and denied that fear of destitution was why:

"no, that is not the explanation, although some would have you believe
that people can be forced to accept anything under threat of becoming
destitute if they don't."

Erik, your implication is clear; they are foolish for not standing up for
themselves in the first place as _you_ do. No matter that you run no risk
of being beaten, tortured, or murdered, or of starving if you express your
wants directly to your prospective employers.

You deride people who would forfeit their lives and/or their loved ones'
lives if they stood up to their employers, for not being independent
consultants.

Your post is offensive.

My understanding of it is not faulty, as evinced by the responses of
others, who pointed out, with no little sarcasm, that the reason such
people don't stand up to their employers is that they would become
destitute or dead if they did so.

You were not saying "Gee, this is a mystery to me! Please somebody explain
this to me!" Try as you might to make this a jesuitical dispute, your
meaning is clear. You deride the opressed just as you deride and abuse
posters to comp.lang.lisp, because you are a verbally abusive, disdainful
person. I believe a very good case can be made that you actively drive
people _away_ from lisp because of the tone of your posts to c.l.l. Though
you have said "lisp is better off without them," I'm sure others believe
with me, that c.l.l might well be better off _with_ them, and without your
abusive posts.

As for those who _really_ believe that Erik was _actually_ asking an
honest question above (not those stating the theoretical possibility that
some abstract speaker could have meant those words as a real question), I
suggest that you have either an enviable lack of exposure to Erik's c.l.l
vitriol, or a lamentable inability to discern a speaker's real meaning.

Raf

--

Erik, I also don't appreciate the tone you have taken towards me and
many others.  I'm not commenting on technical questions, only that, in
my opinion, your abusive approach ends up stifling discussion and
intimidating people who might have something to contribute.

I appreciate erik's harsh tone here much more than the tone in the big
perl (comp.lang.perl.misc) or other religious groups, mainly because he
stays always accurate and precise. In the perl group for example you
don't even dare to ask about Win32 problems. This is motivated by
arrogance, politics and myths, not by knowledge.
Similar problems exist in all big language groups.
To continue with the (slightly unfair) analogy and to make my point,
perl -the language, the libs and the community- is still good even if
its main discussion group is ruled by arrogant and abusive posters.

  you once wrote that you only responded to what I had done, and that you
  weren't to blame for anything you were doing.  I didn't have that excuse
  since I had started a new thread, in your opinion.  you also suggested
  that I stick to Lisp in comp.lang.lisp, but you didn't have to, because
  of the license to post irrelevant drivel in response to things you found
  offensive.  I suggest you start taking your own advice, and just shut up.

  as for your ability to read things into other people's posts, your
  "frankly racist" in response to the fact that the context in which people
  normally speak do not include starving and oppressed people in the third
  world, was sufficient to tell me that you are quite fanatical and should
  be ignored.  insofar as you continue to attack me, I respond only to show
  that you are off mark.  I don't discuss your insane conclusions, and I
  have no interest in talking with you at all.  confine yourself to what
  _you_ experience, what _you_ feel, and state _your_ assumptions and
  reactions, and I don't have to say anything.  as long as you elevate your
  fanatical idiocy to universality, you have to be shot down, every time.

  and since you sign off with your degree, I must assume that it is
  relevant to why you have to engage in these face-saving exercises where
  the other guy must be blamed for everything offensive in the world.  I
  have seen your kind a lot, Raffael Cavallaro, and since the stuff I'm
  being accused of are mutually exclusive, and always the very obvious
  "enemy" of whoever is attacking me, such as being a traitor to the white
  race when I attack racist idiots, a racist when I don't agree that the
  white race is responsible for every ill in the world or I embrace every
  race except that I ignore the third world when discussing most topics, a
  capitalist pig because I'm not joining the working class, a dangerous
  communist when I express my disdain for certain parts of society that
  some people think only communists can attack, etc.  common to all you
  insane fanatics is that I trigger your hate response, not for anything I
  do, but for something you need to express your hatred of and which you
  find evidence of in just about anything.  like, the other day, I was
  accused of being a neo-nazi by one idiot who had read my web pages, and
  the next day, a neo-nazi said he'd kill me because I collaborate with
  Jews and communists and his favorite euphemisms for immigrants and
  homosexuals.

  you know what I think amidst all this hatred?  that it is very useful to
  learn how people don't think at all, but instead let their dysfunctional
  emotions lead them to extreme destructiveness.  if we know who those
  people are and we make them expose themselves, the world becomes a safer
  place for all.

