Fred Gilham <gil...@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> writes: > You can call this arrogance, ego or whatever you want. But that won't > change it. If you don't come to grips with the above, you will waste > time in futile efforts to convince Erik that his behavior is uncivil, > because he doesn't care if it is or not when other things he values > more are at stake.
I think that anyone who has been following this group for a while knows that ultimately it is a waste of time to try and change Erik. He is what he is.
However, that should not stop one from calling out bad (ney, immoral) behaviour when one sees it.
Or to be precise: *I* am compelled to point it out, and not let it slide on by, at least when it crosses a certain threshold.
The catalyst this time? Erik waxing on about the duties of good public speaking. The nerve!
> But I don't expect to change him by yelling at him.
The only real yelling going on is from Erik. That is the essential problem, really. Freaking out is ok for him, while the slightest disagreement about his behaviour from anyone else is an unjustified attack against him.
> One more thing. Erik claims that his detractors don't care about > civility either. That's because they themselves are willing to > sacrifice civility when they are offended. This is a good point.
A good point only if they are being uncivil. I don't believe I have been, for example. To be fair, Erik also thinks that his tantrums are not uncivil either (or more accurately, they are justified responses to unprovoked attacks).
-- Cheers, The Rhythm is around me, The Rhythm has control. Ray Blaak The Rhythm is inside me, bl...@telus.net The Rhythm has my soul.
On Sat, 05 Oct 2002 06:25:57 +0200, Pascal Costanza <costa...@web.de> said:
[...] PC> first make positive statements before stating the actual PC> criticism
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. So once a physicist became very upset after a workshop---the reason being Bohr's remark about his talk that `this is very interesting.' Also, Bohr liked to begin his comments with the words, `I don't mean to criticize.' On reading a completely worthless paper, he exclaimed, `I don't mean to criticize, I just cannot understand how someone could write such rubbish!'
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.
Fred Gilham wrote: > Many people are civil because they want to be liked and accepted. > Erik doesn't care if he's liked and accepted.
Why would you say this about someone who turns hysterical and verbally abusive in response to even mild and polite criticism?
In fact, he cares so much about his image, he brags about his pseudo-intellectualism non-stop: "my 1200+ library", "40+ O'Reilly books I own", "when I sit down to study the superstring theory", etc. (The last one made me laugh out loud when I read it: I got a degree from MIPT (the one Landau et.al. had founded), and to the best of my ability to judge people, even supposing that a phoney like that could study theor-phys is ridiculous)
Let's not be naive here. Erik is just a sicko. And I doubt that he can stop being one.
What's sad is that his trolling and unprofessionalism drives the whole newsgroup down there with him, simply because normal people tend not to stay, while sock puppets do. This creates a positive feedback (in the mathematical sense), making the newsgroup even less attractive to those seeking intelligent discussion, and so on. Hopefully, you get the picture. (Or at least this is my hypothesis as to why this comp.lang.lisp is so uncivilized compared to other comp.lang.* groups of similar or even larger sizes) [1]
Oleg
[1] Bjarnee Stroustrup wrote somewhere on his web page about how the average quality of computer language communities decreases with their size.
* Erik Naggum | People who openly favor lynch mobs are not evidencing mental health. | People who actually congregate for mutual support, do not turn hateful.
* Ray Blaak | Lynched. You think you are being lynched. [stunned silence] I marvel at your | reality disconnect.
Fascinating. You think I think I am being lynched. What could possibly have possessed a person to reach such an insane conclusion?
| Sweet jesus, man! If you think you are being lynched, just what in holy | hell do you call your moron elimination tactics?
A call for peace from those who have nothing whatsoever of value to offer this forum with regards to its actual purpose.
Go away, Ray Blaak.
-- 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.
* Erann Gat | What I hoped to achieve was to be able to conduct a conversation with you | without it degenerating into insults.
So quit being so fucking obnoxious and annoying, you pestering idiot.
| I hoped to make you see that you engage in the same behavior that you | decry in others. It is astonishing to me that anyone can read (or write) | the paragraph above and not be rocked by its blatant hypocricy.
Of course you are. Mirrors are forbidden in certain places because of you.
| Many people whom I believe could make constructive contributions here have | fled c.l.l. because of you.
I have to fight /someone/. You are one of them at a large number of occasions. Take some responsibility for your own goddamn evil behavior.
| I know because they have sent me private emails encouraging my efforts | here.
Ah, Brilliant. You're a fucking /saint/ on a holy mission from God to save the world. And there are nutjobs insane enough to cheer you on!
| I hoped to change things so that they might return.
Quit attacking me. Quit attracking the other nutjobs in more fights.
| I hoped to change things so that visitors to c.l.l. would not made to | feel like pariahs for taking umbrage when someone calls them a shithead.
How about how I feel after yet another round of you evil bastards?
Such selective sympathy is a good symptom of true evil.
| Now I have had my fill of it for a while, so I am going walkabout (again) | where there be not Naggums (to paraphrase one of the people who has | written me privately concerning my efforts here).
Good. Leave us alone for good.
| If there's anyone left out there who still cares about what I have to | say, my email address is g...@jpl.nasa.gov.
