The inimitable RDS

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

I have hobbies. I am a amateur at almost all of them (except bridge).

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

Suggesting censorship because you don't like
my message is just plain juvenile..////

to use your own phrasing against you, suggesting censorship because you don't like a cranks idea is just plain juvenile.

[only_human]

This level of focused criticism is wrong.

Very little persuasion is occurring; there is intractable dissension. Forcing groupthink or excluding diversity is a horrible outcome if achieved (regardless of intent).

This type of conversation is most useful if restricted to discussions of the positions -- not expanded to criticism of the people holding them.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

Actually, the mathematicians that I respect are even more contemptuous of cranks than I am. Indeed, as has been discussed in this forum, they find the level of discourse here to be so low that they can't even be bothered with posting herein.

That may be the case. I'm pretty sure of it personally. However, that's not the point I raised.

The question is, and I've raised it with you in email in the past, why do you continue to use your approach to dissuade others from attempting to gain entertainment from running code which they neither wrote nor understand? The evidence is strongly in favour of the premise that your approach is woefully inefficient at furthering your objectives. I submit that other approaches could well serve you better. An analogy from integer factorization might be forever using trial division despite having been repeatedly informed by others more successful in the field that (for example) ECM is likely to be more effective.

As cheesehead put it:

Originally Posted by cheesehead

No, Mr. Silverman.

You've been repeatedly informed that you are ignorant about motivation in recreational mathematics, yet you keep butting in where you have no expertise!

You keep demonstrating your incompetence in understanding such things. Please stop -- we've all been quite convinced of your inadequacy here, so your repetitions don't even serve as examples to avoid anymore.

Your postings in the vein of this one add no value to the forum discussion, yet you keep on repeating them.

You are providing your own examples of useless postings!! How do you expect that your doing so would dissuade anyone else from making useless postings?

A new insight might be of value, but your repetitions of the same old non-insights are mere annoyances.

We don't like the way you keep posting your hopeless diatribes when there are so many other subjects about which you could usefully contribute.

You have repeatedly demonstrated that you are unskilled in judging the merit of amateur ventures in computational mathematics, yet you mistakenly and bizarrely rate your ability to do so as much higher than average.

"This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

We're discussing motivation, not mathematics. You've explicitly stated on a number of occasions that you do not understand the motivation of some forum participants and yet you seem to make no effort to improve your understanding and keep posting essentially the same material from a position of ignorance.

You, rightly and laudably in my view, urge others to learn more mathematics and computer science and offer to help those who are willing to learn. I suggest that you should take your own advice and learn more about psychology and rhetoric. There are many sources of literature, formal and informal, and there are a number of people willing to help those who are willing to learn.

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

And the suggestiion that I should 'stfu' is totally childish as well.
"Hey everyone! We don't like what the teacher is saying, so let's keep
him from saying it". Suggesting censorship because you don't like
my message is just plain juvenile..////

No, it is not censorship. You repeatedly post that others should not use particular algorithms because they are (very likely) useless at solving the problem at hand, and that they should go away and learn more efficient techniques. Others here repeatedly post here about your demonstrably poor skills at persuasion and that you should go away and learn more efficient techniques.

You are no more forbidden from posting your diatribes than the others are forbidden from posting asinine pseudo-mathematics. The responses are in a similar vein: go away and come back when you might stand a chance of success. Just as you and others are prepared to help the mathematically-challenged, if they are prepared to learn, I and others are prepared to help you become less persuasively-challenged if you are prepared to learn from us. Again, I've made that offer privately to you on a number of occasions in the past and can remind you of them (also in private) if you wish.


Paul

[LaurV]

So, all those famous mathematicians don't post on this forum, because

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

They also know that most of the participants are not going to listen to any advice they give (in the same way the participants here ignore [and resent!!] my advice).

So at least, they understand the futility of their action and they stopped wasting their time for a futile activity.
How do you call "persisting in doing the same action again and again and expecting each time a different result?"

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by xilman

That may be the case. I'm pretty sure of it personally. However, that's not the point I raised.

The question is, and I've raised it with you in email in the past, why do you continue to use your approach to dissuade others from attempting to gain entertainment from running code which they neither wrote nor understand? The evidence is strongly in favour of the premise that your approach is woefully inefficient at furthering your objectives.

But it does have successes. I have succeeded in getting the crank who
started all this to leave the forum. I count driving away cranks as a
success.

I quote a couple of sentences from his note to me: (errors included)

"tyrans (sic) like you can just roam the threads and talk absolutely tasteless and offensive without any serious sanctions against your kind"

"I've just had it with your kind of users, who is not only inpolite, but apparently such skilled that you obviously should run for president"


In other words, I am a tyrant because I try to tell others that what
they are doing is hopeless. And any attempt to tell such people that
they need to learn about what they are doing is "tasteless and offensive". This is very immature. A professional giving advice about hopeless tasks
should NOT be viewed as "offensive". And the idea that an expert should
be "sanctioned" for telling people what they don't want to hear is totally
ludicrous.

