Subject: Re: Bohr's way From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 05 Oct 2002 12:59:46 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3242811586935601@naggum.no> * Vassil Nikolov | This reminds me again of an anecdote, about Bohr this time. He is | said to have never criticized sharply people presenting their work, | and to have been well known for his civility. Guys, guys, are you quite sure you have read what I /actually/ write? | On reading a completely worthless paper, he exclaimed, `I don't mean to | criticize, I just cannot understand how someone could write such | rubbish!' Consider the context of the contributions. What we have here in comp.lang.lisp are far from publishable material. And people /are/ treated respectfully and civilly first. They actually are, even though they of course have a vested interest in attacking me when some of the resident evil flame me for everything I do. I mean, what could be better than to have someone to blame for your own incompetence when it is called? What could be better for the incompetent than to deflect attention away from himself to talk about how bad I am who dared correct him and made him feel bad? After all, every other incompetent and evil bastard here does it, so what should hold any new incompetent back? Surely, not his /own/ ethical standards. | By the way, once I heard someone (an algebra professor, if that matters) | say that learning is a painful process, and I believe that is true, at | least with regards to effective learning. It is made less painful the earlier you correct your mistakes. When people go non-linear simply because they are corrected early with some misguided assumptions, I can hardly take the blame for that. In fact, I refuse to take the blame for correcting someone when he comes to a forum to discuss his notions and discussion must be based in getting people in line with the accepted models as soon as possible? What I find so disturbing after watching yet another flame war where people attack me, is that I am once again blamed for it. THEY attack ME! What do you expect me to /do/ with the evil that flows out of Erann Gat, Ray Blaak, and Raffael Cavallero? I want these evil shitheads to stop more than anything else in the world when they gang up on me. Sure, I want them to hurt like hell for having started yet another flame war about how bad I am. Is there not a single person here who understands what it is like to be the victim of so much unfettered hatred as these three produce? It is not something I have done to them, it is how they feel for having been similar idiots in the past that causes them to hate me this time around, too. And they do not need much to start up the hate machine. Some idiot who asks whether I am always so full of poisonous bile is enough to start them on their torrential outpouring of hatred. What if someone started to behave the way you relate here about Bohr or others? What do /I/ get from people who hate me? "Thanks for your wonderful contributions, but ..."? Not likely. Some insincere flattery comes only long after it has become clear that they are once again going to lose their own fight. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.