flock.  The basic thinking skill
  that involves the ability to recognize _intellectually_ that some of
  one's tacit assumptions has been challenged, instead of reacting with the
  primitive emotion of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, is a _requirement_ for
  public discourse.  If you feel under attack because something you hold to
  be true is challenged or even potentially challenged, you should go hide
  in some dark basement and certainly not be out in public, where, unless
  you surround yourself with nincompoops who all agree with you and exhibit
  no shred of a new idea or a controversial opinion, you _will_ experience
  such challenges.  USENET in particular is a place where every single
  assumption you hold _will_ become challenged at one time or another.

  The other 19 will at the very least not react irrationally hostile to a
  challenge.  Admittedly, only 1 out of 4 react intellectually and will
  always be curious at first, while at least half the normal population
  will _disregard_ any contradictory information to their existing beliefs
  until they have heard it often enough, at which point they unthinkingly
  just adopt it as the new thing they do not recognize is being challenged.
  The remaining 1 out of 5 become _irritated_ by what they think is false
  information but only occasionally act on it.  The consequence of this is
  that a large number of people are only comfortable when people around
  them keep echoing what they all already believe, usually at several
  levels.  This is a waste of bandwidth on the Net (the stupid "me too"
  response is thankfully mostly gone, but it was so common from AOL users a
  few years ago that many people still write "AOL" when they mean "me too"
  in an electronic forum), but several people still hang around on the Net
  mostly to have their assumptions unchallenged because their idea of
  stability and safety and even _identity_ is that things do not change.
  These are polite, friendly people who communicate _nothing_: no new
  ideas, so no wrong ideas, no controversial opinions, so no mistakes,
  nothing worth saying, so nothing worth disagreeing with, either.  These
  are the small-town people who cannot handle the big city where people
  bump into eachother with controversial opinions and attitudes all the
  time.  If they have to have people around them agree with them, stay the
  hell off the Net -- they will get seriously bruised, not by other people,
  but by their own lack of ability to cope with unexpected disagreements
  with what they think is the only right answer.  Pathologically provincial
  people who are unable to come to terms with other people's opinions, but
  think they must enforce a single, right answer for everyone, do _not_
  belong in public fora.  When that "single, right answer" is either simply
  wrong or at least not the _only_ right answer, other people need to be
  able to know this.  This is when the nutballs crack open and all hell
  breaks loose.  You should be able to figure out how it happens and then
  to see if it actually does happen that way, now.

  If you take the time to be fair, and I suspect that you will never learn
  what this even _means_, you will see that the party that _first_ goes
  personal is _not_ me.  But because of shit-for-brains like yourself and
  that French parasite you have taken sides with, it is somehow OK to
  attack me.  I do not appreciate that.  This also happens because these 1
  in 20 are so _bad_ persons that they are so afraid of any criticism of
  their person that they immediately defend themselves when their _actions_
  or opinions are criticized -- since bad people recognize a threat, they
  think that everything I do is threaten bad people.  I do not, bad people
  find their way to attack me _all_ on their own.  These bad people do not
  even _understand_ that only their actions and opinions can be criticized
  -- and indeed they never make the discintion in what they criticize -- so
  they believe that just because they feel hurt, it must have been personal
  and since they are being criticized for not exercising their thinking
  skills, they react all emotionally, like those people who have so little
  blood supply to their brain they cannot think and feel at the same time.

  That pile of French dung, as well as several before him, accuse me of
  being so "predictable", but I think I create cognitive dissonance in
  pathologically provincial, utterly simple people -- people whose lives
  depend on a bunch of misguided assumptions _will_ defend themselves when
  they are faced with someone who considers no assumption worth protecting.
  Now, I do not speak unless I have something I think is worth saying,
  which _excludes_ platitudes and whatever people agree on.  If people
  already agree, there is absolutely no need to keep repeating it.  And in
  all likelihood, it is _false_ if everybody keep saying it, so as to
  convince themselves.  Therefore, what I say is usually controversial.  To
  some people, that makes me interesting.  To other people, a lethal threat
  to their personal identities.  But neither of these opinions are anybody
  else's business.  You choose to read what you choose to read.  Why so
  many of you fucking losers have to read what I post and work yourself up
  like cats in heat, and then ask _me_ not to post as opposed to they not
  reading what they do not like, I have not figured out.  I think it is
  because their sense of ethics is always concerned with what _other_
  people should do.  You know the kind -- so hypocritical two of them would
  give off enough hot air to balloon around the globe.

  I repeat, for the benefit your limited mental capacity: This is not a
  forum for venting your personal feelings about anyone.  Grow a clue, now,
  and _mature_.  If you have to see me as a symbol of cognitive dissonance,
  your learning to deal with me is what will make you a man, little runt.

  Now, if you keep being a stupid little turd with aspirations of becoming
  as big and stinky as that French sewer you admire so much, keep it to
  yourself.  Stink up your own place, do _not_ shit any more in public.
  That French septic tank is beyond hope and he will not recover, but you
  appear to have some remnants of a brain that could be recovered if you do
  not let yourself sink to his level.

///
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