From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: less parentheses --> fewer parentheses Date: 2000/08/27 Message-ID: <3176376902443201@naggum.net> X-Deja-AN: 663134367 References: <8nucvh$t9t$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8nuol5$9hmlj$1@ID-22205.news.cis.dfn.de> <3175970194156743@naggum.net> <3176016856827528@naggum.net> <3176055529700707@naggum.net> <3176121145567846@naggum.net> <3176155410550970@naggum.net> <3176202364736569@naggum.net> <3176209026478606@naggum.net> <3176222769824071@naggum.net> <3176268518192604@naggum.net> <3176311449226077@naggum.net> mail-copies-to: never Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@eunet.no X-Trace: oslo-nntp.eunet.no 967389145 12539 195.0.192.66 (27 Aug 2000 15:12:25 GMT) Organization: Naggum Software; vox: +47 800 35477; gsm: +47 93 256 360; fax: +47 93 270 868; http://naggum.no; http://naggum.net User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.7 Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2000 15:12:25 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * danfm@dartmouth.edu (FM) | Erik Naggum wrote: | | > No, _wars_ start with the party tha answers fire with fire, and they | > stop when one party lays down their weapons. | | So first fire is excused? Is that really your preferred level of abstraction? Is the converse true, that no matter what you do in response to a real or perceived aggression, you are excused? Do you _really_ think this way? Obviously, no, but it doesn't start _wars_. The party that feels or is attacked has a choice. You had that choice, too. You chose to make what you perceived as attack into a war by mounting resistance way out of proportion, and you continue to so. Now you seem to be unhappy about your choice, but you can still choose! I'm not generous: My point is to see if you can realize that you had and still have a choice, and make use of that realization. I'm also working to break down what I consider the most incredibly moronic aspect of some cultures: The belief that one loses face or honor by embracing truth that is obtained from a very reliable, trustworthy source that is in some other respects disagreeable, for whatever irrelevant reason to the truth involved. This is probably a fight like breaking down racism and other moronic group-think judgments based on irrelevant factors, such as whether the source is female, or gay. In fact, I consider someone who has to make up stories about someone based on _one_ facet he doesn't like, who tries to discredit the works of someone based on some facet _completely_ irrelevant to the work, etc, as a person who is even more despicable than a racist, because the racist at least understands that society rejects his moronic views. Nothing is worse than such a moron who feels that he is _justified_ to make broad and sweeping claims about properties of the person or group irrelevant to the role or work at hand, because there is nothing that person can learn or even adjust as long as he feels morally justified to commit the errors he commits. The false accusation based in such inability to deal with people who show some unusual, unexpected, or disagreeable aspect or another, is the ultimate evil expression of the core properties of racism. But what do people learn? "It's wrong to discriminate based on the color of a person's skin, but anything else is perfectly legitimate" describes how a large number of people think, but they haven't grasped the core idea that produce racism and similar ills, and go on with their lives, hating whole _persons_ based on some _aspect_ they don't like. | This idiot doesn't even know what introspection means. There is no | way you can be qualified to talk about my introspective ability when | you cannot possibly look beyond yourself. Introspection, like any other active thought process, has results that are fairly easy to observe. It is very, very unlikely that a person who engages in introspection will continue to act as if he deals with other people's hostility when there _is_ no hostility. It _is_ very, very unlikely that a person who has worked _himself_ into a mental corner that was never reasonable in the first place, will back down unless he introspects. And you have done just that: You have worked yourself up and you continue to be hostile no matter what. You need to figure that out for yourself, of course, and I don't think you will. You have invested so much in your idea that I'm _hostile_ to you that you can't see that even though I'm not nice to you, I'm not _hostile_, either. However, you missed that little piece of logic, didn't you? If somebody isn't nice to you, they must have _some_ amount of hostility. How about indifference? | You already act as though your brain had imploded. If it had ever | existed. Don't you get tired of showing that you can't even invent your own insults, but have to bounce everything back, just a tad worsened? You see, every time you respond with something _worse_, you keep the "war" going. I think you may be an Eliza programmed to keep such quarrels going, because there's no purpose in your continuing this. There is for me, of course: I want to see how long it takes you to wake up and snap out of your moronic, hostile role. | Of course by this "mirror game" you refer to the cycle where you | babble some nonsense and I point out the hypocrisy in that nonsense | by feeding it back to you. And this is an argument for what? Cut-and-paste-debates? You really don't believe in the utility of this activity for any other purpose than to quarrel for the sake of quarreling, do you? If so, please let me know. It would be illuminating. So far, it looks like a person at mental age 5 who wants to beat someone, but misses. | Your attempt to bring in actual "mirror" to augment your already | fragile argument backfires when you consider what "mirror" | represents in your "mirror" game and what direction it points to. It's very important to you that things backfire, so I assume you have much experience with just that, but in this case, it doesn't do _you_ any good. (It probably never _did_ you any good, but just because you might have been harmed by something backfiring doesn't