Subject: Re: Understanding Erik Naggum From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 08 Oct 2002 14:50:26 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3243077426034805@naggum.no> * Pascal Costanza <costanza@web.de> | Erik Naggum wrote: | > * Pascal Costanza | > | For example, there are people who feel uncomfortable when cold language | > | is used. | > No, there is not. | | Yes, there are. Fascinating. Normally, people who are involved in a debate and not just some childish game, show people where they got their opinion when others flat out deny it. It is your responsibility to offer proof or at least some evidence when one of your claims is countered. The onus of proof is on he who asserts the positive. But you resort to this kind of massively unintelligent response, and I think of the fact that you do not want any measurement of effectiveness and prefer to feel good over thinking about something, and I conclude that you have not yet heard of the scientific method. This is a correctable mistake. I would suggest that you visit your nearby university and find someone who might be willing to suggest books on the topic. It is so fundamental to the work of any scientist or for that matter anyone else who wishes to actually succeed with arguments when not all the participants are children, that I kind of take it for granted that those who engage in a debate where they at least ought to understand that their opponent is not overly impressed with their person or their personal opinion alone, actually would find it useful. I understand now where our violent disagreement over methodology has its roots. You are simply an astonishingly uneducated fuddy-duddy who has no idea what he's talking about. Cold language, warm language, bah humbug! You even managed to misunderstand so completely my example of how people manage to overcome even massive flows of emotions under serious stress that you thought I meant that I would favor exposing people to stress! Such an amazing intellectual feat is simply not possible if you have any brain cells that have been exposed to higher education. You have clearly never even seen any material on argumentation and rhetoric, which I also blissfully assume people have internalized at around age 16. So here are a couple books that might still be a bit above your intellectual level, but which I have found have helped many wayward people tremendously. DDC 168 (Arguments and Persuasion); ISBN 0-87220-156-2; LCCN 92026328 Anthony Weston A Rulebook for Arguments, 2nd ed DDC 160 (Logic); ISBN 0-393-97213-5; LCCN 97025896 David Kelley The Art of Reasoning, 3rd ed For that matter, visit your local Dewey-enriched library and peruse the entire range from 160 to 169. Books under 165 may turn out out be more useful than many others, but do take your time. You could also use a good dictionary of the English language. Since Merriam-Webster has published their Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus on the Net, there is fortunately no need to purchase them. www.m-w.com | It's not only my personal experience, but it is shared by many other | people. 165 | > | I say that people who feel insulted by warm language should try harder to | > | control their feelings to get things straight. | > Well, my young friend, isn't that just awfully nice of you? | | Insofar I am making suggestions for improvement - yes. *marvel* You just do not get it, do you? | Here are some: | | Guy L. Steele: Common Lisp - The Language, 2nd Edition. | Paul Graham: ANSI Common Lisp. | Richard Gabriel: Patterns of Software. | Douglas R. Hofstadter: Gödel Escher Bach. | Joel Kramer, Diana Alstad: The Guru Papers - Masks of Authoritarian Power. | Kent Beck: Extreme Programming Explained. | Martin Fowler: UML distilled. | Martin Fowler: Refactoring. | Alistair Cockburn: Agile Software Methodologies. | | and so on, and so on... I am imply in *awe* of your inability to understand what "cold"/"warm" language /means/. This really is just a game to you where the point is to keep talking until everybody has gone home and the last man talking wins, right? | Here is some more factual evidence for the approach I am suggesting. Look, you doofus, the things you argue about have never been in question. The reason I tend not to assume that people have such a strong agenda of their own that they do not see anything other people say is that I tend to assume a certain level of social skills. Fanatics who keep talking about their pet theories no matter what other people are talking about tend to puzzle me somewhat, so I tend to want to listen to even such people because they /might/ have an important clue that is useful for me, but if you listen carefully to a fanatic, you notice that he lives has lived his entire life inside his own skull, where everything makes sense to him and his behavior is of course correct and beneficial to those others he cares about. | It's really time now for you to provide some hard data other than your | personal opinions that support your approach. Look up "professionalism" and "technical writing" in your favorite library. I have already given you these pointers, you insufferable twit. -- 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.