[ExI] miscommunication (was: Yet another health care debate)

[Lee Corbin]

Yes, John originally did misunderstand, but only in a
simple, obvious way, at least as seen in the first posts,
right?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John K Clark" <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 2:14 PM


>> Extreme libertarians do, from time to time, bring up the
>> suggestion of  letting all the poor, mentally disabled,
>> physically disabled, etc. fall by  the wayside (evolution
>> in action), but we are trying to civilize them.
>
> You better not tell those dunces that, they may be stupid but
> they're smart enough to recognize your condescending tone
> and they won't like it one bit; nor will the 99% who are not
> incredibly dumb when you tell them that they must live in agony
> until they die a hideous and inglorious death because we've got
> to protect the moronic 1% from themselves. I really don't think
> that will go over very well at all.
>
>  John K Clark

and at this point it was *obvious* that he had misunderstood
(at least to quite a number of us). John *clearly* is saying that
"you better not tell all those [poor, mentally disabled, etc.]
that [we are trying to civilize them]", because it doesn't make
any sense to suppose that he was speaking about the
Extreme Libertarians in that vein.

But Damien wrote

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 2:34 PM


> At 05:14 PM 9/22/2008 -0400, John K Clark wrote:
>
>>>Extreme libertarians do, from time to time, bring up the suggestion
>>>of  letting all the poor, mentally disabled, physically disabled,
>>>etc. fall by  the wayside (evolution in action), but we are trying
>>>to civilize them.
>>
>>You better not tell those dunces that, they may be stupid but
>>they're smart enough to recognize your condescending tone and they
>>won't like it one bit
>
> I think it's a bit unkind to call "extreme libertarians" stupid dunces. A bit.
>
> Damien Broderick

I [Lee] thought that he [Damien] was being witty, not serious. Surely
he was. No?  And I said so.

Next I got to the post where  Damien quoted what looks to me like
an entirely innocent and apologetic response from John:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Yet another health care debate.


> At 06:22 PM 9/22/2008 -0400, John K Clark  wrote:
>
>>>I think it's a bit unkind to call "extreme libertarians"
>>>stupid dunces.
>>
>>Before I posited my last post I scrutinized it
>>for potential landmines, I did not find any. Damien in the future
>>please have the courtesy of being a little less bright.
>
> ???
>
> BillK said this:
>
> "4) Extreme libertarians do, from time to time, bring up the suggestion
> of letting all the poor, mentally disabled, physically disabled, etc.
> fall by the wayside (evolution in action), but we are trying to
> civilize them. Perhaps they could be permanently accompanied by a
> social worker who every so often, wags a finger at them and says,
> 'Now, now, that's not very nice, is it? Try to play nice with other
> people'."
>
> Is it really difficult to grasp that BillK was saying, in his polite
> UKian way, "Extreme libertarians are heartless bastards who'd be
> happy to see the weaker people in the community perish, but some of
> us are trying to civilize such extreme libertarians, who should learn
> to treat other people nicely"?
>
> Or were you making some other, deeper, subtler criticism of Bill's
> post that escapes me?
>
> Damien Broderick

To me, when John said "I scrutinized my email for landmines, but
didn't find any", it looked like it was by way of apology, because he
followed it up with a remark "please have the courtesy of being a little
less bright" that I took as, yes, ironical, but in a flattering way,
namely that Damien had spotted a landmine that John had missed.
Maybe I was naïve. Maybe that was a poisonous remark by John,
though as I say it doesn't look it to me. Perhaps that's how Damien took it?

(At the time, I myself was unwilling to call John's simple error any
kind of "landmine". Indeed---quite the case of miscommunication.)

When I wrote, I had not yet got to that post, and that's why perhaps
Damien took my post wrong and thought we were all crazy, and
that I too was misinterpreting BillK's remarks. (I wasn't---it was
clear to me, unlike John, that Bill was saying that it was the Libertarians
who needed civilizing.)

BillK finishes it just now with

> It seems a pity to stop the ongoing deconstruction of my little
> humorous paragraph.
> (Deconstruction -  "A strategy of critical analysis directed towards
> exposing unquestioned metaphysical assumptions and internal
> contradictions in philosophical and literary language.")
>
> But I suppose I have to officially confirm that Damien has understood
> correctly the intended meaning. As Emlyn commented, I find it
> difficult to see how the average reader could interpret it in any
> other way. Especially as the following sentence was jokingly chiding
> the 'extreme libertarians' for their misbehavior.

Yes, but what if the reader (in this case John) doesn't get to the
next paragraph yet, and fires off a reply?  (I commit the same sin,
I confess, but then go on to read the rest, perhaps some
misunderstanding now thoroughly entrenched in my mind).
But you see, from just what John *responded to* it is clear
exactly how he misunderstood, and how harmless it was.

No?  Or can even more deconstructing continue?

Lee