I'm going to be (mostly) staying out of this one, but I think I may have a couple of useful remarks here --
> But typically in those cases we've experienced, the attacker is > buying the second pitcher of beer later in the day (depends on > whether he has tenure). I can't speak about any institutions other than the ones I've worked at: but in both graduate school and my employers since, if Alice is able to demonstrate to Bob that his cherished idea is faulty, Bob buys Alice a beverage -- not as a way of acknowledging Alice's "victory," but as a way of expressing a tangible thank-you to Alice for helping Bob become better at his task. This principle is not modern: it's about as old as the hills. You can even find it in the Tanakh: "As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend." (Mishlei 27:17) > We are taught to attack and challenge _ideas_ especially new or > unproven ones. It's how weaknesses or fallacies in a theory are > exposed. It's the way peer-review works. It's the way science works. Consider a high school student who's wracked with self-doubt over asking a pretty girl out: will she say yes? Will she say no? This student is so wrapped around the axle over the answer that by the time he finally gets up the nerve to ask her out they're already facing 30 and are meeting up at their ten-year high school reunion. The student cares more about the answer, and what the answer says about *him*, than he cares about what the answer is, or for that matter ever getting an answer in the first place. If I, today, at age 37, could go back in time 20 years and give myself at age 17 some advice, I'd say, "Just ask her out already. Maybe she'll say yes. Maybe she'll say no. Either way, you'll have your answer and you'll go on with your life. Please stop wrapping your self-worth up in decisions that other people will make." It's really easy for us to think that if we get rejected for a date, that it somehow means we're defective or faulty or something. And that's crazy: rejection is about as personal as junk email. The first dozen times or so it stings, then you get really good at laughing over it, and then you lose your fear of rejection and you start having a lot more success. Who cares if you get rejected a hundred times if it means that on your hundred-and-first try you wind up having the cup of coffee that ultimately turns into the next sixty years and three kids? Likewise with ideas. It's really easy for us to think that if our ideas get rejected, that it somehow means we're stupid or idiots or foolish or something. And that's just as crazy: a bad idea just means that you had a bad idea. The first dozen or so times it stings. Then you get really good at laughing over it, and the next thing you know you've unleashed a hundred bad ideas on the world... and one really, really good one that people will be talking about for years to come. _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
