Re: Just one more anecdote

On 29 Jul 2005 08:38:13 -0700, "dawn" <dawnwolthuis_at_gmail.com> wrote:

>Marshall Spight wrote:
>> dawn wrote:
>> > Marshall Spight wrote:
><snip>
>> That's kind of odd, because I see anger and (modest amounts of)
>> bitterness as entirely normal parts of the human condition,
>
>perhaps normal, but not good triggers for this type of dialog
>
>> whereas
>> ignorance and stupidity are studiously to be avoided.

     Marshall, that may be so, but I see ignorance and stupidity as entirely normal parts of the human condition. We are all ignorant, just of different things.

>You may have gotten different societal messages than I. I often am
>ignorant (think how much there is to know!), but when I'm not, I
>sometimes fake it :-)

     I sometimes wish I could. I have gotten accused of thinking I know it all when I am in the middle of puzzling through a problem. Some people's observational skills are sadly lacking.

[snip]

>> So, like, own it.
>
>You got it.

     Good.

[snip]

>> Ahem. Well, perhaps his remark strayed into that territory.
>> But then, I know this other person, who I still like and
>> respect, and she goes to this one newsgroup that's mostly
>> full of SQL/RM people and likes to talk about how SQL has
>> all these problems and the RM should be dismantled and replaced
>> with something altogether different.
>
>What balls!
>(I might not say that out loud, just write it for anyone in the world
>to read, go figure)

     If the group is mainly SQL/RM people, then it is likely people working with it. Her comments would then be off-topic, and I would call her behaviour rudeness.

[snip]

>> Now, I don't think she's trolling or anything; she clearly
>> believes the positions she puts forward. But I've seen her
>> long enough to know that she knows just what she's doing when
>> she drops one of her real zingers in there. Why, just the
>> other day she casually referred to a project moving to a
>> SQL database as "downgrading."

     She knows what she is doing and is deliberately goading. That is trolling.

>And I see now that my parenthetical joke-ish was what David commented
>on as claiming something as fact that had not been proven. If I had
>understood that, I wouldn't have been perplexed.
>
>I put comments like that in to keep from being too dull, to trip those
>collective buttons, and also because it helps some personality types
>stay safe with their RM theories because they can write me off
>altogether as clearly either stupid or ignorant.

     Do you realise how condescending that is?

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko Received on Fri Jul 29 2005 - 18:34:32 CEST