Subject: Re: Understanding Erik Naggum From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 13 Oct 2002 12:07:15 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3243499635529321@naggum.no> * Erik Naggum | You show a characteristic unwillingness to consider that your opponent's | position may be good, and instead devote nearly all your effort to | defend yourself and claim that your opponent's position is no good. | This is fantastically stupid. * Abhijit Rao | All the more annoying so when the person who says the above thing is | also exactly doing the same thing. Well, first of all, you show me here that you understand the argument and think it is a valid point, but still defend yourself instead of grasping its applicability to yourself. And no, Abhijit Rao, I do not. I spend considerable time and effort when I reply to people who stumble through the language and fumble through their thoughts to understand precisely what they are saying and meaning. That you use it as a cheap retort says something about your ability to reason to which you still should listen carefully. It is /such/ a cheap shot and so indicative of your playing a stupid game of one-upmanship, where the point with what you feel are "arguments" is not to understand anything your opponent says, but to use any stupid trick in the book to get "ahead" your opponent, even by a dirty trick that shows that you are unable to participate in an adult discussion. Just realize that I sprinkle my articles with "bait" that I people would ignore if they knew what they were doing, but would take, hook, line, and sinker, if they do not know what they are doing and want to make fools of themselves in public, instead. So if this is the best you can do, please read up on argumentation, rhetoric, and logic. This is a newsgroup where /discussion/ is the key, not stupid game-playing. It may make you feel better in the very short-term to feel you beat someone with a dirty trick or a fancy rhetorical device, but when you lose long-term and do not hang around because you felt you made an ass of yourself, it really does you worse than no good. Many people sacrifice the long-term for a quick and easy gain. I want to learn this about people: It tells me that they do not think they can win in the long term, so they have nothing to lose. | I am going alone, not because of choice, but necessity. No one else | wants to do Lisp. Thanks for using your full name. Going it alone has a high price, no matter what you do. You seem to be unaware of it as of yet. It is only sometimes worth paying. Lisp seems like a good choice. -- 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.