Fuck off, Erann Gat. This time, it was your fault that Ray Blaak and Raffael Cavallero got back here and started with their fantastically evil behavior, once again.
-- 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.
* Pascal Costanza | In fact there is considerable evidence that this way of criticizing people | is much more effective.
You talk about something entirely different. People who commit crimes and cause people real loss, are /not/ met with with what you suggest.
I am somewhat surprised that you think this is the same thing.
Have you read any of these fights at all? Have you actually /read/ the article I write that causes the morons to attack me? Or do you not remember it because it was precisely what people here favor?
The fact of the matter is, some people here continue to fight me regardless of what I do. I am always blamed when someone feels bad, regardless of whether it is reasonable or not. Take a close look at these two articles and /try/ to reach a conclusion that does not depend on prejudice:
<uv64rc8ppn8....@suspiria.ai.mit.edu> in which Jeremy H. Brown fueled the current feud with this moronic comment: "PS Is Erik Naggum always so full of poisonous bile?" which he apparently thought was an OK thing to "ask" in this forum because of the shitheads that hang around here and talk about me all the time.
<3242217481874...@naggum.no> in which I respond to his "religious" argument among others. That is what he rates as "poisonous bile" because the other article I wrote to him, elicited no such response.
<3242172686385...@naggum.no> is a simple response to a silly question like "Where's the harm?"
Now tell me, where did this guy get the idea that I was full of poisonous bile? What I had I /done/ to him? How rational and reasonable was his response to what I had written?
Am I the only person on this planet who considers the /irrationality/ of people who have nothing whatsoever to offer but hate messages directed at me? I ask you people, and especially the bastards whose sense of justice is so warped they /encourage/ Erann Gat, had this person been able to think I was full of poisonous bile based on his /own/ observations, or did he need community approval of his hatred before he could lower himself to such a depth that he could ask that "question"? In light of his brief experience with the forum, I should say it was an innocent question asked because others had already validated it with their constant harrassment of me.
I DO NOT ATTACK PEOPLE FOR NO REASON! I do not attack people at all, in fact. What had I /done/ to Jeremy H. Brown to deserve his response? What had I /done/ to Erann Gat, Ray Blaak, and Raffael Cavallero, our resident evil, this time to warrant their hateful, destructive messages?
| I also have to admit that I don't know a lot about the "history" of the | arguments in c.l.l. So maybe my point is not so relevant in this | context. (Sorry in advance if that's the case.)
Our resident evil bastards attack me for their own hurt feelings in feuds past, not because of anything I do. Read what I write, for God's sake, and you will see that I am /not/ attacking those who do not badmouth me first. If they do not like how I try to help and correct them, tell me, but do they /have/ to engage in all-out hate campaigns against me?
And to think that some people are so /indecent/ as to encourage Erann Gat. /That/ will truly take me some time to get over. Presuming that shithead is not lying, of course.
-- 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.
* 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.
* Fred Gilham | I regret very much his chronic feuds with Erann Gat, for example.
* Erann | So do I.
My God! Look at yourself! You start them, you feed them, you do not quit. I have to stop responding to you before you go away, again.
| What would you have me change?
Stop being so fucking obnoxious and annoying, you pestering idiot.
| No, it isn't. But since you are such an admirer or Erik's style I think | I'll emulate it a bit and not explain why it's not a good point and just | tell you to go think about it.
You could not emulate my style if your life depended on it. Quit making it my fault that you cannot behave the way you want me to behave.
-- 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.
* Oleg | Why would you say this about someone who turns hysterical and verbally | abusive in response to even mild and polite criticism?
I ask that question each time someone goes postal for a simple correction.
| In fact, he cares so much about his image, he brags about his pseudo- | intellectualism non-stop:
This is so false it is instead quite telling about your prejudicial nature.
| "when I sit down to study the superstring theory", etc. (The last one | made me laugh out loud when I read it: I got a degree from MIPT (the one | Landau et.al. had founded), and to the best of my ability to judge | people, even supposing that a phoney like that could study theor-phys is | ridiculous)
Yes, the best of your ability to judge people. Indeed.
| What's sad is that his trolling and unprofessionalism drives the whole | newsgroup down there with him, simply because normal people tend not to | stay, while sock puppets do.
Are you a sock puppet, then?
-- 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.
>>> However, it is more correct that I do not think being liked and >>> accepted >>> should take predence to technical matters /in a technical forum/. It >>> would be inconceivable for me to say "I like you as a person, but you >>> post misinformation about Common Lisp in comp.lang.lisp". I think that >>> would be about as likely as a stock broker saying "I like you as a >>> person, >>> but you give your customers really bad stock advice", or a priest >>> saying >>> to another "I really like you as a person, but could you please cut >>> down >>> on murdering abortion doctors?"
>> In fact there is considerable evidence that this way of criticizing >> people is much more effective. <snip>... this always turned out to be >> _far_ more >> effective than for example the "standard" conference experience where >> people usually just criticize in a blunt negative way.
> What measure do you have on effectiveness?