  but what am I actually doing?  I refuse to believe most of the drivel
  that people take for granted -- instead I seek to understand how such
  views could crop up in the first place.  in so doing, I do in fact
  endanger their views and their beliefs, so there's no problem seeing why
  some people respond emotionally.  what's puzzling is that a Ph.D is
  unable to pull himself together and think.  what's puzzling is that
  fairly erudite people still protect their silly beliefs with emotional
  abandon and nothing else.  it's almost as if I catch people red-handed in
  the foul act of not thinking, and then they behave as most people do when
  caught in an act they would be very ashamed of admitting openly.  but
  such shame is counter-produtive in the extreme, and when it takes the
  shape of projection and false accusations against others to detract
  people's attention from the fact that Raffael Cavallaro is so fanatical
  that his credibility is exactly zero, it works only to destroy the sender
  of such incredible idiocy.

  finally, a small but important issue which keeps coming up with alarming
  frequency: those who attack me, do so for things I have not actually
  done, but they assume I would do, for things they could not know even if
  they were true, but necessarily must assume, and they attack me for
  holding views and attitudes for which there exists a plethora of evidence
  to the contrary.  it seems one-dimensional people have to attack me,
  because what I do is deny one-dimensional people the right to exist.
  and, yeah, of course, I get this "you see the world in black and white"
  all the time, because I refuse to see a particular issue in a gray that
  would allow others not to make up their mind.  I have come to conclude
  that one-dimensional people are completely unable to see the image for
  all the single-color dots in two-dimensional half-tone images.

  if you want me to accuse me of anything, accuse me of having no respect
  at all for one-dimensional people, but all you really have to do to
  create a new dimension in your life is to learn to be able to appreciate
  that context bounds meaning, that no context is wrong, and that only the
  act of assuming meaning outside context is wrong.

  put another way, especially for Raffael: try to read people to understand
  what they have meant, not what you would have meant had you used the same
  words.

  so try to fail to post drivel and see that my reaction changes, too.

Is there any way we could set up a comp.lang.lisp.advocacy where
people could have full swing on their emotions and bitterness, and
then leave comp.lang.lisp as a true help group?

Ex-hippie and free spirit,

i.b.

Best Regards,

I also find Erik posts generally usefull.

Marc Battyani
BTW I changed the thread title.

The best policies when things are this way are either to not read
or to focus on making your own posts constructive.  A wealth of positive
posts will make the negative ones recede into the background.  If there
are not enough positive posts, that's why the negatives take center stage.

In an earlier post, a certain Raffael Cavallaro <raff...@mediaone.net> wrote:

Kettle.

Black.

NOW, can we get back to lisp ?

  I'm actually curious: why do you think Raffael Cavallaro's contributions
  are laudable and applaudable?  how come you "back" him and decide to go
  public with it, if what you say here is true?  why is his abuse to be
  defended?  do you actually see him as a poor, defenseless person who has
  every right to defend himself, and I have no right to voice my strong
  disagreement with his numerous unfounded attacks against my person?  and
  why is it better to attack a person in vague, general terms with no sign
  of a cease of attacks in sight than to attack a few specific things he
  chooses to do, which he can choose to cease to do, taking all criticism
  with it?  since you take a stand, and fault me, I must assume that you
  see nothing at all wrong with Raffael Cavallaro.  is that indeed true?

So let us keep away from witch-hunting (Lisp is about other forms of
""McCarthism"" :-)

I have saved many of Eric's postings, even though I often think he is
wrong and I occasionally think he is unnecessarily harsh.  In spite of
this, he is one of the giants of the group in terms of lisp knowledge,
and his philosophical, uh, musings are almost always interesting,
often entertaining, and sometimes enlightening.  The price you pay is
that he `doesn't suffer fools gladly.'

I think his input is worth the price---but everyone has to decide that
for himself.  If you don't think that way, please use a kill file
entry and insulate yourself.

As regards the good old US of A, you've obviously forgotten the history of
labor organization in the US, or you'd remember that earlier this century,
strikers were fired, beaten, and, on occasion, shot and killed. Things
were not always as they are now.

Raf

--

BTW - One might reasonably look at the premises of "labor
organizing" that has such risks.

Consider the strike.  It isn't merely a refusal to work, it is
also a refusal to let someone else work in "your" place.  To
accomplish the latter goal, you must "be available" for
confrontation.

It is obviously wrong to force someone to work, but resisting
efforts to employ someone else is different, and that's what's
going on in almost all "labor violence".  Strikers don't just
refuse to work.

The evil capitalists in question are providing miserable jobs
which are better than the available alternatives.  The "labor
violence" that Cavallero rants about occurs when people who
have those jobs want more AND try to keep the evil capitalists
from employing someone else who will accept the offered terms.
While the evil capitalists aren't justified in using every
tactic to resist the latter, the range of justifiable actions
to impose it is much smaller, and all too often crossed by
the "labor organizing" that Cavallero finds so "noble".

