Re: [OT][STRIPS] Great quotes . . .

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 14:09:16 -0500, Captain Nerd
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Animeg3282) wrote:
>
*snip snip*
>> 
>> Yea, you have been whining. With your it's just so hard to act like a decent
>> human being attitude, you're acting like you even deserve tolerence for being
>> an asshat. You don't deserve anything if you don't hold up your responsibilty
>> not to be an asshole. It's your responsbilty, don't try to shift it or to 
>> shirk
>> it. If you fail in it, you don't get any sympathy so don't whine for any.
>
>   Now, where have I expressed any desire for sympathy?  I have said
>   over and over and over, I don't care if people like or dislike what
>   I say!  I don't express my apparently distasteful opionions because
>   it's too hard not to, I do it because I can, just as everyone who
>   disagrees can express their opinions about what I say!  I am not
>   trying to shut anyone up, just because I express my opinions!
>
Ummm, I think you're asserting an non-credible amount of intellectual
detachment, here.  If you don't care, why post?

If you're trying to communicate an idea, you *do* care what people
think about it.  You thus care whether they like or dislike what you
say.  "Because I can" is not usually sufficient reason for most
speechifying.  Unless you regard it as a performance art, or something
equally bizarre.  O_o;;

You *think* you're totally detached and intellectually secure because
you haven't resorted to profanity yet.  But total detachment is an
intellectual illusion, a spiritual ideal.  And frankly, I prefer the
*fun* Buddhas, the big fat laughing guys, over the pretensious ones,
anyways. :)

The closest thing humans have to total intellectual detachment is
probably empirical falsification.  Give us tools to disprove your
ideals of humanity based on predictions and observations of real-world
data.  Have an actual position that can be reliably disproven, then
we'll talk detachment.

>   And in my opinion, neither I nor anyone else has a "responsibility
>   not to be an asshole."  We each have a responsibilty to be true to
>   our individual natures, regardless of how they're perceived by
>   others.  And in this forum, my nature is to be contrary, outspoken,
>   and unrepentant!  As well as being a "pretentious dickhead"! ^_^
>
...weirdly romantic outlook to go with your classic praise of
detachment, here.

The primary virtue of the best fruits of the classic, rational outlook
(Science, Capitalism, Democracy) is self-correction.  The primary vice
of those cultures is self-delusion.  Thus, not listening to, or
carefully considering the points of others can lead to the closest
thing these systems have to Sin.  And frankly, manners are perhaps the
primary tool we have towards keeping relations civil enough that our
voices *do* get heard, and considered.

If you can find a better system than Manners for social relations, be
sure to tell us.  It's a sometimes clumsy system, with a difficult
learning curve for too many of our brightest members of society.  It
uses different skill sets, and thus gets denigrated, but I have found
few long-term societal alternatives....

Yes, sometimes manners aren't enough.  But no single tool is, so you
*never* discard a tool without consideration.

>   Cap.

Jonathan Fisher
----------
paranormalized man, subnormalized otaku

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