Twisted said:
Because I'm pretty sure that this has come up before, and some of the
things I said (as well as the entire first half of this thread)
evidently didn't penetrate.
I wanted you to note this to realize that you do a lot of insulting in
this thread, despite requesting that others not insult you. And furthermore,
I wanted you to realize that I'm receiving negligeable, if not zero, damage
from your insults.
I understand it perfectly, but it's not within my means, and even if it
were I'm not sure it would be a good idea.
I doubt you understand it perfectly, because you seem to associate it
with the concept of deluding yourself, or pretending to be something you're
not.
You, on the other hand, don't seem to understand *that*, although I
said it a time or two before.
I understand that you're claiming it's beyond your means. I just don't
believe it.
It does look that way.
I suspect there are key facts that aren't
penetrating (or that you irrationally refuse to believe might be true?)
that prevent anything else from being communicated successfully. That
real damage can and often does result from online mudslinging campaigns
is one of those facts, and arguably the most critical.
I don't think I ever said that damage cannot happen. Once again, you've
misunderstood what I am saying. I believe that damage *has* happened to you,
because you haven't learned to shrug off these insults yet. Once you learn
how, the damage will be negligeable, if not zero.
So far, it doesn't seem to be working.
I don't know about that... I'm seeing some progress in you. The move
from "damage 100% of the time" to "usually damaging" is a good start. The
"don't ever contradict me" and "I'm never wrong" that recently popped up is
going to be an annoying obstacle to overcome, though.
It's only important to address the same subset that sees the insults.
And that's easy -- followup to the insults, as 99% of the time someone
who reads a post also reads any particular immediate descendant of it.
As I've said before, I think people are not getting the message you're
trying to convey in your posts. Caricuturized, you're essentially writing in
your post "I'm not an idiot", and people are reading "Twisted is an idiot".
So your solution may not be achieiving the goals you desire.
Neither do you. Or my attackers, for that matter. It's guesswork there.
I've chosen to model them as people of varying credulousness and
comprehension ability, wherein the effect of a message (insult,
rebuttal, whatever) is proportional to the former and has a random,
zero-mean gaussian distributed component added dependent upon the
latter. It's a fairly simple model. I suppose individual idiosyncrasies
will largely average out and can be modeled as part of that gaussian
random component. Where there are facts (e.g. technical stuff about
Java) their opinions should converge on the truth; where there are just
opinions (e.g. about people) they should end up largely unmoved if
nothing major goes by without a counter, modulo those idiosyncrasies of
course.
I suggest your model is flawed. Most scientists will reject a model if
it fails to have accurate predictive power, and this seems to be the case
with your model. It predicts people will understand and agree with your
posts, but this is simply not the case.
You do invent some strange, topsy-turvy "what-if" scenarios. Anyone who
tends to believe the opposite of what anyone tells them is probably
seriously in need of professional help. I doubt there are many. In any
event, the model treats them too, if one permits credulousness to be
negative. Everything still cancels out to leave approximately zero even
for them, under that model.
Explain to me how people with "negative credulousness" will "cancel out"
and become "zero" in your model.
If you're suggesting that there are people who believe anything
negative but the opposite of anything positive (minus the square?
whatever) then I expect those also to be rare, and obviously nothing
can convince them of anything good at least in an area devoid of facts
rather than just opinions, so they might as well be ignored. Nothing
can be done about them anyway. Same with anyone with a strong
preconceived belief that will not be budged (e.g. the attackers
themselves).
YES!
Very good. I'm amazed that you've made this giant leap in
progress.
[...]
I suppose I wouldn't apologize because I wouldn't say it in the first
place unless it actually were true. It would have to be based on
evidence and not just a vague opinion though.
Okay, so I won't apologize either.
[...]
Prevent the damage entirely and it's moot -- if you only care about no
damage occurring, then just prevent it and let morons try (and fail) to
cause it. On the other hand, if that isn't feasible you have to do
something to deter the behavior instead.
Good. I think we just have to work on your perception on what is
feasible and what isn't.
I've *been* trying to minimize the damage. You've been trying to
convince me not to, so it will just accumulate! (Apparently in the
delusional belief that there is no damage, even after I've told you a
thousand times that there frequently are tangible negative
consequences.)
Okay. There's a step I eventually want you to take which is to realize
that the perception of whether something is damaging or not is exactly that:
a perception, and so it can be changed (by changing yourself). However, I
think there are other steps to take before you're ready for that one.
Consider this: It actually *helps* your credibility if you're willing to
admit you're wrong when you actually do believe you're wrong. I.e. if you
make some claim, and later you find out you're wrong, it's a good idea to
say "Oops, sorry, I was wrong about that." Most reasonable people won't
think you're an idiot for admitting that you were wrong about something --
in fact, for a lot of people, this will cause them to have more respect for
you.
But of course, this only works if you actually do believe you've been
wrong about something. If you happen to believe that you're never wrong,
this strategy won't work. So I'd like you to do some introspective analysis
and see if maybe you might have been wrong about something, at least once in
your life.
It's not lasting. It melts in spring, or even the next day depending on
the weather. It doesn't leave you with a traumatic memory for life or
anything either, unless it causes a severe accident on the road or
something.
Apparently, every definition I can find of "traumatic" says that it
should be used only to refer to physical injury, and so according to
"dictionary English", insults are not traumatic either. Snow *does* leave
most people with a memory for life. As I said earlier, I've never met anyone
who "forgot" what snow is like.
"Results from fracture in other areas of the bony hook than in pars
interarticularis."
www.condell.org/libertyville/neurosurgery/neurology-glossary.php
"Relating to a physical wound or injury. Traumatic spinal cord injury refers
to damage to the spinal cord that has occurred as a result of an injury (eg,
following a car accident) rather than a medical condition or complication."
www.spinalnet.co.uk/EEndCom/GBCON/homepage.nsf/0/42B1C87E54BB265A00256C590045902F
A single snowflake doesn't do any sort of damage. It takes large
amounts to have consequence.
On the other hand, there is no way you can liken this current ...
whatever the **** it is to anything less than a goddam blizzard.
I'm not trying to liken it to this. We're dropping the analogies and
metaphors, remember? I'm refering to a literal snowflake. I am demonstrating
to you that there exists scenarios where (4) is the optimal solution.
[...]
Hostage-takers again -- suppose a guy threatens to smash a ten thousand
dollar item and demands a thousand bucks. You can give him the
thousand, and he goes away with it, or you can attempt to subdue and
arrest him, which risks the ten thousand. Even if the *usual* result is
ten thousand bucks' damage, if nobody who does this actually ends up
with a thousand bucks and they all instead end up with jail time,
there'll be a lot fewer incidents than if they all get a free grand
just for trying this. Ultimately, you lose $10,000 on a few rare
occasions instead of $1000 on frequent occasions. And after a few years
of this, you may have lost $100,000 if your policy is to try to
apprehend, and millions otherwise.
You do the math for yourself, and see if I'm not right!
Funny. I'd just not leave a $10'000 item lying around where people can
walk up to and smash it. But I thought we were dropping the analogies.
- Oliver
