Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
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From: jeff@festival.ed.ac.uk (J W Dalton)
Subject: Re: Moron Watch
References: <DByFwt.6x1@cwi.nl> <3uj75o$9mt@netnews.upenn.edu> <jqbDC012J.BuL@netcom.com> <3ukthu$p6c@saba.info.ucla.edu> <jqbDC069u.rs@netcom.com> <3ulk6o$7fd@netnews.upenn.edu>
Message-ID: <DCn2DJ.BDw@festival.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 15:44:04 GMT
Lines: 45
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.philosophy:31184 sci.logic:13429

weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:

>In article <jqbDC069u.rs@netcom.com>, jqb@netcom (Jim Balter) writes
>[to Michael Zeleny]:
>>To the best of your knowledge, you claim, Wiener has never insulted
>>anyone who didn't first demonstrate a lack of "intelligence and
>>manners".  Since, in the case of Olaf Weber at hand, as well as that
>>of Adam Constabaris and Ed Faith, no lack of "intelligence and
>>manners" is evident, you are either a liar (and certainly a
>>self-serving one) or the best of your knowledge is of low quality.

>Olaf, Adam, and Ed have all demonstrated massive ignorance on the
>points I have raised.  Olaf has never heard of numerous things, yet
>immediately rushes to explain why they are wrong.  Adam is showing
>off new depths of stupidity, and new depths of no-nothing sarcasm.
>As for Ed, he is totally clueless about what is being discussed.

I find it easy to skip over the "insults" and mind them far less
than some of the other techniques employed in comp.ai.phil,
especially the attempts to make positions seem ridiculous
by distorting and caricaturing them.

Moreover, Weemba's attacks can be very amusing.  I enjoyed the
"woo din" story, for instance.

I don't know that Weemba always gets it right.  I've found Adam to
be fairly reasonable in other discussions, though he may have absorbed
too much of the comp.ai.phil style.  But JQB's treatment of Timothy 
Murphy is also questionable.

Also, I find that Weemba has done a fairly good job of sticking to
the argument.  Dismissing people out of hand may not be especially
fair, but at least he's able to keep the distortions of his position
(some of which seem to be meant to fall into this "sarcasm" category)
pretty much under control.  I've often found that in comp.ai.phil
that it doesn't work to try to explain that something is a misunderstanding
or distortion.  Instead, the explanation is searched for new targets.
In many cases, Weemba's approach seems more effective.

My main complaint is that the argument appears in fragments (at least
in the artciles I've seen) and that explanations, when offered, are
often too brief (which can make it difficult for interested 3rd parties
to understand Weemba's case).

-- jd