mean you won't _repeat_ the mistake that caused it to backfire on you.) It doesn't prove any hypocrisy, it proves that you choose a role that has the intelligence of a normal 5-year-old. Just choose another role. (If you don't because _I_ tell you, please say so. I will consider that the final proof that you really _are_ retarded.) | > When you figure out that you are wholly responsible for your own | > actions, just like everybody else, you will feel very ashamed of | > yourself. I'm only waiting for that. | | Funny how you forget that you are not responsible for your own | action. Are _you_ exempt from statements _you_ make about "everybody else"? Is that why you failed to grasp the universality of what I said? | It's funny how you consistently direct insults at people, and when | those insults are thrown back at you, then you cry about "mirror" | game and that "wars start with the party that answers fire with | fire" nonsense. Does this imply that you think wars can have only one fighting party? That quarrels can have only one quarreler? Well, you're actually doing a pretty good job of providing ammunition for that argument the way you keep going completely on your own, here. Does this also imply that you react positively to anything that is just aped back at you? Would you at all understand that what you do with this mirror game is moronic no matter what you "throw back"? If I have not gotten through to you that I don't like people who choose to act like morons, it must be because you are one, instead. | > Thank you for continuing to waste your time here. At least I | > keep you off the street and out of other kinds of trouble. | | More nonsense. Yes, but it's called a "joke". Lighten up any time you want. | > Suppose you interpret hostility where it wasn't, and you are at | > fault for first attack with that justification. | | Unless hostility is so deeply embedded in your psyche that you don't | have to intend it to be clearly present in your writing. You know, when a sentence starts with "suppose", it is customary to read it as "for the sake of argument, suppose", and it is usually an attempt to cause you to reexamine your conclusions by altering one or more of its premises, at least hypothetically. If you just cling to your conclusion and attack the altered premise, you provide some evidence of how you think, or, in this case, don't. Being able to deal with the hypothetical is quite important. When you can't, but have to defend _yourself_ against the slightest possibility that the hypothetical might be true (by attacking in response), you prove that the hypothetical would be dangerous to you if actually true. If that was all I wanted to know, I'd be very content right now, but there's more to it: You don't seem to be able to recognize the fact that _you_ might have started (in your terminology) all this. Unless you are able to hold that possibility at least slightly open, you cannot possibly be _justified_ in your hostilities, either, because you have just made up your mind by rejecting facts before you came to your conclusion, which means your selectivity denies the validity of your justification more than anything else, as that is what you have chosen to act upon. By making up your mind outside of the facts, you commit the "crime" of over-extending your assumptions. Some day, you will realize that every communication is a process of trying to understand what the sender had in mind. If you are dead certain of the outcome before you even start, you are not really engaged in the process of communication, but in mindless prejudice, and hence in starting hostilities _each_ time, because the other party may have ceased, or never started. | > How do you expect that whoever _you_ attack should respond to you? | | Yet a completely different standard applies when you interpret my | writing as hostile. Huh? Do you _have_ to raise the deflector shield to avoid getting a _single_ clue? Whatever gave you _any_ indication of different standards? Why are _your_ actions so dependent on what you imagine that I think or do? See, this is one of those cases where your comprehension is fueled by your prejudice so much that you can't even read what I write. I'm asking you how your "because you started it" defense for _your_ hostility will ever see a cease-fire. What does it take for you to stop being a hostile moron? Since you're on the verge of being obsessed about me, which you share with some committed cases: I know what causes my cease-fires: I don't respond in kind, I don't play mirror games, and I don't pretend that I'm not fully responsible for my own actions. My justification is not that you continue, but that I want to see how long it takes for you to realize that you are no longer dealing with a hostile partner. Hence, no direct insults of your intelligence, as you manage that very well on your own, no need to broaden the context, as you drag in so much that I don't have to. | Basically it comes down to you preaching about things that you don't | practice. That could have been true if you understood what I was preaching, but since you don't, yet, it's only a stupid insult. Quit that. | So comparing my intelligence to that of an animal is not exhibiting | pure hostility, when no such comparison was reasonable. It's hostile to the role you have chosen to play, but that's your choice. If you make another choice, there may be no, less, or more hostility depending on fairly well-understood parameters. As long as you do not snap out of your role, you provide evidence that you can only play one role, of the "be yourself" kind, which never has been true of anyone, incidentally. | Which is to try and piss them off using time-honored techniques and | then when they get mad and probably use some of the techniques that | you yourself employed to piss you off, then you point at that as | though it proves your previous insults. No. You miss the point completely. I tend to say things that pisses _some_ people off whether I intend it or not, whether other people find it offensive or not, whether any other person would be pissed off, usually because it's true and they want it untold. There's always _someone_ out there