2 much noise recently

  • Thread starter Alf P. Steinbach /Usenet
  • Start date
A

Alf P. Steinbach /Usenet

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fractal_wrongness

"
Fractal wrongness is the state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of
resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is
incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's
worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as
every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder,
full of half-truths, leaps of poor logic, and outright lies, that requires just
as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a
fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the
Mandelbrot set in finite time.

If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the
Internet - in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums - your best bet is to
say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.
"


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf


PS: The URL I gave is not the original. Google listed sort of everything but the
source.
 
J

Joshua Maurice

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fractal_wrongness

"
Fractal wrongness is the state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of
resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is
incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's
worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as
every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder,
full of half-truths, leaps of poor logic, and outright lies, that requires just
as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a
fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the
Mandelbrot set in finite time.

If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the
Internet - in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums - your best bet is to
say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.
"

Cheers & hth.,

- Alf

PS: The URL I gave is not the original. Google listed sort of everything but the
source.

Indeed. I'm not sure why James is even bothering replying to that
person anymore.
 
I

itaj sherman


Also an interesting read:

"Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing
One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"

( Social Psychology,http://www.wepapers.com/Papers/70939/)

That would actually give a good reason why good people try again and
again to teach him anything. If they just put a bit of sense in him he
might realise his fault.

However, I think this case is a troll (someone who does this
conscientiously and delibarately to force people into prolong
conversations). I tried before to grant him the benefit of the doubt,
but at some point I got convinced. Whenever the conversaion does reach
a logical deadend for him, he either ignores that post or turns to
verbal violence (which I think might be the ultimate goal for trolls)
- but clearly he is able to distiguish these cases.

itaj
 
J

Juha Nieminen

itaj sherman said:
However, I think this case is a troll (someone who does this
conscientiously and delibarately to force people into prolong
conversations). I tried before to grant him the benefit of the doubt,
but at some point I got convinced. Whenever the conversaion does reach
a logical deadend for him, he either ignores that post or turns to
verbal violence (which I think might be the ultimate goal for trolls)
- but clearly he is able to distiguish these cases.

It is actually possible that someone acts a lot like a troll, but does
not do it just for the fun of it nor out of malice, but instead they are
being honest, but can't help it nor control their impulses. There are
people who (only semi-intentionally) seek attention and acceptance
without realizing that their behavior is actually detrimental and that
the only thing they are achieving is getting completely negative attention.
Sometimes they do realize this but, as said, can't help it nor control
their impulses: The urge to keep arguing and to repeat old tired arguments,
to defend one's position (no matter how hopeless or nonsensical), can be
too strong.

This is by no means necessarily a sign of a mental defect, just a strong
personality trait (even if a rather detrimental one in many situations).
Often one can learn from experience and "grow out" of it and stop doing it,
but it can require time.

The anonymity of the internet can severely aggravate this personality
problem. The person might be completely different in real life because
not being faceless and anonymous imposes great restrictions on one's
behavior, and the person can very easily restrict their impulses in real
life situations. On the internet the threshold to let oneself loose is much
smaller and easier to cross.
 
P

Paul

A started a new thread where I invited yourself and James to have a proper
debate about member functions being the same as ordinary fucntions. Which
you did not parcipate.
That was after all your argument and the only discussion I've had with you.

I think you were the one who reached a logical dead-end. And you started
making posts such as , "be a man and answer my post".
But then you did not answer my posts. :) Which wasn't very manly of you I
must say.

<snip>
 
J

James Kanze

Indeed. I'm not sure why James is even bothering replying to that
person anymore.

I reply to posts that seem sain, but wrong, on the grounds that
others reading them may be taken in by them.

And it's not "that person", but "those people". There are at
least two candidates. (Also, both can be right on some
particular minor point. Which doesn't change the global
picture.)
 
J

Joshua Maurice

I reply to posts that seem sain, but wrong, on the grounds that
others reading them may be taken in by them.

A necessary annoyance, I suppose. Kudos.
 
P

Peter Remmers

Am 19.03.2011 00:43, schrieb Leigh Johnston:
You are probably referring to me as I have been very active in this
newsgroup recently trying to correct Paul The Troll and I have also
disagreed with you causing you to label me a troll; assuming that is the
case you can just **** off. *You* are the troll; a well read troll but
a troll nevertheless.

You are no better than Paul when it comes to having a technical
conversation. You are aggressively trying to get your point through and
start calling names as soon as your arguments cease to have an effect.
You act childish in repeating the same mantra over and over again.

The only difference to Paul is that technically you are right most of
the time. I actually was on your side until you started acting the same
way as Paul. Especially that signed/unsigned issue is your personal red rag.
Troll off.

