Negation
Erik Naggum
problems I see concerns an apparent inability to deal with negation in
real life. I think I have to illustrate this with an example from code:
(typep 1 '(not symbol)) is exactly equivalent to (not (typep 1 'symbol))
as far as the value of the expression goes, but they test for different
qualities. The first tests for memberhip of 1 in the value space that
excludes all symbols, while the latter tests for membership of 1 in the
value space of symbols and reports the opposite of the answer. The
latter expresses "1 is-not a symbol", while the former expresses the more
unusual "1 is a non-symbol". Now, to a person with only two possible
values of such predicates, there can be no difference. A difference
would contradict fundamental properties (axioms) of his belief system.
Suppose I argue against "Scheme is a Lisp" with a one-bit person, and
either deny that this is true or actually say "Scheme is not a Lisp". A
one-bit person would not see this as different from "Scheme is a
non-Lisp" -- because to him, there can be no such difference. I find
this quite fantastically irrational, but I do not think a lack of
education can have caused it. This gets even more irrational when a
one-bit person wants to deny "Scheme is not a Lisp" (which he reads as
"non-Lisp"). In order to establish the falsehood of a claim that
something "is" a non-thing, it should suffice to point out only a few
qualities that contradict the identity or membership in "non-thing", and
if you can establish that it is not a non-thing, then, by virtue of the
one-bit person's two-value system, it must be a thing! Of course, there
is no limit to how silly this can get: What is "non-Lisp"? Leaving aside
the fact that non-Lisp has all the wrong qualities, while "Lisp" has all
the good ones (please remember that we deal with one-bit people) and that
this causes strong emotional reactions to even weak denials of "Scheme is
a Lisp", the fight they engage in more concerns getting out of the
dreaded "non-Lisp" camp than into the warm and welcoming "Lisp" camp. I
think the emotional processes of a one-bit person who wants Scheme to a
member of the Lisp family (expressed incompetently as "Scheme is a Lisp")
actually depends on so much irrational two-value logic that it results in
abject fear that if they lose their ties to Lisp, they will become
"non-Lisp", and that is certainly the worst possible fate.
I have seen a number of Scheme freaks argue very strongly with a mish-
mash of negative statements, probably thinking that _their_ negative is a
positive, but the real world does not have only one bit, it is not all
black or all white. The idiotic "shades of gray" does not apply, either,
of course. Instead, we have lots of small things that are black to some
people and white to others, like billions and billions of them. The
_result_ forms a "shade of gray", but each individual decision is pretty
clear to each person, at least once it becomes conscious. What I find so
odd about this failure to grasp negation is the abject failure to see
that every position consists of a huge number of decisions. For some
weird reason, one-bit people seem to add up a lot of bits and still get
back only one-bit answers.
Even more frustratingly, one-bit people think that other people have only
ont bit, too. So when you argue against something they believe, you
argue not only against their specific argument, but against their entire
_being_. To contradict a position is equivalent to contradict the entire
universe as they know it. They cannot flip just one switch, but must
flip them all. The only thing you can tell these people is "you need
more bits!", but that does not compute in their one-bit universe.
Some people think that only boolean operators should be subject to
negation, i.e., the not operator, so (not #f) => #t, and (not #t) => #f,
but all other arguments to not should signal an error. Common Lisp
treats all non-nil values a boolean true, but not returns a canonical
true, the symbol t, and several one-bit people have expressed a serious
gripw with this, just as they gripe loudly that car and cdr return nil
when given nil as argument, that nil and the empty list and false are the
same, etc. Purity of design to one-bit people means precisely that a
thing is only what it is and moreover that everything else is not that
thing so they can actually reason with one-bit negation.
Since the resistance among one-bit people to increase the number of bits
is enormous, close in magnitude to believing in more deities, there is no
resolution of this problem. One can only hope to identify one-bit people
as early as possible, and since they have their own newsgroup, I think
the one-bit people should _stay_ in comp.lang.scheme, where the simple
one-bit logic seems to apply to everything and where they can actually be
reasonably certain to be accurate if they accuse other people of thinking
in terms of One True Way and the like, which is goddamn annoying to n-bit
people.
///
--
In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.
Geoff Summerhayes
"Erik Naggum" <er...@naggum.net> wrote in message
news:32251304...@naggum.net...