who can't handle contrary experiences, information, or opinions, no matter _how_ it is expressed. The only way to learn, which is what all this started with, is to actively seek experience, information, and opinions that runs counter to your own. Some people are completely inept at this task and never actually _learn_, they _repeat_ and they live in a cut-and-paste reality, essentially the same from day to day, where change means threat. I have a _very_ low opinion of that mode of living. However, when someone who reacts with hostility to something I say go out of their way to talk about stuff they have no possible way to know even if it were true, solely for the purpose of venting spleen and hostility, _then_ I have proof of their lack of mental acuity and then I say just that, which pisses some people off tremendously instead of recognizing that they did something that caused someone to draw that conclusion and do something else so they could conclude something else, too. Considering that it is impossible to judge anyone on the Net except from what they write, and considering that writing is a supremely _conscious_ effort, all I do is make people fully aware that if they _choose_ to act like morons who prove that they can't do anything else, it's their own responsibility. Most people don't like to take responsibility for their actions at all. Growing up past childhood is so hard in a society that is obsessing about the merits of youth and which denigrates age and experience. However, these few paragraphs where you seem to try to grapple with what you think I do is at least a step in the right direction. | Of course your entire strategy relies on trying to keep the focus on | the others by implying that you are somehow above them. No. Again you miss the point. Just because you feel inferior doesn't mean that anyone else feels superior or wants to. I don't believe in being "above" people. I believe in being "above" both acts and situations. People don't come in rankable qualities. What they choose to act like and otherwise do, does, of course. | When criticism is received, you preach self-introspection, with the | pretense that what you do is not subject to criticism. No. There is nothing in what I say that defends this conclusion. It is, however, quite common for people who think _themselves_ exempt from statements they make about others in general to believe that others suffer from the same extremely unintelligent attitude. Since this is quite common in Christian cultures, and nowhere else to my knowledge, it ought to be broken down because it's _wrong_. | That's the amusing part: that you now decided to post nonsense about | my introspective ability while calling what I did "mirror games." | Hell, the irony probably escapes you. Not at all, but I'm not sure you see that there is more than one target for that irony. | Of course Erik continues his nonsensical tirade about how he is | perceived as hostile or otherwise bad by only those lacking mental | aptitude. The logic is of course essentially circular. Really? _Circular_? You have to explain that one. I may well piss off people who have a reasonable mental aptitude, but they have the smarts not to start _quarreling_ over some petty details. It is quite possible to respond to what you find valuable, not only to what you find objectionable. When you ignore the signal and latch onto the noise, that's a sign of low intelligence and inability to cope. When you can filter out the noise and pay attention to the signal, that's a sign of high intelligence and ability to cope. You have made your choice _quite_ exceptionally clear. | > Look, if I said the weather was nice, you would be insulted. | | More sloppy guesswork continues. No, just more jokes at your expense. Here's a hint for you: If you think you can use irony and accuse me of not getting it, would it not be _very_ smart of you to actually _get_ my jokes at you, too? | Oh my god. This self-righteous idiot now acts though he were both a | player and a referee. "Choose some less moronic role!" "No, I _want_ to be a moron!" You prove my earlier point, excellently: That you cannot learn from someone who isn't _nice_ to you. Hell, I don't think you learn, I think you parrot and repeat what you've heard, just like the mirror game that shows zero creativity. Just because I say it doesn't mean it isn't true, you know. Just because it hurts like hell doesn't mean you shouldn't take it seriously and adjust your act accordingly. However, _some_ people get into this role where they have only one thought: That the other guy must stop hurting them. Many criminals get into that role relative to the justice system and police. Note the important distinction between reactions based on action and reactions based on person: If you realize that you could change your actions and the reactions would stop, you'd have to be pretty damn stupid not to change your actions, but if the reation is based on person, there is nothing you could do to make the "reactions" stop, like false accusations, racism ("driving while colored" comes to mind), etc, there is grounds to fault the other party exclusively. | ... but that's the only thing that you've shown any competence in. Well, not quite. But it serves my purpose to have retards like you post such broad statements. I find it very instructive to watch people who _prove_ that they are extremely one-dimensional. I don't yet understand what makes people who are so one-dimensional able to work in such a complex society as ours, but it is obviously possible to be devoid of essential mental abilities and still survive in a high technology society where people of all kinds and habits will have to work together and meet. One would have thought that the new modes of communication would let people realize that they don't have to deal with the _entire_ person, but some people really are so people-oriented that they cannot even deal with electronic text without imagining and fighting a complete person entirely of their own creation, instead of a very limited role that does not have to get into their lives or on their nerves. #:Erik -- If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.