Re: Objectivity [was Re: Re: [Israel.pm] Is University Really Necessary?]

On Monday 26 March 2007, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2007, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Objectivity [was Re: 
[hackers-il] Re: [Israel.pm] Is University Really Necessary?]":
> > They are not the same. For example, if I say "Genghis Khan performed many
> > Evil acts", this is a biased statement. But it is objective because it is
> > true.
>
> So, you claim that objective equals true? So what, in your view, is
> subjective (i.e., not objective)? Only lies?

Well, not exactly. For example, I talked with someone on the IRC the other 
day, who said that ESR should be shot, because he supports the war on Iraq 
and other stuff. Well, this is subjective because ESR has done a lot for the 
community from writing the Cathedral and the Bazaar and other important 
documents, to actually writing some useful code (whose quality is not 
withstanding). And he hasn't harmed anyone in his life.

I agree that ESR does not precisely qualify as sane, or that his code may not 
be of good quality, but he is still doing important work. I'd rather have a 
lot of ugly code that works and that I can refactor and clean up later, than 
a small amount of beautiful code that only prints "Hello World".

Further, he said that Linus Torvalds was a "F**king Capitalist". Again, that 
is subjective. I think Linus Torvalds did a lot for FOSS and for the world in 
general, and should be admired and respected rather than be labeled. This was 
probably said out of some Socialist-induced resentment, or even due to 
(non-sexual) jealousy or envy.

If you and I know a girl called Sophie, and I say "I hate Sophie", then this 
is also a subjective statement. It expresses my general feeling rather than 
anything wrong with her. However, if I say "Sophie is a Liar", then this 
statement may be factual or it may be false, dependening on its truthhood. 

Saying that "Communism is good for you" is both subjective and false, because 
I'm speaking out of my general feeling, and we all know the destruction and 
badness Communism brought onto the world.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      shlomif-ik1l9ssToec+JF/[email protected]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

If it's not in my E-mail it doesn't happen. And if my E-mail is saying
one thing, and everything else says something else - E-mail will conquer.
    -- An Israeli Linuxer


 
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