> Several properties of Scheme freaks puzzle me greatly. One of the worst
> problems I see concerns an apparent inability to deal with negation in
> real life. I think I have to illustrate this with an example from code:
> (typep 1 '(not symbol)) is exactly equivalent to (not (typep 1 'symbol))
> as far as the value of the expression goes, but they test for different
> qualities. The first tests for memberhip of 1 in the value space that
> excludes all symbols, while the latter tests for membership of 1 in the
> value space of symbols and reports the opposite of the answer. The
> latter expresses "1 is-not a symbol", while the former expresses the more
> unusual "1 is a non-symbol". Now, to a person with only two possible
> values of such predicates, there can be no difference. A difference
> would contradict fundamental properties (axioms) of his belief system.
>
Well argued. Damn, I was hoping for an `Arc is a Scheme' thread. :-)
>ducks for cover<
------
Geoff
Nils Goesche
[snip]
> Suppose I argue against "Scheme is a Lisp" with a one-bit person, and
> either deny that this is true or actually say "Scheme is not a Lisp".
> A one-bit person would not see this as different from "Scheme is
> a non-Lisp" -- because to him, there can be no such difference.
> I find this quite fantastically irrational, but I do not think a
> lack of education can have caused it.
Certainly not, I guess it is precisely the education that has caused
it :-)
> Since the resistance among one-bit people to increase the number of
> bits is enormous, close in magnitude to believing in more deities,
> there is no resolution of this problem. One can only hope to
> identify one-bit people as early as possible, and since they have
> their own newsgroup, I think the one-bit people should _stay_ in
> comp.lang.scheme, where the simple one-bit logic seems to apply to
> everything and where they can actually be reasonably certain to be
> accurate if they accuse other people of thinking in terms of One
> True Way and the like, which is goddamn annoying to n-bit people.
I was quite astonished, too, that obviously highly intelligent
people weren't able to understand the points you and Kent made.
It seemed as if you were talking not only about but in different
languages. I think I not only understand what you mean by ``one-bit
people'' but also what goes on in those people's minds, because I
used to be one of those ``one-bit people'' myself, when I still
worked at the university and cared about nothing but mathematics.
When mathematics is all you care about, all you see is how
effective the mathematical way of reasoning is. Because it leads
to great results, whenever you apply it to something you care
about, that is. Of course you realize that it somehow doesn't
work as good when you deal with people outside the mathematics
building, but that is easily explained: Those people are
obviously just lacking the proper mathematical training :-)
When Rudolph Carnap et al tried to establish a general theory
of science in the twenties, they first tried to extend the
mathematical way to all of science -- but quickly realized that
that wouldn't work at all. Now, all of serious science is rather
done in a way Karl Popper described, and not in the mathematical way
at all -- pretty much only mathematicians could go on working their
own way (and theoretical computer science is just a field of
mathematics, mostly).
But a mathematician doesn't have to understand this: Mathematics
works just as it has always worked. I was cured -- but only
because I left the university. And I know that there would have
been no way at all to explain these things to my ``former self''.
I just wouldn't have known what you were talking about. Just
like in that thread about Scheme :-)
Regards,
--
Nils Goesche PGP key ID 0x42B32FC9
"The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find
their money." -- Ed Bluestone
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> I was quite astonished, too, that obviously highly intelligent
> people weren't able to understand the points you and Kent made.
> It seemed as if you were talking not only about but in different
> languages. I think I not only understand what you mean by ``one-bit
> people'' but also what goes on in those people's minds, because I
> used to be one of those ``one-bit people'' myself, when I still
> worked at the university and cared about nothing but mathematics.
Erik fulminates massively against the notion that Scheme is *is any
way* relevant to comp.lang.lisp. He wants a *rigid* boundary, on
which all the Scheme is NOT HERE.
That is a fine example of "one-bit thinking". He insists that this
newsgroup is for Common Lisp ONLY, and that this is so blindingly
obvious that the people who disagree must be either malicious or
idiotic.
I'm *perfectly* happy with fuzzy boundaries; but fuzziness means that
there is going to be flexibility, giving and taking, and an openness
to learning from other ways of doing things.
Erik does not demonstrate that.
Indeed, he pretends to be a "two bit" person in the very article in
which he seems to articulate an iron wall between the one bit people
and the two bit people.
Thomas
Nils Goesche
> Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> writes:
>
>> I was quite astonished, too, that obviously highly intelligent
>> people weren't able to understand the points you and Kent made.
