From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Thu Oct 10 2002 - 11:34:55 MDT
> (Greg Burch <gregburch@gregburch.net>):
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lee Daniel Crocker
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 4:50 PM
> > To: extropians@extropy.org
> > Subject: Re: Personal Attacks (was Re: ECONOMICS: Reality bites)
> >
> > Diplomacy is not my strong suit,
> > as many here already know. I personally find such
> > strained, evasive, dancing-around-the-issue talk to
> > be /more/ offensive than simple direct statements of
> > opinion, even harsh ones, but I suppose that's just me.
>
> Lee, I didn't read much of the thread here a few weeks back that seemed
> to have as its subject your online manners, so I'm probably re-hashing
> old ground here, but what if "diplomacy" and "dancing-around-the-issue
> talk" is like waiting your turn in line -- just something that is
> sometimes annoying, but necessary as "social lubricant" to keep things
> more efficient and livable on an over-all basis? I myself am
> notoriously impatient (just ask my wife), but most of the time I'm able
> to contain my irritation with people ahead of me in line who fumble with
> their check book, chat too long with the cashier or otherwise SLOW ME
> DOWN! Maybe I'd get out of the store more quickly on some occasions if
> I muttered audibly, "move it along, blockhead!", but in the long run,
> I'd probably get less of what I want, even if I didn't care that
> everyone within earshot would think I was a jerk.
Actually, that thread was about Lee Corbin; my online manners haven't
risen to the level of their own thread until yesterday. But anyway I do
understand the value of even those kinds of "politeness" that get in the
way of clear expression, but as I said I'm stil not very good at it.
I look at it this way: the human comminunication network is not very
different from an electronic communication network, and protocols serve
the same purposes. The overriding principle in creating protocols is
this: be conservative in what you produce, and liberal in what you
accept. That's the way to write software that keeps the network flowing
smoothly. But notice that there is a distinct assymmetry there: the
more conservative the senders, the fewer kinds of messages can be sent
over the protocol; the more liberal the receivers, the /more/ kinds of
messages it can handle. So while I may agree that politeness can be a
good thing, it is important to note that (1) it is not an end in itself,
only a /means/ to the end of better communication, and communication
should be favored when the two conflict; and (2) it is /more/ important
to emphasize the politeness and tolerance of /listeners/ than speakers.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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