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Subject: Re: MODERATION: The whinning begins

Author: Alvaro Polo

Date: 06:42:22 02/20/00

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On February 20, 2000 at 09:32:35, Michael Neish wrote:

>On February 20, 2000 at 03:12:49, Alvaro Polo wrote:
>
>>Perhaps I should look in my dictionnary again, but I fail to see how insulting
>>Adams can be considered naive. It can be uncorrect, or wrong, if you want. But,
>>naive?
>
>Alvaro, I'm afraid we're misunderstanding each other.  I didn't say insulting
>Adams is naive per se, but insulting him when you have no basis on which to
>do so, in this case hearing a few facts from one side, drawing your own pet
>conclusions and then stating your opinions loudly and strongly, when the
>foundation of what you are saying might be shaky.  You are in danger of
>leading further people astray with your faulty conclusions and you might
>be forced to swallow your words when fresh facts come to light. It's naive
>in the sense that you are forming strong opinions without even considering
>the limitations of what you know.
>
>The whole scientific process depends on being aware that you have limited
>information, and taking that into account when you draw up your own
>theory (or opinion as it would be in this case).  I didn't mean "sit and do
>nothing because we don't know anything," but "be aware that you don't
>know everything that happened and therefore act with caution.".
>
>>The main point here is that waiting for the facts is an attitude that always
>>favors status quo. And the status quo here is that Junior was forfeited without
>>it being clearly right (you see, nobody here says that it was right, at most
>>they say "let's wait and we'll be able to make a sound judgment). It is not
>>correct, in my opinion, to support the status quo, therefore I view the critics
>>to Adams and even to Mig as reasonable.
>
>If you re-read my first post, I said that I thought the best course of action
>would be just to find out as much as possible about what happened and to
>try to prevent the same thing from happening again.  This doesn't
>support a status quo.  It supports putting aside irrelevancies and doing
>something positive.  I never said we should just forget the whole matter,
>did I?
>
>There's one thing I've learned from living in Japan (been here four years
>now), and that is that when there's a problem, they don't waste time and
>energy (like we do in the West) trying to lynch the person responsible
>for the mistake.  Instead they work hard to fix the problem.  Obviously
>a far better approach.
>
>I don't think we're saying very different things anyway.  We just
>disagreed on the issue of insulting Adams.
>
>Mike.

I will be brief since the dangers of going astray are great. I was also trained
as a scientist, but sport has more to do with politics than with science, hence
different rules apply. The time you spend silent, waiting for more facts, is a a
tacit support for the people who forfeited DJ. Time goes in the direction of
consolidating facts, and the fact here is the forfeiture. I repeat that this is
much more politics than science, of course. Suppose that a general takes power
violently. You cannot remain silent, or he will consolidate. With or without
enough additional facts you must react against this violence. DJ forfeiture is
also violence.

By the way, as a scientist, I am fully prepared to swallow my statements if the
future facts clearly and unambiguosly contradict me.

Calling someone "cobarde" in spanish might have been the worst possible thing in
the 16th century, but today things have changed and I don't consider it to be
even insulting.

Alvaro

>
>P.S.:  Calling someone a coward in Spanish, "cobarde" isn't strong?



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