>> It seemed as if you were talking not only about but in different
>> languages. I think I not only understand what you mean by ``one-bit
>> people'' but also what goes on in those people's minds, because I
>> used to be one of those ``one-bit people'' myself, when I still
>> worked at the university and cared about nothing but mathematics.
>
> Erik fulminates massively against the notion that Scheme is *is any
> way* relevant to comp.lang.lisp. He wants a *rigid* boundary, on
> which all the Scheme is NOT HERE.
AFAICT, all he wants is not having Scheme propaganda in cll. I
sympathize with that very much. If you feel a need to tell people
that Common Lisp sucks and Scheme doesn't, there is already a
place where this is appropriate: comp.lang.scheme. If I want to
read Scheme propaganda, I read comp.lang.scheme. I sometimes
even do that. But when I'm here, I usually don't want to read
anything like that. Here, I want to read and talk about Lisp.
Trolls who denounce Lisp all the time here are going on my nerves.
Why do they feel the need to annoy me and anybody else here? I
just don't get this.
> That is a fine example of "one-bit thinking". He insists that this
> newsgroup is for Common Lisp ONLY, and that this is so blindingly
> obvious that the people who disagree must be either malicious or
> idiotic.
He never said anything like that. Heh, you are just proving his
point: You just don't /understand/ what he is talking about. As
if he was talking in another language unknown to you. Very strange.
To me it is totally obvious that all he is telling you is that
he doesn't want Scheme propaganda in cll and nor do I. Why do
you insist on your ``right'' to post Scheme propaganda here? This
is nuts. I like reading your posts otherwise, actually, but it
is increasingly annoying that you don't get this single point.
> I'm *perfectly* happy with fuzzy boundaries; but fuzziness means that
> there is going to be flexibility, giving and taking, and an openness
> to learning from other ways of doing things.
>
> Erik does not demonstrate that.
>
> Indeed, he pretends to be a "two bit" person in the very article in
> which he seems to articulate an iron wall between the one bit people
> and the two bit people.
There is actually a very fuzzy boundary between England and the
Atlantic. You are swimming in the Atlantic yelling at Erik
standing at the shore ``See? There is only a fuzzy boundary, hence
England never ends and I can walk around on the ocean just like
you on that shore, QED!''...
Regards,
--
Nils Goesche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
PGP key ID 0x42B32FC9
Larry Clapp
> problems I see concerns an apparent inability to deal with negation in
> real life. I think I have to illustrate this with an example from code:
> (typep 1 '(not symbol)) is exactly equivalent to (not (typep 1 'symbol))
> as far as the value of the expression goes, but they test for different
> qualities. The first tests for memberhip of 1 in the value space that
> excludes all symbols, while the latter tests for membership of 1 in the
> value space of symbols and reports the opposite of the answer. The latter
> expresses "1 is-not a symbol", while the former expresses the more unusual
> "1 is a non-symbol". Now, to a person with only two possible values of
> such predicates, there can be no difference. A difference would
> contradict fundamental properties (axioms) of his belief system.
Reading this far, I thought to myself, "He's going somewhere with this ..."
:) (Imagine that.)
Anyway, again having only read that far, I could easily see the point of view
of the one-bit person. After all, didn't I take a logic class that taught "if
f(x) and g(x) generate the same truth table, then f is equivalent to g"?
But then, this uses exactly the one-bit reasoning you so dislike.
Hmmm ... Speaking of logic:
"All X are Y" does-not-imply "All Y are X"
Thus, even if "all Lisps are members-of-the-Lisp-family-of-languages", that
doesn't mean that "all members-of-the-Lisp-family-of-languages are Lisps".
To use the classic example from logic class, the assertion "all crows are
black", even if true, doesn't imply that some specific black bird is a crow.
So the Schemers appear to make a classic logical mistake:
Major premise (M): All Lisps are members-of-the-Lisp-family-of-languages
minor premise (m): Scheme is a member-of-the-Lisp-family-of-languages
Conclusion (C): Scheme is a Lisp ; (wrong)
I have much less experience with Lisp than most of y'all, I suspect, but I
don't think anyone, even the Schemers, would argue with either the major or
the minor premise. But the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises.
One could also, perhaps, phrase their argument like this:
M: Scheme is a member-of-the-Lisp-family-of-languages
m: All members-of-the-Lisp-family-of-languages are Lisps
C: Scheme is a Lisp
I don't know enough about "members-of-the-Lisp-family-of-languages" to say,
but many people that apparently *do* know a lot about that family appear to
disagree with the minor premise in this syllogism. So the logic here works,
but one of the assumptions (arguably) doesn't, so we can't agree with the
conclusion here, either.
