From: dmb@case.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc
Subject: Re: Ray Shea Goes Ballistic (was Re: Top 10 bands of all time)
Date: 19 Nov 1992 22:26:01 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: case.ai.mit.edu

In article <leo.722161888@galaxy> leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl writes:
>dmb@xbar.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett) flames Ray Shea:
>
>> Just for the sake of argument, who, exactly, do *you* think is
>> qualified to choose 10 bands as "the best?"  I hope you're not going to
>> suggest that *your* musical knowldege is broad enough to do that.  And
>> if you have a problem with the basic concept, why involve yourself in
>> the discussion at all?
>
>You don't have to know how to build a perpetual motion machine
>yourself in order to succesfully point out that one particular example
>doesn't work, or in order to engage in a discussion about them in
>general.

No kidding.  That was my point.  I take it you didn't catch that.

>> Point two (for the sake of argument):  Who ever said you should rank
>> bands in order of their contribution?  
>
>Presumably the person who first thought up the stupid subject "the ten
>best bands ever", right?

Please THINK.  "Top ten bands" could mean a lot of things.  For example
(and I know this is mind-blowing), it could mean "the bands that have
sold the most albums."  It could mean "The 10 bands that have the most
fans."  It could mean "The set of 10 bands which a freshman at XYZ
University can't even mention without Ray Shea and buddies jumping down
his throat."

If you had posted more that a knee-jerk response, you'd have realised that.

>> First of all, given the fact that you've said little about your own
>> musical exposure in this thread, you shouldn't expect any one else to
>> view *your* opinions as worthwhile either (to us, anyway).
>
>Bullshit. Everybody who would actually *read* rec.music.info for
>longer than say three weeks instead of starting up some stupid thread
>for the umpteenth time two hours after first discovering the group
>would know plenty about Ray Shea's musical exposure, because he has
>been one of r.m.misc's most regular contributors for years.

I said *in this thread*.  Good reading skills, again.  But I guess
you're right -- Ray's vast knowledge of musical trivia *does* allow him
to treat people badly in a public forum.  The same, clearly, goes for
you.  How foolish of me not to realize.

>Secondly, even if all you've ever heard in your entire bloody life was
>Rush or Debbie Gibson you can write an interesting article about
>something and deserve to be heard, and you *won't* get flamed by Ray
>Shea.

Ah, so Ray's perfectly justified in beating up the people he (and you)
consider to be intellectual inferiors.  Sorry, I thought there were
posts in news.newusers.* about etiqutte that suggested that we were
supposed to be civilized.  My fault.

>Ray certainly doesn't need me to defend him,

Oh no!  He's already demonstrated that he's quite capable of spitting
venom to any degree required.  Frankly I don't see why you even
bothered posting; I'm sure he'll do quite a reasoable job of ignoring
the content of my message and foaming at the mouth.

>but I can't sit still
>while you keep accusing him of things he did not do: he is not saying
>that someone's views are worthless because we don't 'know his musical
>exposure' -- he is saying someone's views are worthless precisely
>because they are revealed to be extremely *narrow* views, and because
>they are being presented to us as facts.

Give it up.  There's no excuse for treating people like shit.

Dave Baggett
--
dmb@ai.mit.edu           MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory                  
ADVENTIONS: interactive fiction (text adventures) for the 90's!
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