From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: source access vs dynamism Date: 1999/09/08 Message-ID: <3145745250786040@naggum.no> X-Deja-AN: 522359611 References: <3144404199547949@naggum.no> <37C17E00.D039AEBD@elwood.com> <_Mfw3.358$m84.6201@burlma1-snr2> <3144558626572658@naggum.no> <3144569678548813@naggum.no> <3144703658674455@naggum.no> <3145027978363674@naggum.no> <3145214853786086@naggum.no> mail-copies-to: never X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.eunet.no X-Trace: oslo-nntp.eunet.no 936756459 27059 193.71.66.49 (8 Sep 1999 02:07:39 GMT) Organization: Naggum Software; +47 8800 8879; +1 510 435 8604; http://www.naggum.no NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 Sep 1999 02:07:39 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * Erann Gat | Have you ever heard the princple "correlation does not imply causality?" sigh. it doesn't mean that things that correlate are _not_ causally linked, so quoting such basics is _beyond_ pointless if you want to make that point, which it seems you attempt to do, but only people who have no clue what "does not imply" means will think you did. why address your arguments to such people? | Answering these questions requires more than simply citing the contents | of one's personal collection of memorabilia. I'm downright _impressed_ with your argumentative prowess, Erann. could you do even better, you think? I'm becoming aware that you are engaged in a process completely unrelated to discussing the issues at hand. | That actually makes a certain amount of sense, but it begs a number of | questions: *WHY* were people suddenly talking about it all over the | place? I have already answered question that several times. it was cool, it was new, people discovered things and thus made it _continue_ to be a novelty. | More to the point, why was there so much *more* talk about the PC than | about, say, the Apple II just a few years before, or the Macintosh just a | few years after? because these were less "cool" and just more useful tools, which are quite boring in and by itself. understanding "cool" is difficult if you think it does not matter, but once you get your head around the fact that people are motivated _mainly_ by coolness factors, you'll understand a lot more things that may seem very puzzling today. business applications for the IBM PC were _not_ cool. knowing a lot of internal stuff and getting a lot of attention for it sure was cool at the time. | I don't know what you mean by "the 'One True X' argument". you use it, so you _should_ know. you're the kind of person to bring up "One True Explanation" as if it could exist and someone (other than yourself when attacking others) could possibly believe something that stupid. it's the same idiotic thing you're doing in the first sentence of the message I'm replying to, now. you're addressing kindergarteners. I wonder why you find the need to do that. perhaps it is the only place you can beat people in an argument? | Now, it is true that you did not use the words "One True Explanation," | nor did you *directly* call anyone ignorant or clueless. insight! *applause* now, how long until you realize that you must stop fantasizing and inventing stuff to hate in other people, and deal with what they _actually_ say and do? I'm no more interested in how your malfunctioning mental apparatus reacts that I'm interested in Jeltsin's alcoholism or Clinton's escapades -- it's for you to deal with and for me to ignore like any other irrelevant drivel. | Nonetheless, you did present your position not as an opinion but as a | fact that should be self-evident to anyone who is not ignorant and | clueless. That leaves little room for respectful dissent. that's an interesting view. I suppose "Have you ever heard the princple "correlation does not imply causality?"" _does_ leave room for respectful dissent. or do you just engage in such argumentation to prove something? | Not, "In my opinion you are wrong," nor, "My view of people is | different," but "in *fact* wrong." so if I say "the moon is made of swiss cheese", I expect you to humbly claim that it is your _opinion_ that this is wrong? if so, how come you make such a big stink about _my_ being wrong? it seems to me that this humility thing is something you want only in others. perhaps you need to understand a very simple thing about fallacies: it is possible to prove that something cannot be factually or logically true without knowing what would be factually or logically true in the same situation. obviously, one may discard a whole bunch of arbitrary claims as false, and "it is in fact wrong" is an entirely valid statement for that reason alone. for someone who has taken Statistics 101 and brag about it, I would actually assume a _little_ more ability to think than to believe something so stupid that positive and negative knowledge are fraught with _equal_ epistemological problems. the prevailing philosophy of science even goes so far as to claim that the _only_ thing you can prove is negative knowledge: that a hypothesis does _not_ hold. if you have such great disregard for science, too, Erann, I suggest you discuss it with other scientists who very frequently make the point I make: that something is in fact wrong, and base this on seemingly scanty evidence to those who _want_ to believe it, and are not as diligent in discarding the wrong beliefs in the face of facts that make the impossible. now, if you actually had something that shows that _I'm_ wrong, you would have made that argument instead of silly meta-arguments that you can't deal with my _style_. my conclusion is that I'm _right_ because the only thing you bicker about is the style. in other words, your attempt to blow academic air exposed your lack of insight into very basic epistemological problems. | > (and before you crank up the One True X bullshit again: it is | > obviously possible to ascertain that something is false without even | > having a clue what is actually correct.) this is what I said and which you manage to quote, so what amazes me is that you are so unable to even read that which you disagree with that you keep making the same stupid mistake over and over: I answer your question right before your eyes, and you don't recognize it because it doesn't fit 100% with what you _want_ to see and hear. | Why are people continually paying to upgrade to the latest version