Of course, one could argue that "being a Lisp" _means_ "being a
member-of-the-Lisp-family-of-languages", in which case all of this falls
apart. :) But now I'm just repeating everybody else, 'cause many people have
remarked that it all depends on what you mean by "X is a Lisp".
I think part of the problem lies in perspective. Consider John and Guy. Both
start on different journeys from John's house. John goes north-west and Guy
goes north-east. Gale looks at John and Guy from a long way south, and they
appear very similar to her, and they appear to travel in similar directions
(i.e. away from her). She approaches them, gets to John's house, and shouts
at John, "Hey, Guy, why don't you go over there with John?" This annoys John,
because she's mistaken him for Guy, and because she has stubbornly held on to
the judgment she made while far away, that John & Guy both travel in the same
direction.
This analogy breaks down, because while it explains newbies coming to Lisp or
Scheme and mistaking one for the other, and it touches on the hostility of
Lispers when people mistake them for Schemers or assume that Scheme and Lisp
are "the same", it doesn't explain the apparent propensity for Schemers to say
"Oh, me and John, we're the same." Anyone who looks at them close up can see
their differences, and especially their different directions.
Most of this deals at best tangentially to your main topic. Perhaps I
should've attached it to the "why isn't Scheme a Lisp" thread.
-- Larry
Steve Long
Erik Naggum wrote:
> Several properties of Scheme freaks puzzle me greatly. One of the worst
> problems I see concerns an apparent inability to deal with negation in
> real life. I think I have to illustrate this with an example from code:
> (typep 1 '(not symbol)) is exactly equivalent to (not (typep 1 'symbol))
> as far as the value of the expression goes, but they test for different
> qualities.
Yes, it's an exercise in obfuscation. This much of the Scheme example alone
gives me a headache.
slong
Erik Naggum
| Erik fulminates massively against the notion that Scheme is *is any
| way* relevant to comp.lang.lisp. He wants a *rigid* boundary, on
| which all the Scheme is NOT HERE.
They have their own forum. Dude, USENET works just this way. The fact
that you Scheme freaks do nothing but raise hell here, anyway, and manage
perfectly without my help, provides clear evidence of the existence of an
underlying conflict. Newsgroups are _created_ in order to have people be
nice to eachother in a setting where they are not constantly under attack
from some anal-retentive assholes like yourself and other Scheme freaks.
| That is a fine example of "one-bit thinking".
No, dear one-bit person. You just see it that way. Q.E.D.
| He insists that this newsgroup is for Common Lisp ONLY
I do? Because I want Scheme, which has a Scheme-only newsgroup, actually
to use it to discuss Scheme? You see, dear one-bit person, just because
you have this magical inference engine that is churning out all sorts of
things that nobody argues, does not mean that you arrive at conclusions
that apply in this universe. This is _not_ a one-bit universe
| and that this is so blindingly obvious that the people who disagree must
| be either malicious or idiotic.
Scheme freaks who come here to answer Common Lisp questions with Scheme
answers certainly appear lacking in _several_ mental departments.
| I'm *perfectly* happy with fuzzy boundaries; but fuzziness means that
| there is going to be flexibility, giving and taking, and an openness to
| learning from other ways of doing things.
Would you be happy with my posting Common Lisp answers to every Scheme
question I care to answer in comp.lang.scheme, too? If not, why not?
Have you seen how the mentally unstable Scheme freaks respond to _any_
Common Lisp articles in their forum at all?
| Erik does not demonstrate that.
Really? Just because I disagree with you, and you refuse to budge a bit,
_I_ suddenly demonstrate lack of flexibility? Are you for real?
| Indeed, he pretends to be a "two bit" person in the very article in which
| he seems to articulate an iron wall between the one bit people and the
| two bit people.
Cute, but I actually said n-bit.
Thomas, grow up. Get over your inability to deal with disagreement and
my harsh responses to your stupidity. Just do _better_, act _smarter_.
Regressing to a whining child who tells lies about people who have not
hurt you just because you feel hurt leads to all sorts of conclusions
about your mental stability and capacity that do you no good in the long
run. Probably not the short run, either, but you would never see that.
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> AFAICT, all he wants is not having Scheme propaganda in cll. I
> sympathize with that very much. If you feel a need to tell people
> that Common Lisp sucks and Scheme doesn't, there is already a
> place where this is appropriate: comp.lang.scheme.
