Subject: Re: OT: Usenet lack of civility (was Re: Logical pathname hosts.) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1998/12/25 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3123572537117862@naggum.no> * "R. Toy" <rtoy@mindspring.com> | It was a rhetorical question. I think it's the anonymity. and that's why _you_ felt free to discuss me, right? it's quite amusing to watch how when you react to something you don't like, you do it with even _worse_ tactics than I use, because you must cross a barrier before you can respond. somehow, I strongly prefer to see that barrier high enough that people can express themselves strongly without having to cross it and let _anything_ go. in particular, I attack what people _do_, which they can change or at least stop at will, whereas you (and Barry Margolin in particular) feel free to psychologize and "explain" what I do and why. I find this quite entertaining in the sense that the objection to perceived unfairness takes the form of _rabid_ irrationality. | On the other hand, I've almost put Erik in my killfile, but I haven't, | yet. When he's right, he's right. You just have to snuff the blaze and | rummage around in the ashes to find any good stuff left. well, I appreciate the implied compliment. however, one of the more interesting properties of these discussions where you feel entirely free to discuss me and say anything at all about me and why you think I react the way I do without a single shred of actual _evidence_ to support your increasingly outlandish theories, is that you have this curious one-dimensionality to your reactions. since Barry has _strongly_ approved of psychologizing, let me tell you how I imagine the crowd of conspiring victims now in group therapy: I imagine you all running back to your mama to tell a greatly embellished story about someone who hit you so she will take your side and never ask any questions about why you were hit in the first place -- that just _happened_ to mama's good little boy, who is so very deserving of being consoled, no matter what he did to get hit. a just and intelligent mom would see right through this load of crap and ask what you did and what you learned even while consoling you for your bruises and hurt feelings. the group therapy here, led by Barry Margolin, is about it being OK to be a retarded jerk, so would I please stop hitting them because they cannot possibly improve or stop doing what they do; in particular: Sam Steingold is a helpless moron and has no other option than to post idiotic drivel, so now I be nice and not hurt him, OK? (I could never be as mean to Sam as I think Barry is with his defense for him.) I imagine you were never asked what you learned from any bad experience, instead going through life in this fantastic bliss where nothing bad ever _should_ happen to you, so if it does, it's always somebody else's fault and so very unfair to you. and as long as you can find someone to blame other than yourself, you can feel so very consoled by the badness of that somebody that you feel _arrogant_ on top of it, so now you have to go out there and _purposefully_ annoy whoever hit you, just to prove to yourself that he's bad and you're not deserving it. this works because you have suddenly received divine inspiration for your moral outrage (that is, your mom's agreement that whoever hit you is a bad person and you should stay away form bad people, and blah, blah, blah). if I didn't think you were stupid pathetic losers before, I certainly do when I see how you respond in this amazingly unintelligent group therapy you conduct amongst yourselves. the question you never _really_ ask is "_why_ does this happen?", I think because you _know_ that it's because of something you do yourself. take Sam Steingold, for instance (before you react to my being specific, think about what you are yourself doing discussing me, and reconsider if you don't like it in the general case), an amazingly stupid person who is morally outraged that he can't be a dork and not get slapped for it. instead of getting the idea that _he_ could change (like pull himself together and actually pay attention for a change), he's dead set on proving that _he_ has the right to do what he does worst and _not_ be slapped for it, all the while feeling like a good boy when he thinks that somebody else who does something that he doesn't feel he should be doing _should_ get slapped for it, so he does it again and again and again, always ready to blame the other guy, who _somohow_ doesn't stop being bad to him. now, that's the hallmark of stupidity, if there ever was one, but Sam has shut himself off from realizing it, because of his moral outrage, which is another hallmark of stupidity. (take the Republicans in Washington, so morally outraged at Clinton that they didn't even see his rise in popularity coming. any outsider could have predicted that, and many did.) most real people have found that I reward competence as much as I punish incompetence. I actually think incompetence should be a capital crime, and that incompetence exists only because people don't demand competence of their fellow men. (note that competence is not infallibility, but about knowing what you can do (well) and when you need assistance or to learn more before you can do it (well). incompetence is basically doing what you are ill equipped to do, impervious to the fact that you are ill equipped to do it.) how anyone can at all reward incompetence in any way whatsoever is truly beyond me. and Barry Margolin effectively rewards the incompetent by extending them _more_ respect than he extends those who answer technical questions in the newsgroups. I find this a _very_ curious attitude. the same happens to labor unions, who go out of their way to protect the incompetent employees. I think labor unions _exist_ because of incompetent and stupid managers, but if they had worked hard to protect employees against incompetent managers, instead of working hard to protect employees no matter what, they would have come a lot further, because the _shared_ goal of businesses and labor unions would have been competent managers _and_ competent employees, and the unions could have done a lot to make sure that their members were competent, rather than _primarily_ being employed. so rather than defend the morons, how about helping them to _stop_ being morons? Barry, that's something _you_ can do if you remove that line in your signature and instead encourage stupid people to send technical questions to you in mail and let them loose on the newsgroups when you feel they are not going to annoy anybody, anymore. how about it? #:Erik -- Nie wieder KrF! Nie wieder KrF! Nie wieder KrF! Nie wieder KrF!