Re: Resiliency To New Data Requirements

From: Keith H Duggar <duggar_at_alum.mit.edu>
Date: 7 Aug 2006 21:29:05 -0700
Message-ID: <1155011345.615514.302830_at_m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>

Neo wrote:
> Some may find this old post amusing:
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.databases/browse_frm/thread/e460c14f722d89a9/0e3faf55b19f9077?lnk=gst&q=%22everything+is+a+thing%22&rnum=3#0e3faf55b19f9077

Yes, I found the post very amusing. I had discovered it a few days ago in a search to learn more about you to decide for myself whether you are a troll or a demi-crank. In fact, I wrote a post that began with:

---

Whoa! You can learn all you need to know about Neo and his DBD by reading some of his 2002 and 2003 posts.

>From his first announcement

  "ANN: XDb"

and his meteoric rise from fundamental ignorance of relations

  "General Form of Relationships?"

to a vociferously ignorant "expertise" in only 2 months

  "ANN: XDb for AI (Asymmetric Irrationality) Applications"

generating a 300+ post alternating Neo/BB exchange ...

---

Alas, I decided the rest of the post was unkind and in a moment of weakness or perhaps mercy decided not to post any of it. However, the point of your "meteoric rise to VI expertise" given above is, I believe, a valid one.

You see, Neo, for at least the last 10,000 years, human beings have been intelligent. And those alive today are no more intelligent than their ancestors. In my experience it is very common, however, for many humans, out of their shear ignorance and unmitigated arrogance, to dismiss their predecessors as less intelligent; and, to dismiss what they "think" or "feel" them to have thought or done as inferior in every way.

This is why archaeologists are continually surprised by discoveries such as the Antikythera mechanism, Han Dynasty Jade burial suits, terra preta, Roman mining pumps, Machu Picchu, etc, etc, etc. Because they underestimated ancient cultures, even to point of arrogantly dismissing firsthand accounts as "myths".

This is why if you read some medieval fight books, you would probably be shocked at how deeply and carefully they thought about mortal combat. This is why there is no such thing as a "secret punch" that only a select few ju ju monks know but that you, Neo, can learn for $39.95.

This is why Dawn writes articles with arrogant titles like "Is Codd Dead?" and makes derisive comments about work that long preceded her intellectual capacity to comprehend it.

This is why many are almost entirely ignorant of material that isn't in Wikipedia or Google.

This is why you, Neo, entering a study explored by thousands before you yet knowing almost nothing of the corpus they produced, will eventually realize they were not all idiots who missed something as easy as binary relations or Lambda.

And why if you want to contribute something original and useful, you should drop the arrogant ignorance and at least master prior art before going ape-shit.

• Keith -- Fraud 6

Received on Tue Aug 08 2006 - 06:29:05 CEST