However, the thread started in the absence of any such "propaganda".
The propaganda is, as far as I can tell, a fantasy; it's just not
here.
> Trolls who denounce Lisp all the time here are going on my nerves.
Who are these people? I haven't seen *anyone* denounce Common Lisp
here. I'm told that Tom Lord used to, but he doesn't seem to be
around here at present.
> To me it is totally obvious that all he is telling you is that
> he doesn't want Scheme propaganda in cll and nor do I. Why do
> you insist on your ``right'' to post Scheme propaganda here?
I don't; I haven't posted *any* "Scheme propaganda".
Erik Naggum
| However, the thread started in the absence of any such "propaganda".
| The propaganda is, as far as I can tell, a fantasy; it's just not
| here.
The thread started when you joked about set! and I joked back with a
point about the difference between the Scheme and Common Lisp
communities, and joking called Common Lisp a real Lisp and Scheme a toy
Lisp, which caused you to blow your fuse and revert to a 5-year-old
kicking and screaming, inventing stuff you could attack other people for
because what they did in fact say could not keep your anger and your
stupid self-rightesous flaming going.
| Who are these people? I haven't seen *anyone* denounce Common Lisp here.
| I'm told that Tom Lord used to, but he doesn't seem to be around here at
| present.
Your observational skills are so questionable that whether you have seen
anyone do anything is completely irrelevant. You cannot even _report_
what other people say without confusing it with your own opinion and you
do not even read articles that disagree with your one-bit universe.
But why are you trying to force people to accept your view? Is not that
precisely what you attack me for, even though I do no such thing? You
seem to want to control other people's impressions of what constitues
Scheme propaganda and now what it means to denounce Common Lisp such that
people have to fight through your obstinate refusal to listen to what
people say. This is the very definition of a troll.
| I don't; I haven't posted *any* "Scheme propaganda".
Maybe it looks like it, like you think what I say looks like something I
do not recognize at all? Maybe you are nuts and your ability to predict
what people mean and infer is somehow out of sync? Maybe you are out of
control and so emotionally disturbed by what you perceive as hostilities
and personal attacks that you are no longer able to communicate at all?
To quote Tom Lehrer: "I wish people who have trouble communicating would
just shut up."
Rahul Jain
> Erik fulminates massively against the notion that Scheme is *is any
> way* relevant to comp.lang.lisp. He wants a *rigid* boundary, on
> which all the Scheme is NOT HERE.
If you read what he actually says, you'll realize that this is the
opposite of the truth.
--
-> -/ - Rahul Jain - \- <-
-> -\ http://linux.rice.edu/~rahul -=- mailto:rj...@techie.com /- <-
-> -/ "Structure is nothing if it is all you got. Skeletons spook \- <-
-> -\ people if [they] try to walk around on their own. I really /- <-
-> -/ wonder why XML does not." -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp \- <-
|--|--------|--------------|----|-------------|------|---------|-----|-|
(c)1996-2002, All rights reserved. Disclaimer available upon request.
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> tb+u...@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:
>
> > Erik fulminates massively against the notion that Scheme is *is any
> > way* relevant to comp.lang.lisp. He wants a *rigid* boundary, on
> > which all the Scheme is NOT HERE.
>
> If you read what he actually says, you'll realize that this is the
> opposite of the truth.
Then how, on earth, did we ever get here? Since I haven't seen anyone
trumpet Scheme here, with the exception of one offhand comment I made
about call/cc, what is Erik blathering about? He keeps saying I'm
blind, ignoring what's obvious, etc., and yet, there isn't any actual
reference to any actual words of mine (or anyone else) who is
trumpeting Scheme in the way he finds so offensive.
At this point, most of his articles (blessedly) escape my notice due
to the nifty automatic scoring of gnus.
Thomas
Rahul Jain
> Then how, on earth, did we ever get here? Since I haven't seen anyone
> trumpet Scheme here, with the exception of one offhand comment I made
> about call/cc, what is Erik blathering about?
Then what ON EARTH offended YOU? If nothing, WHY are you complaining?
Erik Naggum
| Then how, on earth, did we ever get here?
