Author: Harry Field
Date: 02:26:52 12/04/00
Go up one level in this thread
On December 03, 2000 at 16:40:05, Bruce Moreland wrote: > >I feel frustrated by Bob's continued assertions that I am wrong whenever I say >anything on this issue, even when I simply quote things that Bob himself has >said repeatedly and with great emphasis. It is very difficult to have a >discussion with someone when you can't even stipulate their most basic points >without their attempting to debate them with you. > >A: The earth is round. >B: No, it's flat. >A: It's obviously round. >B: Ok, assuming it's round, how about this ... >A: Your point is false because you can't assume the earth is round. > >Wouldn't this drive *you* crazy? > >bruce What it drives you depends on the degree of emotional connection between your life and this place. Obviously, readers who closely follow posts and arguments and personalities would agree with you. How many people read here? 100? How many of those have sufficient emotional connection to read almost every post, to intuitively home in on specific matters, to remember what was posted last week, last month, by whom, and whether or not the content hangs together? 20? 30? Those 20 or 30 will agree with you. The other 70 read here and there, they come and they go, they get replaced with new figures - all they see is someone arguing with Bob. Always someone arguing with Bob. But Bob gives away his source, he answers questions, he teaches - and here you are arguing with him; with compicated data that involves reading back over various posts, and about some trivial off-topic politics or Deep Blue detail or Crafty source code esoteric. And these 70 will think *you* are trolling - if Bob stands up for himself, with counter argument, even if he contradicts himself from last week, then all that the 70 see is Bob being teacher dealing with a pesky and envious wannabee. And so it goes on - one of the principal news group dynamics. All that matters to Bob is that he remains being seen as right by a vocal-enough majority - even though he lost the respect of the peer group. Lincoln is disproved - time, turnover, casual reading and lack of easy-readable archives fades all old facts. It is only necessary to fool most of the people most of the time - the occasional loss gets forgotten - and the old teacher remains the great leader. This is his life. Only with an obsessive emotional involvement and your time spent worrying would this "drive you crazy". If you finished your program, spent 3 or 4 years controlling its micro-world, chased down all the rebelious bugs it threw at you, wrestled with understanding the strange behaviours that came from it, controlled it, controlled it, controlled it - then you are done. Control freakery and obsession won through - you made it. And then what? Next micro-world to apply the obsessive control-freakery to? The news group! Or the Internet Chess Club! All those rebelious bugs and cheats and trolls and fake accounts and try to understand them and control them and make rules for them and still they throw new bugs at you and did you understand it right and how can you find out this or that and who and why and what and which ISP or track down a computer cheater by his signature or delay on move or match with Fritz or or or or. You spend an hour a day worrying on this? Nope, 24. Does children and family deserve this? What is in it for you?
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