Subject: Re: newbie question
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 15:47:43 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3234268063119421@naggum.net>

* Paul D. Lathrop
| If this forum is not rewarding, why do you remain?

  Good question.  Why do you remain and keep posting when you have previously
  been hurt and all you can do now is to hurt other people back, in some sort
  of private Middle East conflict?  What is _wrong_ with people like you?

  It used to be rewearding.  There are good people here.  Every once in a
  while, something _really_ rewarding happens.  This is generally called
  intermittent reinforcers if you ask a behavioral psychologist about it, and
  he will tell you they are much stronger than more constant rewarders.

  For instance, what I wrote about philosophy recently produced many very
  positive, and unexpected responses that I am still processing.  Helping
  newbies and whining kids is not rewarding.  Helping people with Common Lisp
  questions is not rewarding, anymore.  Talking about much more complex issues
  that underlie software design methodologies, learning strategies, etc, is
  rewarding.  This is not really the place to do that, but these are the people
  I have talked with and who have helped develop these ideas.  So sharing with
  them is rewarding.  Sharing anything with people like you is not.  Helping
  anyone who says he is "new to Lisp" and provides evidence of unwillingness to
  read a textbook on Common Lisp is an utter waste of time.  Half of them are
  retards like you and the other half never contribute to the forum when they
  understand something.

| Oh wait, I figured it out.  It must be because you've so inflated yourself
| with the idea that people need your scathing comments and your complete lack
| of respect to help them "learn."

  Some people actually respect me simply _because_ I help them, so they are
  never in need of scathing comments or anything else back.  Nor do they act
  with extremely paranoid self-defense when they are criticized for something
  they have, in fact, done.  If they do not understand it, they think about it
  and ask for assistance in understanding it.  These are mature adults.

  Does that sound odd to you?  I guess it is unfathomable to you at this point.

  Smart people have a _purpose_ when they ask a question.  They want to learn.
  You do not.  Your _purpose_ is to feel good about yourself.  As I said, I am
  sorry that I did not recognize that you suffered from an arrested development
  and still need to be hugged and kissed you when someone tells you that you
  have done something wrong.  I would have avoided answering you if I had known
  you would become such a hostile little cretin in return.  And since you have
  chosen to seek revenge rather than just state how you felt, you have turned
  into an aggressor that I will need to fight back.  Just how dumb can you be?
  
| Let me explain something that your parents should have explained to you long
| ago.

  Now I wonder what your parents were like.  They never let you grow up to
  become a human being.  Your behavior is more like that of a dog, which needs
  lots of hugging and stuff when it has done something wrong.  Lots of young
  people today behave like they have grown up like their parents' pets, and
  completely lack the intelligence to understand when to take care of their own
  emotional responses.  How you feel, Paul D. Lathrop, is actually _nobody_
  else's business.  Attempting to exact revenge for your emotional responses is
  just about the _least_ intelligent a human being can do, but it is somehow
  rewarded in some cultures and apparently by some parents such as yours.

| In short, if you don't like it here, don't let us peasants keep you from
| leaving.  Feel free to let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

  In other words, you see nothing wrong with your own behavior.  This is
  perhaps the saddest part of it all.  It means that you think you had every
  right to insult me and attack me even though I had not attacked you, I had
  not said anything bad about or to you _personally_, but simply because you
  _felt_ bad.  This is _extremely_ retarded childish behavior.  But all you
  shitheads are like that.
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