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Pete Olcott: Troll or Ignoramus?
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Jeff Barnett
Apr 7, 2018, 12:08:33 AM4/7/18
to
Note: this is cross posted to only the two newsgroups I read.
Two newsgroups comp.ai.philosophy and comp.theory, that I used to find
quite informative have become a combination of humorous and useless
thanks to PO. I am reminded of a character in the Menagerie Series of
books about bridge written by Victor Mollo: Molly the Mule who is
referred to unaffectionately as MM by all and sundry. MM was a poor
player with a high opinion of her abilities and looked down her nose at
others, especially men. Her particular talent was the postmortem where
bridge hands are reviewed after play and the aim is to place blame
squarely on your partner. Of course the players know the actual lay of
the cards by the time of the postmortem so the dialogue is filled with
preposterous claims about what should have been done before all the
cards can be seen.
I, like most of you, thought the ridiculous threads in these newsgroups
were spurred by the ignorance of the prolific PO and that his lack of
knowledge would soon be cleared up with a little help from his friends.
Boy was I wrong. It seems that the same or similar conversations have
continued for years. So is PO one clever ignoramus or is something else
a foot? My guess is he isn't quite what he seems. He knows enough about
logic and related theory to take on quite a collection of reasonably
informed adversaries, many of whom try to be helpful but always fail.
What are the choices if our megalomaniac is not a recalcitrant
ignoramus? What occurs to me is that he is a full time dedicated troll.
No other reasonable explanation occurs to me. To you? We can deduce a
few facts about our troll from examination of the various threads here:
Item 1: Volume of PO posts is fairly enormous. This means that either he
is retired or unemployed - perhaps unemployable or working for a
relative with no expectations.
Item 2: Steadiness of output indicates no serious lingering health
problems. So I vote for relatively young unemployed probably but not
certainly a male.
Item 3: Many studies of relatively young internet trolls find them
living at home, supported by mom, with father either dead or a run away
from the grief of an emotionally damaged child and an over supportive
working mom. PO's posts exhibiting rampant egotism (he thinks he's
kidding but actually believes it) supporting this model.
Item 4: Logic is often taught in high school so assuming PO was not
horribly damaged and kept out of school (or home schooled) he probably
knows enough logic to know that what he writes is humorous and way off
target. More implication of a troll.
Item 6: There are many lengthy and thoughtful contributions to these
threads. If posted by a newcomer PO simply does not reply. If posted by
an old timer who has declared (one way or another) his disdain for all
things PO, his reply elides the important stuff and continues with some
outrageous claim of you doing the snipping and ignoring. This is once
again the stuff of trolling.
Item 7: PO occasionally admits one of his opponents might be right about
some minor but essential point. However, that admission isn't permanent
and life goes on as before starting with the next post after your little
victory. Typically PO is reminded of his prior admission but that has no
effect whatsoever. This is clear troll behavior.
There is nothing you can do to establish normal dialogue with PO so why
keep trying? Conversations and explorations of we-can't-do-that are
among the most interesting topics in mathematics. I would relish such
threads with our troll or trolls ignored. (Are any of the regular
contributors PO sock puppets?) With PO directing and redirecting the
conversation, all sorts of interesting branches are never reached or
ignored: hierarchies of unsolvable problems, causal as opposed to
logical inference, non-monotonic logic, frame-based reasoning, and so
much more.
Unless you have an inner need to bring PO to his knees - you wont
succeed - try something more productive. This will be as hard as
quitting smoking but might be as good for your health.
--
Jeff Barnett
Two newsgroups comp.ai.philosophy and comp.theory, that I used to find
quite informative have become a combination of humorous and useless
thanks to PO. I am reminded of a character in the Menagerie Series of
books about bridge written by Victor Mollo: Molly the Mule who is
referred to unaffectionately as MM by all and sundry. MM was a poor
player with a high opinion of her abilities and looked down her nose at
others, especially men. Her particular talent was the postmortem where
bridge hands are reviewed after play and the aim is to place blame
squarely on your partner. Of course the players know the actual lay of
the cards by the time of the postmortem so the dialogue is filled with
preposterous claims about what should have been done before all the
cards can be seen.
I, like most of you, thought the ridiculous threads in these newsgroups
were spurred by the ignorance of the prolific PO and that his lack of
knowledge would soon be cleared up with a little help from his friends.
Boy was I wrong. It seems that the same or similar conversations have
continued for years. So is PO one clever ignoramus or is something else
a foot? My guess is he isn't quite what he seems. He knows enough about
logic and related theory to take on quite a collection of reasonably
informed adversaries, many of whom try to be helpful but always fail.
What are the choices if our megalomaniac is not a recalcitrant
ignoramus? What occurs to me is that he is a full time dedicated troll.
No other reasonable explanation occurs to me. To you? We can deduce a
few facts about our troll from examination of the various threads here:
Item 1: Volume of PO posts is fairly enormous. This means that either he
is retired or unemployed - perhaps unemployable or working for a
relative with no expectations.