See what I mean...


Peter
 
P

Paul

Peter Remmers said:
Am 19.03.2011 00:43, schrieb Leigh Johnston:

You are no better than Paul when it comes to having a technical
conversation. You are aggressively trying to get your point through and
start calling names as soon as your arguments cease to have an effect. You
act childish in repeating the same mantra over and over again.

The only difference to Paul is that technically you are right most of the
time.

LOL
 
P

Peter Remmers

Am 19.03.2011 05:23, schrieb Paul:

Don't laugh. I hereby assert that to those still talking to you it is a
a sport/challenge/entertainment/duty to try and squeeze at least a
little truth out of you.

To me it was entertaining reading your wretched farce. But it does get
tiring at some point.

Peter
 
L

Lasse Reichstein Nielsen

[Kruger-Dunning effect]
However, I think this case is a troll (someone who does this
conscientiously and delibarately to force people into prolong
conversations). I tried before to grant him the benefit of the doubt,
but at some point I got convinced. Whenever the conversaion does reach
a logical deadend for him, he either ignores that post or turns to
verbal violence (which I think might be the ultimate goal for trolls)
- but clearly he is able to distiguish these cases.

Actually he's not even a very good troll. He works too hard.
A good troll can post one message and incite the existing users to go
into a long discussion about a small contended point, and then only
feed the discussion with snippets when it's starting to boild down.
If every other post is from the troll, he's just not very good at
trolling.

/L
 
P

Peter Remmers

Am 19.03.2011 12:56, schrieb Leigh Johnston:
Kanze labelled me a troll as I disagreed with him; that is "calling
names"; he has done this on more than one occasion. Childish? Mantra?

With mantra I referred to this:

<quote>
In C++ a member function is a member of a class not a member of an
object. Classes only exist during compilation; after compilation
functions (member or otherwise) only exist as machine code in the text
segment. In C++ an object is simply a region of storage.
</quote>

Which you annoyingly pasted into almost every reply to Paul.

And I referred to your constant chanting that std::size_t is used in the
standard library, so this must be proof enough that unsigned is to be
preferred.
Unsigned integral types can of course be used to represent
non-negative values; there is evidence to support this position; a
position which I am simply defending.
Actually, I too am in the pro-unsigned camp, but what's disturbing is
that you just paste your standard texts at every opportunity, thinking
that repeating then often enough will make your argument stronger or
something. Don't tell me that's not childish.

And apropos... Your useless ping-pong with Paul - "You are an idiot" -
"No, *you* are the idiot" - "No, it is *you* who is the idiot" - "No,
you".... ad nauseam, is as childish as it can get, and far from
constructive.


Peter
 
Ö

Öö Tiib

Kanze labelled me a troll as I disagreed with him; that is "calling
names"; he has done this on more than one occasion.  Childish?  Mantra?
  Unsigned integral types can of course be used to represent
non-negative values; there is evidence to support this position; a
position which I am simply defending.

Yes, unsigned types can be used (and are used in C and in C++ standard
libraries) to represent positive values. Also char arrays can be used
(but are not used in C and in C++ standard libraries) to represent
positive values. So what? Is it now good reason to flood newsgroup
with posts stating it?

What i think Alf was exactly worried about was such flooding with
worthless posts. CLC++ community now looks like group of lunatics
arguing in 100 posts threads about things like "what is function",
"what is class", "what is array", "what is pointer", "what is int",
"what is unsigned", "what is object" and "who is even more idiot and
troll".

Long argument often with with foul language ... whoever wins it is
retarded anyway.
 
E

Ebenezer

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fractal_wrongness

"
Fractal wrongness is the state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of
resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is
incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's
worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as
every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder,
full of half-truths, leaps of poor logic, and outright lies, that requires just
as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a
fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the
Mandelbrot set in finite time.

If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the
Internet - in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums - your best bet is to
say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.
"

I'm not liking the swearing in these threads. It
becomes abusive pretty quickly. Perhaps I should
review other options besides Google groups.

Brian Wood
Ebenezer Enterprises
http://webEbenezer.net
 
J

James Kanze

On Mar 17, 6:10 pm, "Alf P. Steinbach /Usenet" <alf.p.steinbach
[...]
I'm not liking the swearing in these threads.

Independently of what I like, telling someone to **** off is
hardly a conclusive technical argument.

With regards to swearing, I rather like my mother's point of
view: it shows a remarkable lack of vocabulary. I'd perhaps
nuance her statement with regards to context, but in the context
of a technical discussion, I think it pretty much applies.
Swearing is the last resort, when you don't have any valid
arguments to present. Swearing is, in fact, an admission that
you are wrong, but that you're not man enough to admit it.
 

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