You blew your fuse when I said Scheme was a toy language. Before that,
you had compared Common Lisp to PL/1 and much other nastiness. I want to
be relieved of obnoxious trolls who attack the core reason for the
existence of the community. That means you, so you have a certain right
to feel singled out as a bad guy, but you actually _are_, whether you
want to accept it or not. And you can quit any time. I have asked you
to stop lying about what I want and say and do, just because you want to
get back at me for singling you out. Pretty damn childish and immature
of you, but you seem to be stuck in that behavioral pattern without any
idea how to get our of it. I sense a certain degree of panic in your
question, too.
| Since I haven't seen anyone trumpet Scheme here, with the exception of
| one offhand comment I made about call/cc, what is Erik blathering about?
How would you know what I write when you (1) do not read my articles, and
(2) do not comprehend the message in those you read? You have made up
your mind about what I think, and the only person that is _not_ able to
refute or change your views is -- me. Mostly likely, you will listen
only when somebody else says exactly the same thing I have said but
without mentioning my name. Erann Gat has this character flaw, too.
| He keeps saying I'm blind, ignoring what's obvious, etc., and yet, there
| isn't any actual reference to any actual words of mine (or anyone else)
| who is trumpeting Scheme in the way he finds so offensive.
And you know these things with certainty because you do _not_ read what I
write, right?
| At this point, most of his articles (blessedly) escape my notice due
| to the nifty automatic scoring of gnus.
You remain a prejudiced idiot in my view, but you make tho choice of
standing up in the crowd and announcing it. Self-incrimination can be
such a bonus to watch. Schadenfreude, was it?
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> tb+u...@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:
>
> > Then how, on earth, did we ever get here? Since I haven't seen anyone
> > trumpet Scheme here, with the exception of one offhand comment I made
> > about call/cc, what is Erik blathering about?
>
> Then what ON EARTH offended YOU? If nothing, WHY are you complaining?
I'm offended by being called an idiot, and the direct personal insults
that Erik likes to lob around. You know, the offensive stuff.
Thomas
Rahul Jain
> I'm offended by being called an idiot, and the direct personal insults
> that Erik likes to lob around. You know, the offensive stuff.
So you have the right to be offended because someone is offended by
your behavior? Maybe you should think about how this whole stupid
thing started and realize that you could have stopped it by simply
accepting what you deal out.
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> tb+u...@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:
>
> > I'm offended by being called an idiot, and the direct personal insults
> > that Erik likes to lob around. You know, the offensive stuff.
>
> So you have the right to be offended because someone is offended by
> your behavior? Maybe you should think about how this whole stupid
> thing started and realize that you could have stopped it by simply
> accepting what you deal out.
Um, "what I deal out"? I haven't said someone's an idiot, posted huge
posts filled with personal insults, etc, etc, etc.
If Erik wants to be offended by me, that's fine, and it doesn't offend
me.
What offends me is not his offense, but the manner in which he
expresses it.
Thomas
Barry Fishman
> In article <32251304...@naggum.net>, Erik Naggum wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Suppose I argue against "Scheme is a Lisp" with a one-bit person, and
>> either deny that this is true or actually say "Scheme is not a Lisp".
>> A one-bit person would not see this as different from "Scheme is
>> a non-Lisp" -- because to him, there can be no such difference.
>> I find this quite fantastically irrational, but I do not think a
>> lack of education can have caused it.
>
> Certainly not, I guess it is precisely the education that has caused
> it :-)
It is a nice simple alternative to refute a disturbing claim by just
ascribing it to be the product of a character flaw in its proponent.
People are always eager to accept the existence of flaws in others.
Its not unreasonable to build a mathematical structure to produce a
consistent way to talk about the relationships between computer
languages. But taken in pieces rather than from some comprehensive
model, is just a way of couching opinions in what looks like reason.
I think the scheme is lisp question is more a matter of labeling. Not
having a comprehensive model of computer language relationships, you
can draw your distinctions anywhere you like, and try to get others to
accept your conclusions. Dictionaries don't provide a consistent
definition of terms, they just provide documentation for how terms are
being used, (or how they were used in the past).
I don't think people will have problems with this abbreviated grouping
of languages:
(order-a (species-a common-lisp x-lisp maclisp emacs-lisp ...)
(species-b scheme-r5 scheme-r4 gnome ...))
Species-b has always been called scheme. I think most lisp people
would consider that species-a should be called lisp. The question is
then: What do you call order-a?
Some people feel that order-a is what should be given the label
lisp. But then they should feel obligated to give a reasonable label
to species-a.
I left out a genus level to avoid the question of intermediate
groupings, and where languages like dylan fit in. I used species to
mean that you can write non-trivial code that is acceptable to all the
interpreters/compilers, without modification.