I don't understand this question. Why do you need a measure?
Erik Naggum wrote: > * Pascal Costanza > | In fact there is considerable evidence that this way of criticizing people > | is much more effective.
> You talk about something entirely different. People who commit crimes > and cause people real loss, are /not/ met with with what you suggest.
?!? Yes, they are. Criminals and even murderers are treated by psychotherapists like that (at least in Germany, but I guess also elsewhere). I think there's a reason for that.
> regardless of whether it is reasonable or not. Take a close look at > these two articles and /try/ to reach a conclusion that does not depend > on prejudice:
> <uv64rc8ppn8....@suspiria.ai.mit.edu> > in which Jeremy H. Brown fueled the current feud with this moronic > comment: "PS Is Erik Naggum always so full of poisonous bile?" which he > apparently thought was an OK thing to "ask" in this forum because of the > shitheads that hang around here and talk about me all the time.
[...]
> Now tell me, where did this guy get the idea that I was full of poisonous > bile? What I had I /done/ to him? How rational and reasonable was his > response to what I had written?
Your response started with a very good suggestion. You have strongly suggested to him to read Keene's book and reassured him by saying how rewarding this would turn out to be. I think this was a very positive and constructive way of dealing with the issue.
However, after that, in the same message, you have also diminished your efforts. In this very example, Jeremy has previously made some statements about why CLOS can be hard to grasp and can be perceived as being very complex. I can relate to this statement, it _is_ hard for a beginner to understand CLOS, especially when you have been misdirected by other OO languages. In your reply you started to use the swear word "bullshit"; several of your statements about the simplicity and elegance of CLOS can be perceived to have the subtext that you think that Jeremy is just not intelligent enough to understand them; especially the statement "It is just complex, and you have decided not to deal with it." can be regarded as a personal attack. I guess that Jeremy has the general feeling that he is capable of dealing with complexity and that he has not "just given up".
In this example, I think that concentrating purely on positive reinforcement and suggestions for improvement would have been more effective. Especially, I think that the first paragraph of your reply would have done the job if it would have been your only response. I don't think your statements where intended to be insulting, but they can be perceived as such. I am convinced that, when in doubt, it's better to omit statements that are ambiguous on this level (with regard to possibly being perceived as insults or not).
> I DO NOT ATTACK PEOPLE FOR NO REASON! I do not attack people at all, in > fact. What had I /done/ to Jeremy H. Brown to deserve his response? > What had I /done/ to Erann Gat, Ray Blaak, and Raffael Cavallero, our > resident evil, this time to warrant their hateful, destructive messages?
I have only reread the thread that involves Jeremy. I don't know about the others.
> | I also have to admit that I don't know a lot about the "history" of the > | arguments in c.l.l. So maybe my point is not so relevant in this > | context. (Sorry in advance if that's the case.)
> Our resident evil bastards attack me for their own hurt feelings in feuds > past, not because of anything I do. Read what I write, for God's sake, > and you will see that I am /not/ attacking those who do not badmouth me > first. If they do not like how I try to help and correct them, tell me, > but do they /have/ to engage in all-out hate campaigns against me?
Well, from what I have read so far I have the impression that your way of argueing is pretty non-standard. All non-standard behavior causes irritations in people just and purely because it is non-standard, but for no other reason at all. This is a natural reaction of people and you can't do anything against it, in my opinion.
> And to think that some people are so /indecent/ as to encourage Erann > Gat. /That/ will truly take me some time to get over. Presuming that > shithead is not lying, of course.
I am not sure if you are talking about me here?!? I don't encourage anyone to involve in arguments. I haven't had any problems with Erann so far - to the contrary, I have perceived him as being very helpful, for example with my Lisp guide. So I would really like to see him continue to participate in c.l.l.
>>>> However, it is more correct that I do not think being liked and >>>> accepted >>>> should take predence to technical matters /in a technical forum/. It >>>> would be inconceivable for me to say "I like you as a person, but you >>>> post misinformation about Common Lisp in comp.lang.lisp". I think >>>> that >>>> would be about as likely as a stock broker saying "I like you as a >>>> person, >>>> but you give your customers really bad stock advice", or a priest >>>> saying >>>> to another "I really like you as a person, but could you please >>>> cut down >>>> on murdering abortion doctors?"
>>> In fact there is considerable evidence that this way of criticizing >>> people is much more effective. <snip>... this always turned out to be >>> _far_ more >>> effective than for example the "standard" conference experience where >>> people usually just criticize in a blunt negative way.
>> What measure do you have on effectiveness?
> I don't understand this question. Why do you need a measure?
Sorry for the argumentative phrasing. I was actually wondering what observables (there I go again) supported the assertion that kindler gentler (my words) criticism was more effective.
Mind you, I agree! In the example I gave, the teacher's approach made the student feel better about being criticized (and so continue with their training) and also be less defensive (hence more open to the ideas presented).
So I was just wondering what positive changes were observed. Was it much the same? Speakers more receptive to criticism in that, instead of arguing defensively, they calmly answered or assented to criticism?
>> I don't understand this question. Why do you need a measure?
