Re: Ruling in _Intel v. Hamidi_ -Reply
The Professor of Law writes:
>No, actually, it was a (perhaps too subtle) reference to your frequent
>tactic of denying that you'd said something which was reasonably inferred
>from what you'd said.
Let me teach you a lesson I learned as a reporter: Quote people precisely
and respond to the quote rather than to some rhetorically useful paraphrase
or distortion.
On more than one occasion, you've shown a willingness to "reasonably infer"
a particularly stupid meaning from other posters' words. Specifically, you
interpreted postings in this discussion as classifying Intel as a state
actor (they never said such a thing), and you interpreted my posting as
saying that connection to the Internet means a forfeiture of all control (I
never said such a thing) .
In neither instance were you correct, but you never acknowledged your
blunders. This does not speak well of your intellectual integrity,
regardless of how you may attempt to defend it here.
> I've dealt with people like you before, and I
>advise people never to have an important conversation with them without a
>witness present.
This attempt at a cut is of course another blunder on your part -- in this
medium, words are preserved precisely. We're all a witness to what I
actually said, and to what you actually said. So the witness issue not
only is phony, but it also reveals you to be (to put it charitably)
oblivious.
I've dealt with people like you before too -- supercilious academics who
work out their bitterness at being appointed to backwater schools by
imposing distorted, dishonest "interpretations" on other people's words and
refusing, ever, to acknowledge and apologize for their blunders and
distortions.
>Of course, we have witnesses present, who may draw their
>own conclusions.
Yes. Now find a witness who can *quote* me saying that connecting to the
Internet entails a "forfeiture" of all control. Oops, guess you can't do
that when limited to actual, precise quotations, can you?
>I suspect that a lot of people here are onto you, too.
Yes, I'm known to be a stickler for quoting people and for insisting on
being quoted accurately, so that they can't disseminate lies about what
others have said.
>:Dan Burk was careful to qualify his statement. You were careful to
>:misrepresent him by omitting the qualifiers. Then you misrepresented me by
>:attributing the fucked-over version of the statement to me. It was quite
>:clear what you were up to.
>
>Nice language.
Accurate language.
>Actually it was _you_ who took the statement out of
>context, quoted it, and said it was deeply true.
I didn't decontextualize it -- I quoted it (a habit you might try
acquiring), and applied its meaning just as Dan Burk meant it.
>I'm not sure I even
>_saw_ it in context.
Whose fault is that? Don't they do, you know, research at your school?
>It was, as I said, _your_ post to which I was
>responding.
It was, as your posting indicates, Dan Burk's statement that you were
saying was "trivially true" (but only when I repeated it).
>And, being as thin-skinned as you are, you completely and
>utterly missed my substantive point, taking my comment instead as a
>personal insult (which is not how it was intended).
Sorry, but your subsequent postings made your intentions clear.
>:Those who use paraphrases to distort what an opponent says are engaging in
>:something more than rhetoric -- they're indulging in intellectual
>:dishonesty.
>
>Were I you, I would have stopped reading here and just "bozofiltered"
>you.
Fine with me.
> But
>for _you_ of all people to accuse me of intellectual dishonesty is
>unacceptable. Your word games, your logic chopping, your avoidance of the
>real issues, your twisting what others say, your denying that you ever
>meant what others reasonably infer from what you say, all of which we have
>all observed here recently, make the accusation supremely hypocritical.
Sorry, but you can't *quote* a single instance in which I've done any of
these things, can you?
1) The phrase "word game" is a semantic nullity.
2) I've never misused logic in a posting to this forum.
3) I address the issues I believe to be important.
4) I take pains (unlike you) to quote people precisely.
5) And I criticize those who lie about what other people say, which you
demonstrably have done.
>I have no particular interest in _not_ provoking Dan; but it was, as I
>said, your characterization of his observation to which I was responding.
That's a lie. Let me quote you again:
"It's not deeply true, it's trivially true."
Now, I'm assuming you know what the word "antecedent" means. What does "It"
refer to in your sentence? An inspection of your posting shows that the
word refers to Dan Burk's proposition. There is no other candidate for the
antecedent "it". You do know grammar, don't you?
>It's interesting how you feel free to infer from what others say their
>"real agenda," but whenever anyone makes reasonable inferences from what
>you say, your response is "but I didn't _say_ that."
Of course, the difference is that I rely on precise quotation, and you rely
on lying about what other people say.
>Ah, so it's your thin skin which has provoked this waste of bandwidth.
Nobody forced you to respond.
>Again, my apologies to the list for deeming Godwin's bile worthy of
>response.
If you were really sorry, you wouldn't have responded.
--Mike
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"I speak the password primeval .... I give the sign of democracy ...."
--Walt Whitman
Mike Godwin can be reached by phone at 212-888-7811.
His book, CYBER RIGHTS, can be ordered at
http://www.panix.com/~mnemonic .
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