of | Microsoft software? sigh. I have _explained_ this, Erann. several times. | Surely you don't believe that Microsoft makes quality software? and this too. you _flunked_ debate in school, didn't you? | Isn't it funny how people keep falling for Bill's lies? Again and again | and again and again... ever seen any election campaigns, Erann? (or aren't you old enough to vote, perhaps?) how come people fall for these lies all the time? the reason is so simple you could cry (or _should_, since you haven't understood this simple principle, yet): they _want_ to believe in the future, _any_ future. that's the magnet that pulls people towards upgrading and believing all sorts of hype, again and again and again. as I have said before: abusing people's natural desire for a better future, the basic expression of "hope", is at the core of a lot of bad things in human cultures, and Microsoft is riding on the abuse of people's hope. | Computers and operating systems are infrastructure for a slightly more | complex reason. The utility of a computer is not *inherently* increased | if everyone is using the same one, but it *is* increased if there are | more applications available, and if it is easy to transfer data between | computers. Uniformity in computer architectures and operating systems | makes it *easier* to provide data interchangeability and application | portability. There are other ways of doing this too. (Sun is pursuing | an alternative strategy with Java.) simple as this may appear to be, it is false. what matters is not the operating system, but that you can run many applications. what matters is not the operating system on which something runs, but _that_ it runs. what matters is not the particular user interface, but that it has one and that it can be learned and mastered fairly quickly. there is no driving force towards the _implementation_, as there is in railroads and electric power and image formats, but there is a driving force towards the _services_ provided. Microsoft has succeed: you buy their propaganda that it is _Windows_ that makes all these applications run. it isn't. anything that is able to perform the services that the program needs and can answer to the requests it makes, whatever it is, is sufficient. what we need standardizing on, is the system programming interface. Microsoft knows this very well. that's why they keep saying the opposite, and try to make people believe that they need _Windows_. that's why they try so hard to make foreign applications fail and emulators to fail. as soon as someone can run "Windows" applications anywhere, their entire marketing strategy will fall apart and they're history. that's why they hate Java so much, too. Microsoft's marketing and success is based on a few very good lies, that almost appear true because so many believe them. I'm sure you sympathize completely with this view, Erann, as we're about to see when it comes to spreading your own lies in the hopes that people will believe them, and you. | I said you compared Microsoft to the *Nazis*. no, Erann, what I actually did was comparing their propaganda machines, and I went out of my way to make it very hard for any morally upright person to think I compared Microsoft to Nazis. as an aside here, how come you don't obey your own style guide and see that a valid issue with your statement above is very much like this: | Not, "In my opinion you are wrong," nor, "My view of people is | different," but "in *fact* wrong." you make claims about what _I_ do, Erann, even when I object to it. barring insanity on your part, which I see no evidence of yet, you must be doing this on purpose. you object to statements of fact which you do not agree with, not because they are wrong, but because they are statements of fact. yet you make statements of fact yourself, without the "in my opinion" crap you want from me. why is there one law for Erann Gat and one law for me, Erann? is it because it would be a little too hard for you to live by your _own_ laws, but a lot easier on _you_ if everybody else did? you used the term "hypocritical blowhard". it's a very good term, Erann, and I think you are the best person to use it. | Granted, you did not use the word "Holocaust." have you not noticed how many factual errors you have made on your way to reach the conclusions that lead to your accusations, Erann? your fantasy is the culprit here, not me or anything I _actually_ said or did. | But I did, and I'll use it again. I'm sure you will, and it will make you even more enraged and prove again and again and again that you are dead set on believing your own lies, which I will reject as long as you present them as the truth they aren't. "Isn't it funny how people keep falling for Bill's lies?" no, it isn't funny: people like you will believe any lies if it serves your purposes. _I'm_ offended by people who have to _invent_ accusations towards others: they have exactly _zero_ credibility until all false accusations are duly and completely retracted, otherwise they should be punished severely for making them. fortunately, most court systems around the world agree with me on this issue: those who make up what they want their victims to be guilty of are themselves punished for this injustice, in some legal system _very_ severely. making false and hurtful claims about others is punishable by law in the United States and the rest of the Western world, and people are sometimes rewarded very large sums of money for the damage that has been done by those who use such tactics. you, Erann Gat, make the incredibly unintelligent mistake of confusing what you feel with what I did, and then you make the second incredibly unintelligent mistake of _saying_ that I did what you feel. since you don't see this yourself, but still admit to a number of mistakes that lead right up to the conclusion that you can't keep your fantasy world from the real world, what needs to be done to you is to make you realize that _you_ are the evil person in this setting for being so careless about the truth in your accusations. it was false accusations, Erann Gat, that were at the core of the inhuman atrocities to which you object: the Holocaust. the Jews were blamed for all sorts of evil and all sorts of problems, people believed these false accusations and that the final solution would be to get rid of them. now you're doing exactly the same: you _invent_ your