> Sorry for the argumentative phrasing. I was actually wondering what > observables (there I go again) supported the assertion that kindler > gentler (my words) criticism was more effective.
> Mind you, I agree! In the example I gave, the teacher's approach made > the student feel better about being criticized (and so continue with > their training) and also be less defensive (hence more open to the ideas > presented).
> So I was just wondering what positive changes were observed. Was it much > the same? Speakers more receptive to criticism in that, instead of > arguing defensively, they calmly answered or assented to criticism?
Yes, something along these lines. It's not something you can measure quantitatively, I think. I have just made the experience that I was more open to criticism, others were more open to my criticism, and many people told me about similar experiences.
Pascal Costanza wrote: > I guess that Jeremy has the > general feeling that he is capable of dealing with complexity and that > he has not "just given up".
Well, he /did/ make the rather funny "CLOS is hard. Let's go shopping" subject change.
And he /did/ pen: "I've always gotten frustrated with its complexity while reading the spec and wound up ignoring most of it.", kind of a smoking gun on the "giving up" charge.
Me, I find specs hard to read, but Jeremy also in sum admitted to making his assessment without having read Keene, so....
You know, I just noticed today that JB owned the "let's go shopping" line. Was he poking fun at his own laziness, or was the whole article a satire? hmmm....
> In this example, I think that concentrating purely on positive > reinforcement and suggestions for improvement would have been more > effective.
A number of folks, myself included, indeed made kindler gentler responses. Jeremy responded only to quibble with one bit of one article and take a swipe at Erik. Until then I thought EN's tone had been a little harsh. Not after. Maybe he read JB more quickly/accurately than the rest of us?
>> I guess that Jeremy has the general feeling that he is capable of >> dealing with complexity and that he has not "just given up".
> Well, he /did/ make the rather funny "CLOS is hard. Let's go shopping" > subject change.
> And he /did/ pen: "I've always gotten frustrated with its complexity > while reading the spec and wound up ignoring most of it.", kind of a > smoking gun on the "giving up" charge.
OK, you're right - when taking the message into account Jeremy responded to, it seems to be more likely that he thinks that CLOS is too hard and too complex, and that it's better to not deal with CLOS. It's quite adequate to refute this notion.
>> In this example, I think that concentrating purely on positive >> reinforcement and suggestions for improvement would have been more >> effective.
> A number of folks, myself included, indeed made kindler gentler > responses. Jeremy responded only to quibble with one bit of one article > and take a swipe at Erik. Until then I thought EN's tone had been a > little harsh. Not after. Maybe he read JB more quickly/accurately than > the rest of us?
Perhaps. A little googling reveals that Jeremy actually seems to be a Scheme supporter. Participating in a newsgroup for a language I don't like and complaining about this language is impolite, to say the least.
But even then I think that a more "positive" approach would have been more effective, at least for those who pay less attention. (But you're right, my argument gets weaker in the given context.)
Pascal Costanza <costa...@web.de> wrote in news:ann3al$5vf$1 @newsreader2.netcologne.de:
> But even then I think that a more "positive" approach would have been > more effective, at least for those who pay less attention. (But you're > right, my argument gets weaker in the given context.)
With children I would agree with you. But with an adult this is at best a false kindness, in many cases I think it actualy does harm to the person you are being "nice" to. Remember a big part of being an adult is to accept responability for your actions, personal and professional. Not bust the chops of people who are kind enough to debug(or debunk) my work in a useful way. By useful way I mean your code/design/haircut sucks _and here is why_, so I get a list of my mistakes and can correct them if I feel they are accurate. Now if I required people to be "nice" to me when they point this out I am harming myself by pissing off the people who provide me with very useful info. This is really fuckking stupid, yes it goes beyond very stupid. Furthermore I would consider it a hostile act if some 3rd party started telling people to be "nice" when correcting me and thereby causing my errors to not be exposed and then fixed.
I like to be right and the only way to be right is to work through the stage where I get it wrong. People who help me go through it faster are doing me a great service. And people who say I needed to be treated like a spoiled child are not, regardless of there intent.
Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes: > * Ray Blaak > | However, that should not stop one from calling out bad (ney, immoral) > | behaviour when one sees it.
> Ah, you think it is moral of yourself to attack me and immoral of myself > to defend myself from your unfair hatred. Amazing reality break.
Defend away. I had no problem with your post for example.
It is not the "what" I object to, it was the "how".
-- Cheers, The Rhythm is around me, The Rhythm has control. Ray Blaak The Rhythm is inside me, bl...@telus.net The Rhythm has my soul.
Oleg <oleg_no_spam_ple...@columbia.edu> writes: > [1] Bjarnee Stroustrup wrote somewhere on his web > page about how the average quality of computer > language communities decreases with their size.
neither simple direct nor simple inverse can accurately describe the relationship between quality and quantity. in this case, all meaning hinges on "average" which is a recognized weasel-word.
* Pascal Costanza | ?!? Yes, they are. Criminals and even murderers are treated by | psychotherapists like that (at least in Germany, but I guess also | elsewhere). I think there's a reason for that.
