Subject: Re: PART TWO: winning industrial-use of lisp: Re: Norvig's latest paper on Lisp From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 01:19:51 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3233697589907684@naggum.net> * Kenny Tilton | USA speakers and writers anyway have seen enough merit in the anti-he-ists' | position that they have adjusted usage to avoid the universal "he". ie, in | this case the PC crowd, as sucky as they are in general, have prevailed. Not so. Numerous writers rail against this subjugation of intellect to the political will of feeble-minded neurotics. If there is anything you learn from traveling across the United States, it is that there is no such thing as "USA" (is that the politically correct term? does "American" exclude Canada and/or Latin and/or South America? do I have to care about this, too?) as a homogeneous and universally applicable adjective, anymore than "European". | Again, the anti-heists have prevailed, to the extent that persisting in using | "he" universally becomes the anti-social act. Their success means my | writings appear sexist if I use "he" universally, whether I am sexist or not. Precisely my point. The problem is that you cannot go back and rewrite old texts to appease your neurotics. In other words, your entire past is sexist. Your whole _culture_ is sexist because some neurotic feels hurt when you use "he". This very paranoia means that every book written before the Transition must be burned, lest the neurotics feel hurt. Expressions of ideas that are in danger of appearing to refer to back pre-Transition texts will be "sexist" before they are even read. The Constitution will be sexist. Before we know it, American English will have become the most irrelevant language on the planet, American culture will be as worthless as George W. Bush, people will look to a people who fights its own past and laugh, all around the world. I mean, I have recently tried to figure out what this "reparations for slavery" thing is all about, and I come across organizations for openly racist blacks who want to terminate the white race -- because the American culture _ended_ slavery. I mean, _geez_, dudes, what is _wrong_ with you? Clearly, dealing with people who are primarily black and secondarily human beings and who do _not_ want to be Americans is outright _dangerous_ for me, being both pale and white and considering rap to be anti-music and BEV to be equivalent to illiteracy. It would never _occur_ to me to treat a black person differently from a white, but now I have to consider the possibility that a black person I am facing is a member of an organization that wants to terminate the white race and hates _me_ because of my "race". This is one reason I do not want to move to the United States. The rampant and violent black racism scares the hell out of me. When people change their whole language so their entire history and everything that has been written in _correct_ English becomes sexist and oppressive to women, I am suddenly in danger in the United States simply because I happen to be _male_. And white male at that! What could the United States _possibly_ have to offer me? If the political correctness freaks get their way, and it seems that will, _I_ will be oppressed and discriminated against in a few years. With the "popularity" of a bastardized "Spanish" and the tolerance for Hispanics who refuse to learn English, my ability to speak fluent American English without an accent is becoming a goddamn _liability_. Unless I can find a way to guarantee a huge fortue and live a protected life where these things would not affect me in my lifetime, the United States has _very_ little to offer a white European male. I think it has very little offer white _American_ males, too, actually. So what _possible_ value could such a culture have outside its own playpen? Now that your retarded president has made the whole population into victims and the ability to voice concerns over the rapidity of the loss of freedom that Americans face who are not openly favoring the near-totalitarian Bush policy of "national security", what the hell kind of freedoms are you trying to protect, anyway? I watched in horror as an esteemed professor was chased out of office and into personal ruin because he (an actual male) had used a word that some hypersensitive racist black assholes did not _know_ -- he used "niggardly" to refer to the university budget committee's decisions. It is utterly unrelated to "nigger", but to those whose pronunciation is so broken and whose vocabulary is so stunted that it sounds like someone had insulted them, it was enough to inflame so many retards to make it _appear_ that he was racist, despite his work, despite his record, and he was crushed under the political correctness machine. So now "niggardly" is out, too. I have a last name that could be misunderstood as racist by some hypersensitive idiot who only hears the N and hard G sounds in short succession! Watching how people on this newsgroup behave when they are served _opinions_ that go