Subject: Re: moderation (was Re: Nagging Naggum) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 21:49:28 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3219428966774062@naggum.net> * gat@jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat) | Response 2: Initial state: Kent Pitman is a clueless moron. Goal state: | make Kent Pitman obtain a clue. Operators: call Kent Pitman a clueless | moron until the pain inflicted motivates him to obtain a clue. Why would anyone want to attack a person for being constructive? That is not how things work. That you assume constructive people would attack other constructive people and assume that people who adhere to theory B would offend your pathetic sensibilities if everybody else also adhered to theory B, is highly offensive. It explains _why_ you need polite form so much and do not understand that the worst personal attacks are given in the most polite form. The more you just assume that other people are bad, the harder it is to answer such an attack. This is what happens in polite fora. Just look at how astonishingly evil the British upper class can be -- so repressed that all hostility must be delivered "nicely" so those who do not think things through do not understand what is going on. Amazingly, this is considered an ideal by people who do not understand it. | I'm a theory C person: constructive commentary should be constructive in | the sense of theory B *and* it should be civil in tone. See comp.risks | (and Kent Pitman's posts to comp.lang.lisp :-) for excellent and ongoing | examples of constructive commentary according to theory C. You are a theory C person because you think people attack each other when they are constructive. That says _way_ too much about the way you think. PS: You are not constructive when you blithely assume that other people than yourself would be wantonly destructive. The implicit attack on those who disagree with you is expressed in typical Erann Gat style. /// --