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: 103376,ac39a12d5faf5b14 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-14 03:57:48 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!skynet.be!skynet.be!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!unlisys!news.snafu.de!cs.tu-berlin.de!uni-duisburg.de!not-for-mail From: Georg Bauhaus Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: --off topic Re: Rant! (was) Development process in the Ada community Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 10:57:47 +0000 (UTC) Organization: GMUGHDU Message-ID: References: <3CB46975.90408@snafu.de> <3CB61A78.271280C1@btinternet.com> <3CB74B83.D24F1835@btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de X-Trace: a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de 1018781867 1396 134.91.4.34 (14 Apr 2002 10:57:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.uni-duisburg.de NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 10:57:47 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: tin/1.5.8-20010221 ("Blue Water") (UNIX) (HP-UX/B.11.00 (9000/800)) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:22509 Date: 2002-04-14T10:57:47+00:00 List-Id: Chad R. Meiners wrote about tony's comments: : Note that rhetoric does not deal with truth, but it does deal in impressing : ideas upon people. That's a relatively recent (and narrowed) meaning of the word, afaik. Until few centuries ago, rhetoric counted as number two of the arts, close to logic, grammar, dialegein (not to be confused with the simple concept of yes/no/together again), and, in roman days, courts. Thus of course in those days it had to do with truth, in several ways. : As : to your supposed 'criticism', in order for criticism to be valid it must be : a well formed argument O.K. : and be logically consistent. That again is a modern axiom held by many scientists. By a mechanism known as group pressure it has become a dominant view in several scientific discussions, despite it's known difficulties. I'm not opposing that view entirely, but there are other views and they were described by scientists that were/are not actually nuts. (I'll try to find some interesting references next week, I hope.) : As to your red herring about Somalia, you still cite no evidence; you only : state your confidence in a book author's words. What will count as evidence? : "tony" wrote in message :> Critiscism is not irrational hatred. (a claim, with an implicit all quantifier) :> Bombing, strafing and the murder of unarmed civilian crowds in Somalia :> (The author of blackhawk down describes this in his book) is Irrational :> hatred and more. Read as, "as described in the book", and given a truth universally aknowledged that there is hardly any war not somehow involving hatred as a motive of acts before/in wars, tony's sentence (this one) can, I think, indeed be read as a logically valid sentence, namely an impicit conclusion. (This doesn't say something about the validity of the premise (the book). However, if I say, "I'm confident that P /= NP, and based on that ..." this might be no evidence about P vs NP, but it certainly leeds to sound reasoning in current cirumstances, doesn't it. (P vs NP is not something I know a great deal about but if you allow me to use it for the sake of the argument...) :> Opposing the design and production of satanic devices :> that make this possible is NOT irrational hatred, it is a logical valid :> method to oppose people who betray Humanity. I see your point (I think), having read the article about a clever new weapon in IEEE Software, near Ada pride. However, within a scenario that involves satan, I can also see that these days people are not likely to agree that logic starts here. After all, famous betrayals with murderous consequence have been carried out with weapons not originally designed for murder, but for defence (...) and decoration, viz. daggers. As a final logical play, - measured by the number of guns etc. sold, shooting weapons are much more popular in the USA than in Europe. - timelessly popular devices reliably go with efforts to improve them, sell more - a programming language seen in connection with popular things will, by the principle of association (like in behaviourism), profit from the popularity of the things. ------------------- conclusion: ... :-) regards, Georg Bauhaus