Re: Theodore Adorno, a prophet of data systems design

From: Edward G. Nilges (spinoza1111_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 01/10/04 

Date: 10 Jan 2004 00:10:33 -0800

Richard Heathfield <invalid@address.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message news:<3ffd6e68@news2.power.net.uk>...
> Edward G. Nilges wrote:
>
> > You see, the implicit rule is that it's about "algorithms" (which most
> > programmers aren't qualified to discuss at a theory level,
>
> That's simply not true. Programming is /about/ algorithms (and data
> structures). A programmer who is not qualified to discuss algorithms might
> as well pack up and go home.

Most programmers cannot discuss how to prove algorithms correct or
deductively predict the behavior of programs. This is a large part of
the theory of algorithms.

It is possible to argue without the academic tool of symbolic logic
for the correctness of an algorithm instantiated in a program and to
deductively predict algorithm behavior, but without academic tool this
is best conducted in groups. It is no longer conducted in groups in
large part because authoritarian thinking confuses the declarative
with the normative.

For example, in ordinary programming discussions (as we've seen here)
there is absolutely no level distinction made between the level of
correctness and the level of style, because stylistic critique appeals
to people as a way of asserting authority easily.

Mathematical skill happens to be in some small measure to see beyond a
particular style such as the color of a Web page or the use, versus
the non-use of Hungarian notation.

Stylistic flaming isn't responsible discussion of algorithms but at
best a dodge which is used in industrial situations to assert
authority and save time.

>
> > I have shown in countless ways that your reading of the charter is
> > incoherent and self-contradictory,
>
> Yet Another Unsupported Assertion. Throw it on the pile with the others.
>
Well sure, if you can't connect the dots, each assertion is
"unsupported". Everything is possible and nothing is true.
 
> <lots more junk>
>
> > So bugger off.
>
> Another attempt at censorship, I see. Well, I think I can safely ignore it.
>
Bull***! If I am impressing some girl in a pub with my erudite good
looks, and you horn in on the discussion, and I say bugger off, this
isn't "censorship".
 
> > I mean, I am just tickled pink to relearn from you just how much of a
> > mistake the semantics of C's by-reference For happen to be,
>
> C doesn't have by-reference semantics of any kind, least of all for a
> for-loop.
>
You don't understand the term. It means that the VALUE of the
termination condition can be evaluated at the start of a For loop in
VB whereas it must be repeatedly evaluated by dereferencing (by
reference) variables to an unbounded complexity in C.
 
> > But you have, my dear fellow, nothing to offer me
>
> Only because you appear incapable of reading for comprehension.

The mistake here is to try to undercut your opponent by a GLOBAL
statement so absurd that you look stupid making the accusation.

It's a Fascist and authoritarian trope because the authoritarian is
anxious to have one clear "chain of command", and this is because he
has a strong need to follow and not question authority.

Thus a common strategy when confronted by complexity is to claim that
the complex person is himself overcompensating, by in some way
spoofing or simulating cognitive skills which he doesn't have.

Note, for example, how Fascist and authoritarian societies, with a
hatred for intellectuals, must always say that the intellectuals are
"pseudo" intellectuals.

This is because authoritarian and Fascist societies are in a
DIALECTICAL relationship with the enlightenment of the 18th century
which was the first moment in the West when intellect had any
influence upon power, at least since Plato's academy.

This dialectical relationship means that the Fascist or authoritarian
necessarily retains the memory of intellect but at the same time must
charge the intellectual, with his necessary questioning of authority,
with being a TOTAL retardo.

He must hypostatize "real" intellect, often in the form of a cult,
dominated by an individual who seems certain that he has mystified
access to scientific and technical (or political, construed as
scientifically determined) Truth and who mediates the "truth".

A radio hate personality is thus in an increasingly authoritarian
American society, approaching Fascism, thus often becomes (for a brief
period) the mediator of all knowledge, like Bill O'Reilly recently, or
Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s. He establishes his authority necessarily
in a biographical fashion by claiming to represent the put-upon little
guy as against a necessarily and globally false alternative authority
which is embodied in a Hilary Clinton or more shadowy "liberal".

His task becomes that of the person who exposes the hated figure not
as merely in the wrong, but as deeply incapable, say here of reading
comprehension.

If I were to say, well gawrsh, I done read Hannah Arendt on the
Origins of Totalitarianism and I was done disturbed by the parallels
in post-Sep 11 America (as well as in your ridiculous little country),
it has to be maintained that I did not "comprehend", or, that your
wisdom on C is beyond me.

Being able to program becomes no more the ability to responsibly
differ...perhaps even about an ultimate end of "efficiency" versus my
own end of truth to social reality. It becomes instead obedience,
adherence to a favored set of standards which are in fact arguable,
such as avoidance, today, of Hungarian notation.

Being able to program becomes in fact ersatz for humanity. OK, I can't
program, and the tooth fairy just wrote the program (for using my
quickBasicEngine for compiling and interpreting business rules entered
by the user) that I finished this evening. I still deserve, as you do,
to be treated with common respect. But your behavior, in inviting
retaliation, means there is none.

The commodity produced has so little to do with human needs and is in
so many ways inimical to them that men rage to inject a vanishing
humanity into it, but lacking a language for expressing anything but
anger, there is literally no "beautiful code". It doesn't exist.