-andy

No no, we just need a FAQ.

Q 1: What do I do if Erik Naggum (or someone else) posts a nasty reponse
to my question?

A 1: Ignoring it is the best policy; you might still receive useful
posts from other people on the group, otherwise he may actually be
presenting a useful response hidden behind an acidic tongue

I have been waging a ten-year-long campaign at NASA to convince
people that Lisp is a respectable option for developing spacecraft
software.  I have found that people rarely make decisions based on
first hand information.  They are much more likely to base their
views on gut feel, zeitgeist, and the opinions of other people that
they like and respect.  Likewise, people will often take contrary
positions to those that they don't like and don't respect even in
the face of objective evidence.

For example: you will find many people in positions of authority at
NASA who believe that Lisp should not fly on a spacecraft because
garbage collection can make the spacecraft go catatonic at a critical
time.  This despite the fact that 1) this has never ever been true
and 2) Lisp has actually flown on a spacecraft.  They believe this
because everyone they associate with believes it.  The people they
associate with in turn believe it for the same reason.  It's a
self-perpetuating myth, and it survives even in the face of objective
evidence to the contrary, kind of like the idea that HIV causes AIDS.

Now, dear reader, I ask you to stop for a moment and reflect on your
own personal reaction to those last nine words in the previous
paragraph.  Unless you happen to be familiar with an obscure school
of thought headed by a fellow named Peter Duesberg your reaction
was almost certainly something like, "What do you mean?  OF COURSE
HIV causes AIDS.  EVERYONE knows that."  Now, I need to be very clear
on one point: it is not my intention to call into question whether
HIV actually causes AIDS or not.  The point I want to raise is: if
you, like most people, believe that HIV causes AIDS, *on what basis
do you believe it*?  Have you ever personally performed an experiment
to support that view?  Have you read any peer-reviewed scientific
papers that justify that conclusion?  Most likely the answer is no.
You believe HIV causes AIDS because everyone around you believes it.
Everyone around you believes it because everyone around *them*
believes it.  And if you trace things back you will find that everyone
believes that HIV causes AIDS not because there is actualy good scientific
evidence for it, but because in 1984 a US government official called a
news conference to announce that it was so, and no one (except Duesberg)
ever bothered to seriously question it.

It's the same situation for Lisp.  Everyone believes that Lisp is
slow, no good for general purpose programming, etc. etc. because at
some point someone said so authoritatively (and perhaps when they
said it was even true) and the idea has been self-perpetuating
ever since.

What does this have to do with Erik?  If you're going to try to change
people's minds about a self-perpetuating myth the first thing you have
to do is convince them to pay attention to what you are saying.  If
people tune out then you've lost no matter how right you may be.  And if
people think you are a raving lunatic, or even just an unpleasant
person, then they tune out.  Erik is unnecessarily rude and abrasive.
He intentionally pushes people's hot buttons in the name of stamping
out stupidity.  The net result is that they tune out, and in the back
of their minds they add another hash mark to the tally of evidence
that people who like Lisp are arrogant primadonnas, and not the kind
of people whose judgements they wish to rely on.

This negative effect spreads like a cancer.  By the time it gets around
to *your* boss he will likely never have encountered Erik directly.  But
he will have encountered some people who encountered some people who
encountered Erik and came to the conclusion that Lispers are just a
bunch of asshole flamers.  It only takes a few such people with the
right connections to make the world a hostile place for Lisp.

Now, it is certainly *not* the case that the sorry state of Lisp (and any
product that can support only one vendor world-wide is in a sorry state)
is Erik's responsibility, but in the grand scheme of things I
believe he does more harm than good.  And I think that's a real shame
because Erik *is* an exceptionally bright guy and he could be a very
effective Lisp advocate if only he could be convinced to change his
style a little.  (I tried a new strategy for doing that a few days
ago, but I'm afraid I failed.)

If Lisp is going to survive as anything more than an academic curiosity
it has to be marketed effectively.  The price we pay for Erik's insights
is that job becomes a little harder.  Ultimately the price we pay is that
we have to program in C++ and Perl in order to make a living.  In my
mind that is a high price indeed, particularly since Erik is ostensibly
on my side.  That's why I basically agree with the sentiment expressed
by the original poster: with friends like Erik, Common Lisp doesn't need
enemies.  This is despite the fact that I personally enjoy reading
Erik's posts and have found many new and interesting ideas in his writings.
I hope he continues to post.  I also hope he can be convinced that it
would better advance our common interest if he would be a little less
rude.

