On Mar 28, 10:20 am, Steven D'Aprano <steve +comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 20:49:20 -0700, rusi wrote: > > On Mar 28, 8:18 am, Ethan Furman <et...@stoneleaf.us> wrote: > > >> So long as Mark doesn't start cussing and swearing I'm not going to get > >> worked up about it. I find jmf's posts for more aggravating. > > > I support Ned's original gentle reminder -- Please be civil irrespective > > of surrounding nonsensical behavior. > > > In particular "You are a liar" is as bad as "You are an idiot" The same > > statement can be made non-abusively thus: "... is not true because ..." > > I accept that criticism, even if I disagree with it. Does that make > sense? I mean it in the sense that I accept that your opinion differs > from mine. > > Politeness does not always trump honesty, and stating that somebody's > statement "is not true because..." is not the same as stating that they > are deliberately telling lies (rather than merely being mistaken or > confused). > > The world is full of people who deliberately and in complete awareness of > what they are doing lie in order to further their agenda, or for profit, > or to feel good about themselves, or to harm others. There comes a time > where politely ignoring the elephant in the room (the dirty, rotten, > lying scoundrel of an elephant) and giving them the benefit of the doubt > simply makes life worse for everyone except the liars.
We all subscribe to legal systems that decide the undecidable; eg. A pulled out a gun and killed B. Was it murder, manslaughter, just a mistake, euthanasia? Any lawyer with experience knows that horrible mistakes happen in making these decisions; yet they (the judges) need to make them. For the purposes of the python list these ascriptions to personal motives are OT enough to be out of place. > > We all know this. Unless you've been living in a cave on the top of some > mountain, we all know people whose relationship to the truth is, shall we > say, rather bendy. And yet we collectively muddy the water and inject > uncertainty into debate by politely going along with their lies, or at > least treating them with dignity that they don't deserve, by treating > them as at worst a matter of honest misunderstanding or even mere > difference of opinion. > > As an Australian, I am constitutionally required to call a spade a bloody > shovel at least twice a week, so I have no regrets. If someone has got physically injured by the spade then its a bloody spade; else you are a bloody liar :-) Well… More seriously Ive never seen anyone -- cause or person -- aided by the use of excessively strong language. IOW I repeat my support for Ned's request: Ad hominiem attacks are not welcome, irrespective of the context/provocation. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