accusations, and portray others in the image of your own mind. _you_ are an evil man, Erann Gat. I'll repeat this: Joseph Goebbels' theories of successful propaganda have been studied and they are valid regardless of which despicable horror of a purpose to which they were once put, and they are employed _today_, by every ad agency which uses entertainment to sell goods or motivate people to favor causes or political parties. Goebbels' fundamental insight was precisely that entertainment is the most efficient vehicle to make people verbalize and consciously grasp otherwise unstated beliefs and attitudes. the unwillingness to understand this, and why it was so very successfully employed in Germany at the end of World War II _by_ the Nazis, only means that one must believe that knowledge itself can be tainted by how it has been used and how it was discovered. the past, however, is the past, and it cannot be changed -- all we can ever do with the past is to learn from it. what _can_ be changed is the future and the more we know of what caused history to take the shape it did, the better prepared we are to prevent its undesirable developments from repeating. those who deny themselves access to knowledge gained at the hands of evil, are more likely to cause evil to rise again in a subtly different form. evil, to be fought, _must_ be understood. those who do not understand evil are the ones who will most likely go along with it again in a form they don't recognize, just as they did with Goebble's propaganda and just as they do if they believe any other propagandist who uses his insight into shaping the beliefs of the masses. and that means you, Erann Gat, who believe the best current propagandist of the West, and who revel in the use of false accusations yourself. I'm sure you will continue to lie to yourself and to others, Erann. I'm sure you will continue to spread your false accusations against me. I'm sure you will "grant" that I have never _actually_ said anything of which you accuse me, yet will never make the connection that it is all in your mind, exactly the same way some people get the wrong idea that somebody's race or creed or sexual orientation or handicap is at fault for their bad actions, indeed _make_ them bad people, and will go after others of the same race or creed or sexual orientation or handicap and kill them, as people of minds like yours have done in the past. I'll venture an explanation that I have reason to believe is correct because I have come across your kind a little too often: the reason you get so upset about this is that you know that this modus operandi has _not_ been excised in your behavior -- you still think false accusations are valid means of attacking an opponent. I know exactly what causes people like you to act the way they do: the belief that if enough people believe a false accusation, it becomes true, and that if you can spread the word enough, your false accusation will be believed by enough people to cause the _victim_ of your lies and your complete disregard for truth and justice to suffer. the American version of this is the lynch mob: never mind whether the person was _actually_ guilty, all it took was one guy like Erann Gat to make a very impassioned statement that somebody had done something very bad, and the easily impressionable masses took it from there. but only extremely evil people engage in such activities. since I expect you to continue on your quest, and since I fully expect you to continue to be offended by your very own mental images and blame me for them in an ever escalating series of misrepresentations and purposeful distortions of the truth, I am prepared to take legal action against you if you continue. I hope you understand what I'm saying and that you don't invent something else that you claim I have said. you are in the wrong here for making your false accusations about what I have said and done. you are forever free to react any way you want, but you are _not_ free to claim that I have said or done that which I have not. a person of reasonably moral stature would have wanted to understand, to make sure his feelings of immense offense were based in reality, to ask for explanations and to explain his reaction, instead of lying about what another person has said. a person with a _constructive_ goal would have objected to _parts_ of an expression while still getting the actual point and purpose of making it, while a person with no constructive goal at all would latch onto that which could cause the most damage, especially if it weren't even true, as that would cause the accused to defend himself against wild and false accusations, which in some deranged people's minds is _itself_ evidence of _some_ wrong-doing. you can clearly identify an evil person by how they make and enjoy the effects of false accusations, and how they react to rejections of their accusations: they invent even _more_ accusations, in order to get others to believe them. that's when you know somebody is lying through their teeth and are actually aware of it themselves. as understanding spreads, accusations tend to diminish. as evil people fail to get what they want, accusations only escalate. anyone who has wasted his time reading our "exchange" knows that I have _objected_ to your incredibly tasteless accusations, only to be faced with even worse accusations from you. if there had been any truth to what you say, Erann, any truth at all, you would have been able to respond rationally to my objections to your claims, but instead, you have decided to make things even worse. the last person to do something a little like this, only a lot less intense, actually apologized publicly. I don't know how useful apologies are, as I'm much more interested in understanding why some people can't be satisified with the facts and attack me for what I actually do instead of having to invent all sorts of incredible bullshit for which to attack me, and why it doesn't help to tell them that they're exaggerating so much that there's no point in even _trying_ to sort out what they are _actually_ reacting to. on the other hand, it has been said that if you say something of importance, there will always be some people who hate you for it. I think I've said all that needs to be said in answer to the Erann Gat phenomenon. sorry about the length. #:Erik -- save the children: just say NO to sex with pro-lifers