Mr Gat, the logic of your position, as you just described it, reminds me of
a famous court case a Norwegian writer described almost two hundred years
ago. In that case, a murder was committed (and confessed) by the blacksmith
of a village. But, since that village had only one blacksmith, but two
bakers, it was decided that the murder which was committed by the
blacksmith, would be punished by the execution of the oldest baker...

That particular court case was fictional; in your case we are not so lucky.

If we take a look at your description:

     1) believing this newsgroup to be intended for advertising the virtues
        of lisp, which is a quite ridiculous idea,

     2) attacking Erik because he writes what he means, which goes against
        the entire idea of newsgroups (always assuming that the given posts
        are topical),

     3) by not taking action in the case of Nasa employees not doing their
        jobs, you are actually condoning that particular behaviour.

To make that third point quite clear: Any person who is in a position to
choose the tools for solving a technical (/engineering) problem, who is
basing their choice on anything but cold, hard, technichal, scientific, and
economical facts, are quite obviously not doing their job. The only possible
exception to this, is in the cases where you have no such information
available, in which case research might be a good idea.

Apart from these points, you may be right...

But the world you describe is not the real world.  NASA managers are not
robots; they make decisions based on gut feelings and political
rationales, just as managers in industry do.  And remember that
"scientific facts" themselves are often in dispute.

--

Hartmann Schaffer

  I'm really happy that you are beginning to realize this, and thus begin
  to see why it is necessary to stop people who make false accusations
  against others, such as your own absurd claims about the Holocaust.

| Erik is unnecessarily rude and abrasive.  He intentionally pushes
| people's hot buttons in the name of stamping out stupidity.

  this is just as unwarranted as everything else you're saying about me:
  you make new claims that you have no possible way to know the truth of.

| It only takes a few such people with the right connections to make the
| world a hostile place for Lisp.

  have you considered how this process applies to your treatment of me?

  considering your "insight" into these processes, why do you do your very
  best to continue a bunch of hostile myths against me?  I can only assume
  that your intention is to destroy me and my reputation much faster than
  you think I could do on my own, hence your Holocaust allegations and all
  this phenomenal crap.

  are you proud of what you are saying and implying, Erann Gat?  do you
  think you further the cause of anything at all with this crap?  and do
  you _really_ want to blame your inefficacy in convincing people at NASA
  to use Lisp on me?  what if they heard, or understood, that Erann Gat is
  a person who looks for people to blame, rather than try to solve and
  understand complex problems?  do you think you, as a proponent of Lisp
  inside NASA, is doing Lisp a _favor_ by continuing your "blame others"
  approach?

| (I tried a new strategy for doing that a few days ago, but I'm afraid I
| failed.)

  you failed because you repeat the same thing that gets you into trouble
  every time you slander me: you make stupid claims that far exceed any
  possible context in which they could have been discovered, which they
  haven't, because you lack the precision and care to bother to check
  whether what you believe is relevant or fact.  I told you explicitly what
  you had to do, and I'll gladly repeat it here:

do me a favor and make an effort to understand this: I have said nothing
about what you have not shown me.  when you actually understand this fully,
we can discuss your reactions.  until you understand that I have said
nothing at all about what you have not shown me, nothing could ever make it
past that lack of understanding.

  you continue to prove my point: you speak volumes about that which you
  could not possibly know -- it has to be guesswork and insinuation by its
  very definition.  the above was the crux my last message to you and
  nearly the only part you did not quote in your last reply.  do you think
  I was making a joke?  do you not understand that you are extrapolating in
  the directions you like from single data points, and that this is the
  core of your problem, and the reason I think you're _really_ stupid and a
  danger to anyone who trusts you?

| The price we pay for Erik's insights is that job becomes a little harder.

  since you know so much about hos I react, why _did_ you post your
  slanderous Holocaust argument?  and why do you blame me for Raffael
  Cavallaro's _initial_ insane accusations?  is it because if you accept
  that he is responsible for his own accusations, you are fully responsible
  for your most insiduous Holocaust crap, too?

| That's why I basically agree with the sentiment expressed by the original
| poster: with friends like Erik, Common Lisp doesn't need enemies.

  of course you agree with him.  _anyone_ could predict that you would.
  you're the same kind of person: the kind of person who attacks me for
  things I have never said, who go one-dimensional on any complex issue
  (like, now, it's my fault you can't win NASA over to Lisp and you will
  have to program in C++ and Perl to make a living)

| I also hope he can be convinced that it would better advance our common
| interest if he would be a little less rude.

  do you think you're helping, Erann Gat?  what if you understood that the
  more you shut your filthy trap, the less need there will be to show that
  you're a destructive asshole without the ability to realize when you've
  gone too far slandering others falsely and unfairly?

  does the Lisp world need Erann Gat and Raffael Cavallaro?  does any world?

Raf

--