Look, my patience with this topic is limited and the incessant discussion about my person in this newsgroup is really fucking annoying. The least you can do is pay attention and try to stay focused, OK?
If they call in /psychotherapists/ in order to be friendly to people who have done something wrong, /you prove my point/. Normal people do not treat these wrong-doers that way. Or do you seriously want people on this newsgroup to become trained psychotherapists before they answer articles from annoying ignorants?
People here offer their advice for free. Even your psychotherapists get paid to be nice. When their help is received with hostility, they have a goddamn /right/ to feel snubbed, disrespected, and mistreated. People here (with the exception of the resident evil) use this forum to further a particular purpose in a broad sense: Programming in (Common) Lisp. If you are so easily distracted that you cannot focus on this purpose, it is not a good idea to expose yourself to distractions.
| Your response started with a very good suggestion. You have strongly | suggested to him to read Keene's book and reassured him by saying how | rewarding this would turn out to be. I think this was a very positive and | constructive way of dealing with the issue.
Glad you see it.
| However, after that, in the same message, you have also diminished your | efforts.
No, you think I have diminished my efforts. If your purpose is to do programming in Common Lisp, where is your focus? You focus on things that "diminish my efforts". People who actually want to program in Common Lisp will know how to use the information they have received productively to their own ends. You have a higher goal than programming in Common Lisp, however. I think you should be aware of this and manage to see things in perspective. Being a German, I expect you to value form higher than function and politeness higher than actual communication.
| In your reply you started to use the swear word "bullshit";
Oh, my goodness, a "swear word"! Obviously, this is so important to you that you lose focus and get seriously distracted. Whose responsibility is that? Someone who posts something that is clearly his negative opinion about something that others value highly must /expect/ a harsh response to such negativism. I think "bullshit" is a quite appropriate response to people who post their personal negativism as if it were fact. Clearly, if you do not value what others have denigrated, you would not be able to understand that it is a hostile move on their part, and if you are really dumb, you only think people use "swear words" without cause and are /satisfied/ to condemn the use of "swear words" without further investigation as to their cause. People of the absolutist persuasion also tend to have lists of words that you cannot use lest you be condemned to Hell. I find such people mildly entertaining and watch their tortured response to simple words with considerable amusement, but that is in real life, and I do not engage them. When a person lives in a cage in a zoo of his own creation, one should take care not to annoy the caged animal. However, on the Net, the caged animal has chosen to wander out into the great wide open with his zoo-cage mentality intact and does not deserve any respect fot his mentality.
You know a lot about a person if you can predict accurately when he stops investigating something and is /satisfied/ with what he has found out and believes to be the cause. People are in no small part /defined/ by what causes them to close their investigations, whether about other people or about individual events. A person who closes a case after he has found a scapegoat is a seriously inferior human.
| perceived to have the subtext that you think that Jeremy is just not | intelligent enough to understand them
You have been reading this newsgroup for a while, right? Whenever did I need a subtext to say what I think about someone's intellectual capacity? So get real, please.
| especially the statement "It is just complex, and you have decided not to | deal with it." can be regarded as a personal attack.
Gimme a fucking break! You /got/ to be making this shit up on the spot!
| I guess that Jeremy has the general feeling that he is capable of dealing | with complexity and that he has not "just given up".
If he has, he would not have any problems with a difference of opinion on this aspect. He would be momentarily puzzled that people would conclude this and ask for their reasons if he /really/ cared or he would simply do some work to explain why he had concluded what he had. It would still be a professional exchange among professionals. Taking it personally is his /first/ mistake and indicates a lack of purpose to his participation.
If he is terribly insecure and does not /really/ think himself able to deal with complex issues, but needs affirmation of his conclusion that "CLOS is too hard" in order to feel better about himself, he should be prepared not to get that affirmation from people who disagree with him and refuse to engage in touchy-feely group hugs. If he really approaches other people in order to get those group hugs, doing it in /writing/ is a very serious, even fundamental mistake. This is not a support group where people's shortcomings are supposed to be validated and approved. If someone have problems getting something to work, we help him make it work, not make him feel better about it not working. If you need the latter, look for alt.support.lisp.
This is a group about programming in Common Lisp. If you walk in on a support group and say "I can't hack it", people will care about you and validate your failure and say encouraging things. However, if you walk in on a technical group of people and exclaim that "it is too hard" to people who have been through the learning process, you do not talk about /yourself/ and /your own problems/, you make statements about the /tools/ that other professionals use with great benefit. Now, if you think that Usenet is a giant support group complete with group hugs, /you got it wrong/ and getting such a mistake fixed can indeed be painful, but you /do not attack people who correct you/ no matter how you feel about it.
