From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107f24,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid107f24,public X-Google-Thread: f4fd2,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gidf4fd2,public X-Google-Thread: 1164ba,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid1164ba,public X-Google-Thread: 103d24,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid103d24,public X-Google-Thread: 10259a,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid10259a,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,ea8ea502d35ca2ce X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-05-12 15:40:08 PST Path: archiver1.sj.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!freenix!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsrouter.chello.at!newsfeed.Austria.EU.net!newsfeed.kpnqwest.at!newsfeed.wu-wien.ac.at!not-for-mail From: Markus Mottl Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.basic,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.perl Subject: Re: [OT] Software Engineering at 14 Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 22:38:04 +0000 (UTC) Organization: University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria Message-ID: <9dke0c$87s$1@bird.wu-wien.ac.at> References: <9cukad$nn68@news-dxb> <9d6b6e$1bt$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <87snihxiwc.fsf@frown.here> <9dbi83$sji$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <87heyu7cqd.fsf@frown.here> <9dc20p$hh15e$1@ID-37382.news.dfncis.de> <9ddfv2$gl3$1@merrimack.Dartmouth.EDU> <9dh21o$i8crr$2@ID-37382.news.dfncis.de> <9dhtr9$59d$1@merrimack.Dartmouth.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: miss.wu-wien.ac.at X-Trace: bird.wu-wien.ac.at 989707084 8444 137.208.107.17 (12 May 2001 22:38:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news-admin@wu-wien.ac.at NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 22:38:04 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-981225 ("Volcane") (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Xref: archiver1.sj.google.com comp.lang.ada:7434 comp.lang.lisp:9924 comp.lang.smalltalk:9620 comp.lang.functional:5575 comp.lang.scheme:3751 comp.lang.perl:2682 Date: 2001-05-12T22:38:04+00:00 List-Id: In comp.lang.functional raj wrote: >>Specialized education at that age, to be honest, seems militaristic. > That is probably "not a problem" either. > Remember, you are talking about the educational system of a country > that produced Joerg Haider , Kurt Waldheim and most (in)famously Adolf > Schicklgruber. Although this is completely off topic, I still feel that it's necessary to answer this statement. First of all, there is nothing militaristic about the Austrian school system. In fact, it was mainly shaped by the government of the social democrats. E.g. in contrast to some other countries, there are no competitive elements in it like e.g. having students compete for a place at good schools. Until this year, access to universities was _free_ for everybody. Contrast this to most other countries. Secondly, "good" education does not necessarily make "good" people. If it only were so easy! What concerns Adolf "Schicklgruber" (why not name the devil: it's Hitler), I happened to go to the same school where he had also studied. In contrast to him I completed the eight years there instead of being thrown out after one. So no, there is no reason to think that his "success" was encouraged by the school system of his time and definitely even less by our current one. Just for your interest, the history of and around World War II is a major topic in (compulsory!) Austrian history classes. The crimes, which were also supported to a quite significant part by Austrians, are covered there in accurate detail. All classes had to see the concentration camp in Mauthausen, a rather shocking experience for the average teenager. I can only hope that your country educates its children equally well to be watchful citizens, because I am absolutely convinced that what happened here can otherwise happen anywhere at anytime. If you really blame the Austrian school system for producing people like above, why don't you also count other people educated by it, like e.g. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Kurt Goedel, Ludwig Boltzmann, Erwin Schroedinger, Wolfgang Pauli or (more recent - around the age of Haider) Anton Zeilinger? What concerns our current political situation, I know that there is nothing to be proud of. It might be sufficient for you to know that alone in our capital nearly 200,000 people demonstrated against the forming of this government (the people are still alive) and that it was only due to a coalition that the extreme right could enter it (the largest party is still the social democrats, who are in opposition). Also note that the Austrian law (which hasn't changed in this respect) disallows national socialist activities. For example, people who publically deny the existence of concentration camps can be sentenced to life-long prison! I doubt that your country has only closely as strict anti-nazi laws (if any at all). This also means that there is a hard limit to which the extreme right can go without being forbidden due to our constitutional laws (government does _not_ have the sufficient majority in parliament for changing the constitution and would definitely not dare to touch this specific issue). Even if I am, as many others, extremely dissatisfied being governed by a right-winged government, it was a democratic process that lead to this result. If democracy is a value as such, we must accept its outcomes. Everything else would just be another form of totalitarianism. I don't think that the extreme right will get another chance to enter government after the next elections. Their populist style has been demasked by their sheer incompetence (e.g. they had to exchange half of their ministers within not even a year), and they had severe losses in _all_ provincial elections so far. Last but not least, I'd be very, very happy if I were not constantly confronted with the name "Haider", especially from foreign sources. The more he is mentioned, the more power he gets, because some people say "Look, he is not ignored on the international scene so he can defend our interests.". In contrast to popular belief in other countries, Haider is an _unimportant_ Austrian politician of a small (a few hundred thousand citizens) province. The mayor of our capitol is responsible for more than three times as many people. I don't think you know his name. (He is a social democrat, by the way, and his party has the absolute majority in this city). I hope that this clarifies some things about Austria and will make people think twice before making wrong generalizing claims. It's exactly this kind of defamatory statements that cause the kind of evil that you believe to be opposing. Regards, Markus Mottl P.S.: My origin is neither Austrian nor German so you cannot take my opposition against your statement as being caused by nationalist feelings. -- Markus Mottl, mottl@miss.wu-wien.ac.at, http://miss.wu-wien.ac.at/~mottl