John McCarthy - Wikiquote | Hacker News Reader

John McCarthy - Wikiquote

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31 pointsiamelgringo20 comments

Cynicism is a cheap substitute for sophistication. You don't actually have to learn anything.

So true these days. For proof, take a look at the comments on any mainstream social news site. Cynicism up the wazoo, but not much actual intelligence. sigh.

It seems odd that so few are about programming. Presumably we can fix that...

can someone explain this one to me... i just don't get it.

"A true intellectual is a man who, after reading a book and being convinced by its arguments, will shoot someone or, more likely, order someone shot"

Difficult without context. It could be a joke about academic jealousy.

EDIT: Forget that, I agree with the Marxist comment.

It's about Marxists. Think Pol Pot studying at the Sorbonne.

My interpretation: a perfectly logical argument may convince you to take actions that harm yourself or others, if all you value is intellect (robot builders, please take note).

"Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a Mediator, and this must be the heart."

These are brilliant! "It's possible to program a computer in English. It's also possible to make an airplane controlled by reins and spurs."

Those quotes remind me of Eric Hoffer. I mostly agree with the worldview expressed.

I like most of these. I don't get this one:

Compassion is contempt with a human face.

I think it means that a compassionate person assumes the people he's compassionate towards are incapable of bettering themselves, and thus contemptible.

I'm not sure whether I agree or not, but my first guess is that it's sometimes true and sometimes not. Deep, huh?

I think your interpretation is spot-on, but I disagree with the quote.

I suspect the author is defining compassion more like "pity" than "patience and understanding" (sympathy, by definition).

As the Chinese say, 1001 words is worth more than a picture.

This one amuses me, but I don't get it.

Imho : A picture worth 1000 words, so 1picture = 1000w, 1001w > 1000w => 1001w > 1picture

Right, but what is the relationship to the Chinese?

A picture worth 1000 words is a Chinese proverb, and you can inference from it the 1001 words sentence, so it's a Chinese proverb too.

i like this one:

"Everyone needs computer programming. It will be the way we speak to the servants."

McCarthy is clearly a legend and a genius in the domain of computer science. Unfortunately he also has the political imagination of a developmentally disabled love child of G. W. Bush and Ayn Rand. For additional political commentary by JMC, see: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/commentary.html

Hold on, you're simply name-calling without supplying any beef. Can't you make a point instead of sending us off to (you assume) have a good laugh at JMC's political naivity?

You are very right. And I read pg's essay on how to disagree too. While I (for this audience I will assume-- obviously) agree with jmc's objections to intelligent design on that page, pretty much all of his politically-geared statements would back up my name-calling above.

<ul>

<li>He supported Bush in 2004 and reasons read like a list of right-wing talk radio talking points. I will not take up space by refuting each one of these points here because they have been dealt with elsewhere, but for starters, why the concern about Iraq's human rights violations in contrast to the many other violators that are allies of the U.S.? <br><br>

(It is obvious that to refute each of his opinions would introduce a lot of off-topic discussion into this space, so I'll keep this mostly in the abstract, leaving it to you to digest jmc's views further.) To list a few other absurd ideas:<br>

<li>he speaks about "alarmism about the environment", and elsewhere allies himself with deniers of global warming (while avoiding making any direct arguments against it, so he's pulling a type 0 on the pg scale with some of his comments as well).

<li>he uses the term "Moslem fascists" which as far as I know has no direct meaning other than to link yourself with the intellectually sloppy hack writers working to market neoconservatism (and related wars).

<li>There are others, but I'm just making a general observation here, not writing a book. You'll form your own own opinions anyway...

</ul>

A lot on that page is written in a highly polemic style, a good example is the 2004 March 16 entry.

I wouldn't call him naive, but his general political attitude does seem overly hawkish.

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