I maintain that once you go out on the Net, you should behave the same way you do when you leave the safe confines of your home. You can no longer be naked and neglect to shower and stink on people, for instance, nor can you expect to be able to accomplish everything in a dirty sweat suit. You also leave your personal problems at home and do /not/ bother stranges with them. If you scream and shout because someone used a "swear word", /you/ are the nutcase. If you physically attack people who have used a word you do not tolerate or a tone you do not like, or you cause a public disturbance in order to "defend" a "victim" of "abuse", and you keep going at this, /you/ get to see the inside of a jail cell, not the person who was supposedly abusive. The same applies here on the Net: If you purposefully create a massive disturbance over something, /you/ are the offender and the aggressor. Luckily society in general tends to react much, much stronger to those who disturb the peace over something they cannot handle than the supposed offence, or we would have ongoing wars all over the place with people wrecking stores and public buildings because someone thought someone else was "abusive". People who reach for their weaponry when somebody else is "abusive" are ipso facto dangerous and deranged lunatics because they can attack anyone at any time when their "sensibilities" are offended. Society locks such people up and prevent them from attacking normal people. However, many think that since they can venture out into the great wide open that is Usenet from their home or some other secluded space, they can behave the way they would in solitude. It has been said that one should try to imagine the person behind the other screen, but I think that would be much too private. Even Madonna has been reported to regret her much too private exposures.
| In this example, I think that concentrating purely on positive | reinforcement and suggestions for improvement would have been more | effective.
But you imply that he is not at fault for his own negativism. I mean, the guy is stupid enough to invoke "religious". Where are the positive reinforcements and suggestions in that? Do you seriously think that people should always respond positively to absolutely anything they read, but one who does not is not to blame unless that person is me? Why do you not fight those who attack /me/ so viciously and tell them to be nice ans positive towards /me/? Why this selectivity? Why is it /my/ fault that he is not positive about Common Lisp? Why is it /my/ responsibility to make him feel better when he can offend me and others at liberty and /he/ goes scot free for his hostile reaction to me? Why is your theory of positive reinforcement so selectivy applied? If being negative does not accomplish what being positive can be, you are looking at reactions to /his/ negativity right in the eye. These things are universally valid or they universally invalid. Selective application and throwing blame around is so unprofessional that people who engage in it should be shot.
| Especially, I think that the first paragraph of your reply would have | done the job if it would have been your only response.
>> I regret very much his chronic feuds with Erann Gat, for >> example.
> So do I.
I am sorry, Sir, but with all possible respect: I simply do not believe you. I think you enjoy it. You enjoy every bit of it.
I thought a lot about Erik: How is it possible that a man with a sharp analytical brain like his, is not able to understand very simple things? Then I understood.
It is a pity that you do not speak Hungarian. One of our greatest poets, who Erik resembles to some extent, wrote in one of his most beautiful poems "what would happen, what could happen, if the terrible clutch of reason always wounded ourselves?"
(It sounds quite good in Hungarian.)
You are not a newbie in this NG and you have known Erik for a long time. So it is really up to you to stop it as you can control this. What I wrote is not a moral judgement though.
-- J.... B....
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* Pascal Costanza | I don't understand this question. Why do you need a measure?
Because even though people may feel better and rate something very effective, a person who feels less well and rates it ineffective may in fact have done better according to more objective measures. This is actually fairly obvious if you think about it. People who feel well tend to make positive judgments and people who do not feel well tend to make negative judgments about the same facts. Look at some of the people in this newsgroup, for instance. Some people see mostly my contributions and ignore the noise of the idiotic flame wars. Others see only the idiotic flame wars and ignore the noise of my other contributions. Which is correct? If I am responding technically and to the point but use a "cold" language, some people only feel the "cold" and go bananas without even seeing the technical contents. (I think it is important to sort these people out.)
People who feel stronger than they can handle intellectually actually tend to give wildly inaccurate, even erroneous, data about /everything/ they feel about. Please note that how much emotion we can handle and still keep thinking straight varies dramatically from person to person. However, people who need to feel good in order to accomplish anything at all have a very low threshold above which thinking clearly is not an option. Data from these people would be completely useless without an external measure of the qualities they comment on.
Take this "Oleg" character, for instance, who has a very firm image of what and who I am, and who seeks confirmation of this firm image and who rejects counter-evidence by laughing hard and claiming I am a fraud. How did he arrive at his prejudicial view of another person? Clearly, he is unable to deal intellectually with the emotional responses he has had and has to rationalize an image of another person that fits his emotions. This unintelligent process of vilification is found in the other cretins, too, and there is solid evidence that they do not respond to what I do, they respond to anything that they feel confirms their image of me and then they have to speak out. Thus, their own negative prejudice causes them to act in such a way as to confirm it. This is the same with all forms of such amazingly unintelligent prejudice and is most visible in racism, which is a recognized social ill. Expression of racial hatred is illegal because it would disturb the peace and cause social unrest. The same property applies to the retarded prejudice of Ray Blaak, Erann Gat, and Raffael Cavallero, who definitely disturb the peace and cause social unrest by posting their hate-filled prejudice. They even think they are civil, and think it is non-inflammatory to describe people "objectively" in severely derogatory terms. What would happen to these people if they had used exactly the same language about blacks? Would they survive? Would anyone for a second doubt that they were engaged in hate crimes?