against their own, I _have_ to believe that the American culture is the most oppressive and prohibiting and restricting on earth, with a lower tolerance for the free expression of contrary ideas than you had under the McCarthy period. At least under such an oppressive regime I would have had _some_ clue that I would be clear of danger. But now? Geez, you _incarcerate_ your own people without due process for having shaken hands with muslims in Europe! I have partied with both muslims and black people at the University of Oslo! There are pictures of me with a black African girl who _later_ became a muslim. Do I have to be on guard at all times when I come to San Francisco for the ILC in October? Do I need bodyguards if I present a paper? What happens if I use "he" about the generic programmer? What happens if someone in the audience somehow feels excluded from some group they want to belong to because of some poor choice of words? At least I know that I must _not_ speak about U.S. domestic or international politics -- I probably have to promise that to the INS officer in writing, right next to the box I check off that says I am not a member of the foreign press so they can throw me in jail or ban me from ever entering the country again if I write an article to the (gasp!) _communist_ newspaper in which I own (gasp!) stock. Well, maybe I would not even be safe from McCarthyism because of that. Ooops, I am also a gun owner and master marksman -- will I be marked a terrorist? Clearly, I need contingency plans and must bring with me the phone numbers of both lawyers and the Norwegian embassy and/or consulate offices. I would have had to prepare less for the effects of random acts of government had I planned to travel to Israel or Iran. Perhaps I should just drop ILC until they hold it in an actually free country? I'm just waiting for George W. Bush to change the name of the nation to the Free United States of America, much like other oppressive regimes have used a similar misnomer in their name to throw people off guard. Perhaps I should get a sex change operation and get a _really_ good tan before I visit the U.S. next? Can I say I think Condoleezza Rice should be the next president of the United States? (If both woman and black is too much, at least make her (an actual female) vice president with Colin Powell as president.) Can I say that I absolutely _adore_ Halle Barry, or would that be considered to favor blacks who "act white" and as anti-white among race-sensitive whites? Do I have to learn Spanish before I come to San Francisco if I want to avoid "offending" the staff at the hotel? I just don't know, anymore. The United States of America turned into a country of fools when George W. Bush was elected president and a country of whining victims when a few buildings were destroyed. Now you tell me the political correctness neurotics have "won", too, so I have be super careful to do late binding of gender, or some radical feminist within earshot will beat me up, I will be ostracized, etc. You know, I could basically ignore all that crap and just enjoy myself when visiting the U.S. previously. When George W. Bush was elected and even more so when he (an actual male) proved he was a retarded, angry child and he still got very high approval ratings, what I had believed to be insignificant symptoms of an irrelevant change in public culture -- at least as far as I was personally concerned -- turned into _serious_ grievances. It's like -- whoa! -- you guys are _serious_ about this completely nutty oppression business. | I think one is on thin ice, btw, when one starts talking about absolute right | and wrong in language. I do not see anyone who argues for any absolute right. I see people who think in such terms because it is more convenient than the much more complex alternative -- that language _defines_ what is right and wrong, that the language embodies the philosophy and culture of the population. (Why else would you have to change the language to combat "sexism"?) It is not that I find "he" absolutely right, it is that I _know_ that when you make "he" absolutely "wrong", almost everything that I love about the American culture (and it is still a lot), is in serious jeopardy of becoming _archeology_. A close and long-term friend of mine emigrated to China recently in order to live in a free country. He (an actual male) keeps calling and asking that I come join him. Another good friend of mine (also male) works in Hong Kong. At least a tall white male would not be in serious danger there, and for the foreseeable future, they will probably think good command of English is a feature worth paying for. At least until the United States gets completely fucked up. Reelect Bush, and I'll consider it to have happened. -- Guide to non-spammers: If you want to send me a business proposal, please be specific and do not put "business proposal" in the Subject header. If it is urgent, do not use the word "urgent". If you need an immediate answer, give me a reason, do not shout "for your immediate attention". Thank you.