On 5/16/12 7:43 AM, Yves Parès wrote:
On the one hand, characterizing those who desire the best performance possible as "simple-minded" is, at best, a gross over-generalization. Like you, I work in a field where optimization is king (e.g., in machine translation, program runtimes are measured in days).
You misread the logical implication, Ertugrul said:
simple-minded people often have a desire to get the best performance possible
For the record, I was replying to Ryan's response to Ertugrul, rather than to Ertugrul directly. I make no claims about what Ertugrul said or the (in)validity thereof. However, while the "logical" interpretation of Ertugrul's words may be that simple-mindedness implies performance-desire, that interpretation is not the only one available to the standard interpretation of his words, nor IMO the dominant interpretation. It is equally valid to interpret them as saying that the people under discussion are simpletons, and that those people desire the best performance possible. (I.e., an attributive rather than restrictive reading of the adjective.) This latter interpretation is perfectly valid ---as the semantics of the utterance---, but is pejorative of the people under discussion; and that pejoration is what Ryan was (fairly) calling Ertugrul out on. While I think it was fair for Ryan to call Ertugrul out on the matter, I also thought the subject warranted further discussion since the pejorative claim comes from somewhere, and so dismissing it entirely fails to address the underlying issue. Not that I think Ryan was dismissing it outright, just that it would be easy to interpret his words as doing so. -- Live well, ~wren