From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 16:33:48 GMT

In article <92Jul25.020745edt.47919@neat.cs.toronto.edu> cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:

>I did speculate,
>somewhat caustically and cynically, it is true, as to what manoeuvre he
>might employ to avoid the responsibility for his errors.

Why did you do this? I explicitly admitted that I made a mistake with
regard to what I said in the CLS thread. Why did you think it was
important, Calvin?

>We'll never know whether I was mistaken with this speculation, 
>because Mike would not be so foolish as to confirm it after having 
>read it (see Popper and MacKay on "The Logical Indeterminacy of a
>Free Choice").

I might confirm it if I thought it was true. Of course, if you're truly a
Popperian, you should value instances in which I falsify your predictions
more than those in which I confirm them.

>Mike's dissociation of fingers from self, and the 
>passive mode employed ("mistakes made" -- by what, or who?), are 
>interesting features of this particular definition.

The "dissociation of fingers from self" is not a dodge, Calvin. Different
parts of the brain mediate the construction of the deep structure of
sentences, their translation into language, and their transmission to
one's typing fingers. Are you denying this?

>And in fact, every time Mike has had the occasion to use "CLS" in this
>thread, he "misspoke" in the same way.  (Up until my first post and as
>far as I can tell, anyway. Maybe by now Mike has started to use "CLS"
>as plural, even though he was better off at first, using it as 
>singular).  Yet "Iago" was a typo.  Got it.

Glad you did. Think about it for a moment. Either you seriously believe
that I was confused about who Iago and Othello were, or you think it was a
trivial error. Which is it? My calling it a "typo" (a perfectly acceptable
usage, since it was a function of my typing) makes clear that it was not
the actual confusion of one character for another.

With regard to CLS, I was trying to say one thing and unwittingly said
another, but the error did not arise from my typing.

>I invented no comment from Mike.  I merely speculated as to how he 
>might attempt to weasel out of the error he made.

Except, of course, that my very first response was an admission that I had
misspoken. Most people would regard such an admission as just the opposite
of an attempt to weasel out of the error. Let me repeat it again: I
misspoke.

So, if you're making stuff up about what I was trying to do, I can't help
but ask why.

>Nowhere did I say that he referred to his 
>systematic misuse (by his own lights) of the phrase "CLS" by using the 
>word "typo".  

I deny that my misuse was "systematic" as that word is normally used.

>Deja vu, all over again.

Except of course that I still don't know who you are, nor do I know what your
motives for trying to attack me are. It's not deja vu for me, since I've
never seen you before.



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,     |"Of the many definitions of poetry, the   
mnemonic@eff.org | simplest is still the best: 'memorable speech.'" 
(617) 864-0665   | 
EFF, Cambridge   |                     --W.H. Auden 
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