The task of becoming able to function under the influence of emotions rests heavily upon all of us. All but a small percentage of the adult population can handle it and are fully able to function and reason well whether they feel excellent, good, bad, or terrible. People lose their parents, their jobs, their homes, and still function, often well. People pull themselves together and act professionally in the face of the direst of straits. However, some people cease to function normally when they are offended and immediately lose track of reasonable means to measure what they like or dislike. People of this fickle mental stability are untrustworthy when reporting even simple facts, as they have already blown some largely irrelevant issues completely out of proportion.
One way to describe mental illness is to regard out intellectual ability to deal with the flow of emotions and see that people function well and make correct decisions and produce predictable results when the flow of emotions is under a certain threshold, and lose it when it reachs that threshold, at which time their emotions produce more input to their decision-making than every other source of input. At this point, they start to see things that do not exist but which /should/ have existed if the flow of emotions were an accurate signal. This form of psychosis may be experienced by absolutely everyone under sufficient stress, but I have not found any evidence of it occuring from outside stress alone. The "internal" stress produced by anger, moral indignation, reactions to unfairness and mistreatment, where the main emotional reaction is one of a serious conflict with what they expect and actually experience which in most people produce a massive desire to make the world understandable according to their pre-existing precept, but in some people, or under some conditions, cause them to become acutely aware of their surroundings with exceptional clarity. You /really/ want this latter type in crises.
But back to your question: The reason you need measures is mainly to adjust and monitor your ability to function and reason well under the influence of emotions. If you lack an accuate method of measurement, you /will/ believe that what makes you feel good is also the most efficacious and what makes you feel bad the least, as the whole purpose of emotions is to provide instantaneous feedback on the effectiveness of what you do, but if you are in a situation for which you have not (been) trained and the effectiveness of each of the vast array of possible choices of action is unknown, you will primarily feel confused and uncertain and anything that restores a sense of being in control will /feel/ efficacious, but then the gravest danger is to assume that no other choice would have produced the exact same result. People who fall into this trap are very hard to teach other ways of doing things, because they fear the sense of being out of control more than anything else. That is why they chose the first action that sprang to mind and which made them feel good. If these people are corrected, they are implicitly forced to return to a state of bewildered indecision and lack of efficacy with respect to their choice of action. For some people, this state produces an acute interest in finding things out, but for most people it is painful and they want to get out of it as soon as possible. I tend to assume that people will want to find out what went wrong when they revert to this state, and have an interest in debugging themselves when it happens. This does not mean that what you find out will necessarily help solve the problem -- people are something simply broken and evil or both, but most things in physical reality are predictable enough that this can be a rewarding state of mind -- given sufficiently good methods of measurement of effectiveness.
-- 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.
Erik Naggum wrote: > * Pascal Costanza > | ?!? Yes, they are. Criminals and even murderers are treated by > | psychotherapists like that (at least in Germany, but I guess also > | elsewhere). I think there's a reason for that.
> Look, my patience with this topic is limited and the incessant discussion > about my person in this newsgroup is really fucking annoying. The least > you can do is pay attention and try to stay focused, OK?
I am terribly sorry, but you have brought up the analogy, not me.
> If they call in /psychotherapists/ in order to be friendly to people who > have done something wrong, /you prove my point/. Normal people do not > treat these wrong-doers that way. Or do you seriously want people on > this newsgroup to become trained psychotherapists before they answer > articles from annoying ignorants?
No.
> | Your response started with a very good suggestion. You have strongly > | suggested to him to read Keene's book and reassured him by saying how > | rewarding this would turn out to be. I think this was a very positive and > | constructive way of dealing with the issue.
> Glad you see it.
> | However, after that, in the same message, you have also diminished your > | efforts.
> No, you think I have diminished my efforts.
Yes, I think you have diminished your efforts. I take it for granted that I can only talk about what I think and feel about things.
In my previous message, I have just tried to give a (tentative) answer to some of your questions. (Quote: "Now tell me, where did this guy get the idea that I was full of poisonous bile? What I had I /done/ to him?")
I don't really think that you are "full of poisonous bile". You really want to be helpful and give good advice. I only think that you have an unusual arguing style, and this causes irritations.
> You have a higher goal than programming
> in Common Lisp, however. I think you should be aware of this and manage > to see things in perspective.
I don't understand this statement completely, and I would be (seriously) interested what you mean by that.
> Being a German, I expect you to value form
> higher than function and politeness higher than actual communication.
No, I think form and function depend on, and influence, each other. I also think that politeness makes actual communication a lot easier, but I don't value it higher. (I don't even understand what "value" means in this context.) I also don't get why me being German should be relevant in this context.
> | In your reply you started to use the swear word "bullshit";
> Oh, my goodness, a "swear word"! Obviously, this is so important to you > that you lose focus and get seriously distracted.
No, it's not important to me. Again, I have just tried to find an explanation for people's (or Jeremy's) reactions to your arguing style.
> A person who closes a case after he has found a > scapegoat is a seriously inferior human.
Agreed.
> | perceived to have the subtext that you think that Jeremy is just not > | intelligent enough to understand them
> You have been reading this newsgroup for a while, right? Whenever did I > need a subtext to say what I think about someone's intellectual capacity?