My bias is that species-a should be called lisp, and there would be a
genus holding lisp, scheme, arc. that would be called lisp-like.
I follow biology in that it is the surface aspects of the language
that place it in the hierarchy, not its underlying mechanisms. Bats
and Birds may be similar in being built to fly, but they are
programmed (in the DNA) quite differently.
Barry Fishman
Erik Naggum
| I'm offended by being called an idiot, and the direct personal insults
| that Erik likes to lob around. You know, the offensive stuff.
I repeat myself, but please quit lying about me and what I say and do.
It is becoming increasingly clear to everyone here that you favor your
own personal attacks at me so highly that any consistency in your ethics
is no longer possible: What you do is right and what I do is wrong. Yet
what you do is clearly wrong no matter how much moral righteousness you
can muster. Governor George W. Bush was of the moral caliber that reacts
like "What!? He _murdered_ someone? Let's kill him!" and then he became
President and went "They harbored terrorists who were so angry at the
U.S. policies over many years that they _murdered_ 2500 of our people!!?
What horrible terror! Let's make it U.S. policy to murder 100,000 of
their people, and maybe they will stop wanting to retaliate!" I am quite
sad that such a _moron_ can become president of a country I once looked
up to, but with the approval rating that _idiot_ receives, I wonder what
is wrong with the entire culture and the American population. It also
explains why being an utter idiot in public is somehow more acceptable
among Americans, who now muster the most retarded moral justification for
their out-of-control anger and misdirected desire for revenge of the
people who _dare_ harm them because they act like idiots. Idiots on
USENET have become worse after the supreme idiot became president.
FYI: I do not _like_ to make people aware of their idiotic behavior. It
is necessary, because otherwise they get away with it (which they have
always done before, hence their current idiotic behavior) and behave even
worse. For most people, this works remarkably well -- they stop short of
being idiots long before anyone has to drag out large caliber "insults",
and they actually grasp what criticism of their behavior means and
entails. Only the idiots get called idiots, and they go on to prove it
with a vigor that, IF IT WERE REDIRECTED TO THINK CLEARLY, would earn
them a Nobel Prize in something.
So, Thomas Bushnell, just stop behaving like a stupid child who has never
experienced rejection of your beliefs -- it is not somebody else's fault
that you believe something that they do not accept. Scheme is no good
outside of comp.lang.scheme. Deal with it. If you do not, and repeat
more childish and stupid lies about other people, you must be corrected
each and every time. Acknowledge that you are exceptionally bad at
understanding what people say when they do not agree with you completely
from the outset, but we already have at least one example of a retard who
"completely agrees" with something, yet has no concept of what it means
to make use of his agreement. People like that have _serious_ mental
capacity problems, and the common phrase for this is precisely "idiot".
However, it is not something you _are_ for the rest of your life. JUST
ACT SMARTER AND DISPROVE THE CHARGE and you can even succeed in putting
it to shame. The more you keep confirming it with idiotic
counter-attacks, the more right I am about you. Non-idiots do not act
that way. It is that simple. Now, START TO THINK, DAMNIT!
Stop doing things that need to be corrected and criticized and you will
not be corrected and criticized. if you turn to _attack_ those who
correct and criticize you, you _are_ an idiot. Listen, learn, use your
brain. Above all, do not lose sight of the purpose you have when you
take part in a newsgroup community: It is _not_ to fight against those
who criticize you.
I fight you morons out of necessity, because idiots are more destructive
than anything else: They make it harder for people to share their
insight: having to respond to idiots who do not understand anything but
think they know more than others, is taxing on people, even if they do
not actually respond to them. Even the presence of one idiot in a group
of smart people can cause the whole group to deterioate. Nothing mankind
has done is worse than tolerance of idiocy, and that is basically what
"manners" are for, since intelligent people figure out what they want
from what they do and do not fight merely _against_ something they do not
like. I think Thomas Bushnell precisely _keeps_ fighting me because he
fights _against_ me and he has yet to figure out what my signature means.
On the other hand, I assume that you actually like to keep doing what you
do. It betrays a strange lack of ethics that depends on respecting
people before you can respect them, and if you suddenly do not, well, you
have no ethics at all. It also confirms something I believe very
strongly -- that some people are in need of a credible counter-force or
counter-threat in order to behave. If they think that their enemy cannot
hurt them, they use _unlimited_ force. Thomas Bushnell is the kind of
person who apparently thinks that he is not hurt by what he does, and
that my responses to his articles do not hurt him, either. If this does
not confirm my label "idiot" as applied to him, nothing will. But let's
get another round of self-incrimination from him on his journey to
enlightenment.