Item 2: Steadiness of output indicates no serious lingering health
problems. So I vote for relatively young unemployed probably but not
certainly a male.
Item 3: Many studies of relatively young internet trolls find them
living at home, supported by mom, with father either dead or a run away
from the grief of an emotionally damaged child and an over supportive
working mom. PO's posts exhibiting rampant egotism (he thinks he's
kidding but actually believes it) supporting this model.
Item 4: Logic is often taught in high school so assuming PO was not
horribly damaged and kept out of school (or home schooled) he probably
knows enough logic to know that what he writes is humorous and way off
target. More implication of a troll.
Item 6: There are many lengthy and thoughtful contributions to these
threads. If posted by a newcomer PO simply does not reply. If posted by
an old timer who has declared (one way or another) his disdain for all
things PO, his reply elides the important stuff and continues with some
outrageous claim of you doing the snipping and ignoring. This is once
again the stuff of trolling.
Item 7: PO occasionally admits one of his opponents might be right about
some minor but essential point. However, that admission isn't permanent
and life goes on as before starting with the next post after your little
victory. Typically PO is reminded of his prior admission but that has no
effect whatsoever. This is clear troll behavior.
There is nothing you can do to establish normal dialogue with PO so why
keep trying? Conversations and explorations of we-can't-do-that are
among the most interesting topics in mathematics. I would relish such
threads with our troll or trolls ignored. (Are any of the regular
contributors PO sock puppets?) With PO directing and redirecting the
conversation, all sorts of interesting branches are never reached or
ignored: hierarchies of unsolvable problems, causal as opposed to
logical inference, non-monotonic logic, frame-based reasoning, and so
much more.
Unless you have an inner need to bring PO to his knees - you wont
succeed - try something more productive. This will be as hard as
quitting smoking but might be as good for your health.
--
Jeff Barnett
peteolcott
Apr 7, 2018, 12:54:10 AM4/7/18
to
anon27...@gmail.com
Apr 7, 2018, 11:48:55 AM4/7/18
to
On Saturday, 7 April 2018 05:08:33 UTC+1, Jeff Barnett wrote:
> What are the choices if our megalomaniac is not a recalcitrant
> ignoramus? What occurs to me is that he is a full time dedicated troll.
> No other reasonable explanation occurs to me. To you?
Google for him. You may be surprised! "Thinks hes God"!
> What are the choices if our megalomaniac is not a recalcitrant
> ignoramus? What occurs to me is that he is a full time dedicated troll.
> No other reasonable explanation occurs to me. To you?
David Kleinecke
Apr 7, 2018, 2:09:15 PM4/7/18
to
Peter is a reasonably high functioning person with Asperger's
Syndrome (there's a newer less-well-known name). To quote one
online source:
When you meet someone who has Asperger's syndrome, you might
notice two things right off. He's just as smart as other folks,
but he has more trouble with social skills. He also tends to
have an obsessive focus on one topic or perform the same
behaviors again and again.
In trying to attack formal logic he has bitten off more than he
can chew and tends to drift off into fantasy in self-defense. But
he has had a lifetime of defensive thinking and has developed some
strong self-protections - no matter how self-destructive they seem
to us. Nevertheless he deserves our support rather than our disdain.
Jeff Barnett
Apr 9, 2018, 7:55:50 PM4/9/18
to
minor relative. There are others with the same name but that was the
only Google article I saw with a reference to megalomania. I'm not even
sure the name used in these groups is real - could have picked a front
up somewhere, e.g., the one with a patent on what I would have taken for
1960s technology - look up some of the character recognition work by
Mort Bernstein using a RAND tablet.
peteolcott
Apr 9, 2018, 10:00:33 PM4/9/18
to
On 4/9/2018 6:55 PM, Jeff Barnett wrote:
> anon27...@gmail.com wrote on 4/7/2018 9:48 AM:
>> On Saturday, 7 April 2018 05:08:33 UTC+1, Jeff Barnett wrote:
>>> What are the choices if our megalomaniac is not a recalcitrant
>>> ignoramus? What occurs to me is that he is a full time dedicated troll.
>>> No other reasonable explanation occurs to me. To you?
>>
>> Google for him. You may be surprised! "Thinks hes God"!
>
http://the-pete.org
> anon27...@gmail.com wrote on 4/7/2018 9:48 AM:
>> On Saturday, 7 April 2018 05:08:33 UTC+1, Jeff Barnett wrote:
>>> What are the choices if our megalomaniac is not a recalcitrant
>>> ignoramus? What occurs to me is that he is a full time dedicated troll.
>>> No other reasonable explanation occurs to me. To you?
>>
>> Google for him. You may be surprised! "Thinks hes God"!
>
I am God and I have never been convicted of anything.
No one has ever made deterministic OCR before, stochastic OCR is old hat.
Stochastic OCR is about 1000-fold slower and never 100% accurate.
The primary purpose of my deterministic OCR is data interchange.
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