On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 09:30:45 -0700, Hatunen wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jul 2010 08:24:44 +0000 (UTC), Wingnut
wrote:

On Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:32:31 -0700, Hatunen wrote:

On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 02:44:10 +0000 (UTC), Wingnut
wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:30:32 -0700, Hatunen, who had formerly been on
my side, suddenly launched an attack and called me incompetent at best
and a liar at worst.

What gives? You were the most vocal of Mxsmanic's detractors, yet now
suddenly you're taking his side against me. Is he paying you, or
providing some other consideration? Because I doubt you had a genuine,
spontaneous change of heart. Not TO rather than FROM the dark side.
That kind of thing is generally rare and generally only goes in the
other direction.

Being wrong is being wrong.

Yes, but previously you were saying Mxsmanic was the one that was wrong.
Now you're attacking me. What changed your mind regarding which of us
was right?

I hate to be trite, but two wrongs don't make a right.

So, you're saying BOTH of us are wrong?

That's impossible by the Law of the Excluded Middle.

I say P and Mxsmanic says ~P, where P is:

"Consider who would have been landing the plane if something had caused
the pilot to also conk out, though. Then her prior flight experience
would have become quite relevant indeed."

Now, either P or ~P. Either I'm right or Mxsmanic is right. If you claim
that I'm wrong, then you claim that Mxsmanic is right, and I am being
quite fair in characterizing you as having taken his side in the dispute
over P vs. ~P.

(Actually, as near as I can tell the dispute is really over the implied
statement that her prior flight experience would have been an advantage.
Were Mxsmanic's hilarious claim that it would have been a *dis*advantage
to somehow amazingly turn out to be true, upending decades of research on
learning curves and cognitive science, then P itself would actually be
supported by this -- her prior flight experience would indeed have been
relevant, though not in the way I intended to imply.)

Regardless of all of the above, either P or ~P. You cannot support, or
oppose, both simultaneously.

(And don't give me any guff about Gödel incompleteness, either, or mark
my words I'll turn this thread into the kind of memorable event that
leaves whole newsgroup populations traumatized and fearful of newbies for
years afterward.)

But in this case I never said Mixie was right.

You said I was wrong, which amounts to the same thing. Either P or ~P.
You cannot have it both ways.

The rest of your post has been deleted largely unread, since it seems you
need this lesson in elementary logic (namely, the Law of the Excluded
Middle) to osmose for a bit before you'll be capable of discussing the
issue rationally.

Have a nice day.

I will respond in-line to one or two bits that caught my eye skimming the
rest of your unpleasant and logic-deficient diatribe, though.

It seems you're a fair-weather ally.

Ally? You seem to think it's a war.

It became one as soon as Mxsmanic, Dudley, you, and Jim Logajan began
making public insinuations about my intelligence and competence. It will
end when people stop making such insinuations and either let the topic
drop entirely or capitulate, say by apologizing and publicly retracting
their insinuations about me.

I'm all for you telling Mixie or
Dudley Henriques he's wrong. But don't do it by being wrong yourself.

I didn't and I won't, thanks.

That would be impressive if it were Mixie I were defending, but it
wasn't.

By attacking my attack on "Mixie" you are defending "Mixie". What part of
the Law of the Excluded Middle (or, for that matter, of "the enemy of my
enemy is my friend") don't you understand?

(Nothing after that point was worthy of a response. I counted a few bits
of namecalling directed at me and a repetition of something already
addressed, and zero evidence or reasoned arguments in support of
Mxsmanic's position ~P.)