:-) You're right in this regard.
> | especially the statement "It is just complex, and you have decided not to > | deal with it." can be regarded as a personal attack.
> Gimme a fucking break! You /got/ to be making this shit up on the spot!
?!? No, I don't think so. I imagine someone who has tried very hard to understand a very complicated topic. After quite a while he/she decides to give up because he/she seriously thinks it is too complicated. Then someone comes and tells this person that he/she "has decided not to deal with it". That would be an insult, because he/she _has_ decided to deal with it, but just failed. At least, it would be an incorrect assumption.
Please note that in the meantime I am not so sure anymore that this was the case for Jeremy. Further note that I don't think that CLOS is that complicated. (However, I still think that many people have a hard time to grasp CLOS when they are not guided by a good tutorial.)
> | I guess that Jeremy has the general feeling that he is capable of dealing > | with complexity and that he has not "just given up".
> If he has, he would not have any problems with a difference of opinion on > this aspect. He would be momentarily puzzled that people would conclude > this and ask for their reasons if he /really/ cared or he would simply do > some work to explain why he had concluded what he had. It would still be > a professional exchange among professionals. Taking it personally is his > /first/ mistake and indicates a lack of purpose to his participation.
I have tried to find an explanation what he could possibly have interpreted as personal attacks. As soon as he felt personally attacked he stopped arguing and started to complain. It might be his mistake that he just misunderstood you, but I thought you asked about the actual sources for misunderstandings.
> This is a group about programming in Common Lisp. If you walk in on a > support group and say "I can't hack it", people will care about you and > validate your failure and say encouraging things. However, if you walk > in on a technical group of people and exclaim that "it is too hard" to > people who have been through the learning process, you do not talk about > /yourself/ and /your own problems/, you make statements about the /tools/ > that other professionals use with great benefit. Now, if you think that > Usenet is a giant support group complete with group hugs, /you got it > wrong/ and getting such a mistake fixed can indeed be painful, but you > /do not attack people who correct you/ no matter how you feel about it.
No, I don't think that usenet, or c.l.l should be a "support group". However, I think that acknowledging people's feelings makes communication a lot easier. Acknowledgement of people's feelings is quite easy to accomplish, there are several simple techniques that are not hard to learn.
> | In this example, I think that concentrating purely on positive > | reinforcement and suggestions for improvement would have been more > | effective.
> But you imply that he is not at fault for his own negativism.
No.
> I mean,
> the guy is stupid enough to invoke "religious". Where are the positive > reinforcements and suggestions in that? Do you seriously think that > people should always respond positively to absolutely anything they read,
Yes, at least people can try. But you're right, it's not always possible.
> but one who does not is not to blame unless that person is me?
No, that's nonsense. I don't blame you for anything.
> Why do > you not fight those who attack /me/ so viciously and tell them to be nice > ans positive towards /me/?
Do you need this kind of support? ;)
> Why this selectivity? Why is it /my/ fault
> that he is not positive about Common Lisp?
I didn't say so.
> Why is it /my/ responsibility
> to make him feel better when he can offend me and others at liberty and > /he/ goes scot free for his hostile reaction to me? Why is your theory > of positive reinforcement so selectivy applied? If being negative does > not accomplish what being positive can be, you are looking at reactions > to /his/ negativity right in the eye. These things are universally valid > or they universally invalid. Selective application and throwing blame > around is so unprofessional that people who engage in it should be shot.
I am not selective. I didn't respond to negative statements of yours, but only to your statement that positive reinforcement does not work. I don't agree with that. That's all.
Actually, I don't care personally if you continue to be "negative". I can cope with your arguing style, and already learned some valuable lessons from you.
> | Especially, I think that the first paragraph of your reply would have > | done the job if it would have been your only response.
> Then why did he not /focus/ on that? Is concentration and the ability to > sort out the most valuable things from what you read too demanding on > modern youths? Do you flame your newspaper for including a lot of sports > pages if you have no interest in sports?
Funnily enough, I do. ;-)
> Do you cancel your subscription
> if they allow an advertisement that "offends" your sensibilities? (Lots > of nutcases actually do this, mind you.) In short: Do you shut yourself > in when the world around you does not conform to your wishful thinking? Do > you take responsibility for coping with a reality that is not
> entirely to your personal liking? Those are your basic choices.
For example, I have actually quit watching TV many years ago. I don't think that's going nuts, but I rather see this as a very conscious and well-thought decision. It has made me a calmer person. You don't need to cope with anything, you can be selective.
> | Well, from what I have read so far I have the impression that your way of > | argueing is pretty non-standard.
> And which standard would that be? The "standard" way to have opinions in > "modern society" is to allow everyone have them /except/ those who know > what they are talking about. The "standard" way to argue is to base your > entire chain of argument on how you /feel/ about something and then make > up arguments, logic, statistics, whatever, to rationalize your feelings. > If you want this "standard" let me know.
I didn't mean standard in the sense of "normative standard", but rather "factual standard". I also don't want the standard you describe. However, if your assessment of reality is correct, then you are clearly an exception. There is no value judgement involved in this statement.