These people have a f*cking attitude problem.

I wonder if they responded to their teachers the same way???

And the last sentence I quoted clearly shows resentment towards me
because I am an expert.

KEP said he is leaving. I count that as a win. Teachers should have
the right to bounce students with bad attitudes from the classroom.

As long as ignorant people try to claim credit for results that they
obtained from the work of others rather than through their own
efforts, I am going to respond.

Think of me as Don Quixote. I may be tilting at windmills. I may be
ineffective. But as long as I feel that my message is important, I will
continue to post it regardless of whether people listen. And the rare
successes make it worthwhile to me.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by xilman

No, it is not censorship. You repeatedly post that others should not use particular algorithms because they are (very likely) useless at solving the problem at hand, and that they should go away and learn more efficient techniques. Others here repeatedly post here about your demonstrably poor skills at persuasion and that you should go away and learn more efficient techniques.

I strongly doubt that the problem is just "my techniques at persuasion".

As I see it, these posters have a f*ucked up attitude and that any
attempted persuasion by anyone will have a similar effect.

May I suggest that YOU try dissuading them? See if you have any better
luck. Are you willing to try? The next time I see a similar thread in which
someone should be dissuaded, I will send you a private note, and let you
try.

Dunning & Kruger also applies here.

[literka]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

I find it totally contemptuous that people can want credit for blindly
taking code written by others and then trying to claim 'credit' for some
numerical result. This especially applies when they can't be bothered to
learn the math and algorithms.

It was always so that credits for discovery belong to discoverer. This is one of the principles nobody should deny.
When Columbus returned home, many jealous people denied to give credits for his discovery. Because he confused America with India, because he did nothing to improve sailing etc. Fortunately there are people thinking soberly.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

I strongly doubt that the problem is just "my techniques at persuasion".

As I see it, these posters have a f*ucked up attitude and that any
attempted persuasion by anyone will have a similar effect.

May I suggest that YOU try dissuading them? See if you have any better
luck. Are you willing to try? The next time I see a similar thread in which
someone should be dissuaded, I will send you a private note, and let you
try.

Dunning & Kruger also applies here.

Sure I'm willing to try, as long as you don't (possibly) make things harder for me by trying yourself.

I don't promise to succeed but I do promise to try.

Paul

[xilman]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

But it does have successes. I have succeeded in getting the crank who started all this to leave the forum. I count driving away cranks as a
success.

Perhaps your value function is at odds with mine.

I count it as a success when I convert a crank into a learner or, at the very least, someone less cranky and better educated.

I don't deny that your approach sometimes succeeds by my value function and that my approach sometimes fails. Sometimes trial division finds a small factor and ECM fails to find a large one. A difference between integers and people is that using trial division on an integer doesn't make it any more difficult to find a factor by ECM whereas driving someone away usually precludes the possibility of subsequently using a possibly more effective approach.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

KEP said he is leaving. I count that as a win. Teachers should have the right to bounce students with bad attitudes from the classroom.

I'm sure I read somewhere on the forum of someone railing against people who flatly refuse to learn their subject.

On the subject of MersenneForum postings, how many more times do we have to repeat that this is not your classroom, whether you wish it to be or not? If you wish to teach people, please go ahead but that activity in itself does not make the forum your classroom.


Paul

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by xilman

Perhaps your value function is at odds with mine.

I count it as a success when I convert a crank into a learner or, at the very least, someone less cranky and better educated.

I don't deny that your approach sometimes succeeds by my value function and that my approach sometimes fails. Sometimes trial division finds a small factor and ECM fails to find a large one. A difference between integers and people is that using trial division on an integer doesn't make it any more difficult to find a factor by ECM whereas driving someone away usually precludes the possibility of subsequently using a possibly more effective approach.

The O.P. clearly is unwilling to take any advice at all. He wants what he
wants. I strongly doubt whether any approach toward persuading him
to do something different or to LEARN about what he is doing would work.

He is, IMO uneducable.

And, if others in the forum felt my blunt approach was ineffective I saw
no indication that they were willing to try a more gentle approach.

No one said (in their own choice of vernacular): "Bob is blunt, but he is also
right. What you are attempting is futile"

If I see MORE EFFORT on the part of others to try to teach people such
as the O.P. in this thread that what they are doing is wrong-headed,
then I will back off. Let's see if their "gentle" approach is any more
effective. You claim I have a weak background in psychology. What I
know of human nature suggests that noone else will be effective with
such people, no matter how they try.