Erik Naggum
| If Erik wants to be offended by me, that's fine, and it doesn't offend me.
I keep saying that you need to be corrected and criticized when you keep
posting lies about other people. I keep arguing that your "disagreement"
argument is completely misguided -- it is about posting known falsehoods,
but this does not register with you, does it? You want to be free to
post lies and falsehoods and disinformation. Sorry, no can do. The
purpose of posting to a public forum is such that those who know better
than you do can correct you, and then you learn from them. It is quite
fantastically hostile to the core purpose of any exchange of information
to repeat known falsehoods. It wastes _everybody's_ time and is the most
supreme act of disrespect and and disregard for other people's values.
Only trolls think public fora exist for them to post known falsehoods for
the enjoyment of seeing reasonable, caring people react to them. I do
not know about your enjoyment, yet, but when you manage to invent that I
"like" calling you an idiot, it must come from somewhere. I presume it
is your own emotional state, that it gives you some sense of perverse
satisfaction to lie and misrpresent and denigrate me, Thomas Bushnell.
However, I think you are the "look what you made me do!" kine of person.
I do not consider it possible to offend me personally, but I think people
who _intend_ to offend others are morons, because to be "offended" by
what somebody else says appears to me to be _immensely_ useless, and
gives them far more credibility than they deserve. Therefore, I think
they confuse harsh treatment with offense and hostility. Now, knowing
what these people usually claim to have known beforehand (as if anyone
should be swayed by someone's prejudice, a serious mental illness that is
not treated medically, but should), what on earth prompted them to pick a
fight with me to begin with? What could possibly have caused a person to
be offended by the response to an idiotic act of aggression towards
someone who is "known" to respond harshly to idiotic behavior? There is
one possible conclusion: They really are staggeringly resounding evidence
of their own idiocy. Are there other conclusions?
It is the contents of what people say that I respond to, not their manner
(how could I?). However, false accusations, disinformation, intellectual
dishonesty of many kinds, all reduce the value of the forum in which they
are presented. I simply want people who do not value the forum and the
community in which they live to go away. Whether they spend their time
denouncing the community effort and the basis of its existence or they
invade us from another community with a serious lack of self-esteem, so
they have to denounce what other people value in order to feel good about
their own, probably wrong, choices, they are equally unwelcome. I want
to welcome people who come to a community and wonder "what is it that you
value? what do you agree on?" and I want the "your values are all wrong,
your decisions are bad" crowd to go away and/or die. People have come
together because they believe in a few things and not in others. Make
these things explicit to those who want to know, argue their case to make
things clear, and those who disagree _after_ they understand are free to
offer suggestions in the spirit of what they understand. Those who offer
suggestions in their own spirit, only, and who disagree _before_ they
understand are anathema to any serious community or forum.
I find it strange to watch a person conclude that he must disrespect
another for his own fabrications of what that other person has done and
said. I find it even stranger to see someone gain magical insight into
another person's intentions and desires and use that as the basis for his
attacks. Yet, the strangest thing of all happens to people who I think
are seriously lacking in intelligence: Their brain seems to latch into a
curious state where the principle is "I think about this, therefore it
exists" as opposed to a non-psychotic, rational mode of thinking that
goes "this exists, therefore I think about it". In the literature, this
is usually considered a "psychotic break", or simply "going nuts'. It is
a curious thing to watch happen to people, indeed.
| What offends me is not his offense, but the manner in which he expresses
| it.
You are the _only_ person responsible for what offends you. Stop being
offended. If you use your emotional response as the reason to want to
control other people and the reason for your attacks (note that they are
no longer counter-attacks -- you lie about me without provocation), you
have a very serious personality disorder that needs urgent attention.
But overall, I think this is a "look what you made me do" kind of idiocy.
Sot the only possible advice to Thomas Bushnell is: Accept responsibility
for your own actions and emotional reactions. What you feel and what you
do cannot _possibly_ be anybody else's fault. Feelings of revenge are
perfectly OK. Acts of revenge are proof positive of an idiot at work.
Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
> It is becoming increasingly clear to everyone here that you favor your
> own personal attacks at me so highly that any consistency in your ethics
> is no longer possible:
Personally, I'd prefer if you didn't speak for me on this issue.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
la...@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen