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Comment Re:So what about people without that choice? (Score 1) 710

You are misquoting yourself. I am replacing all instances of "People should do A if C is true" with "People should do C if A is true" to quote you correctly.

1. It's the same statement. People should do C if A is true.

2. It is not a doctor's job to define an emergency with mathematical precision

Quote (2) from your post proves why quote (1) from your own post is false. The simple statement about A and C does away with irrelevant considerations like what a doctor's job is.

It is every bit the job of the writer of the statement "People should do C if A is true" to define A precisely, or be subject to misinterpretation. If A is vague, the recommendation cannot be denied if some interpretation of A is true for some one.

I am *not* personally recommending that people do C, because I don't *think* A is true.

1. What you think about A is irrelevant, when you write "People should do C if A is true". Telling for the fourth time, the reader evaluates if A is true

If you don't want to recommend people to do C, you can simply write "People should NOT do C". In which case you could have truthfully claimed to not having recommended that people do C..

No I am not. If *some* people think swallowing a watermelon seed is an emergency, the doctor is not telling those people to come to the hospital. The doctor doesn't think swallowing a watermelon seed is an emergency for anybody. It doesn't matter what the patient thinks, he is not recommending anybody come to the hospital for this.

So the analogy has failed when stretched thus far. When applied here, the doctor (you) do have the responsibility to define emergency (A) properly. If you can't wrap your head around that, stick to A and C.

Assuming the reader is a person (i.e. a member fo the group "people") is complicated and deceptive?

No, saying that recommendation is for people belonging to a certain group along with every one else is complicated and deceptive. Because there is a simple and clear way to say that the recommendation is for "all people" or "everyone".

I did until you asked me to clarify if I was talking to the reader or "people", and I decided to not specifically exclude the reader from "people".

I didn't ask you to clarify. "People should do C if A is true." is clearly recommending to people other than reader too.

1. I didn't say everyone.
2. The recommendation *is* for "people", referring to a group to which the reader belongs (along with everyone else).

Quote 2 from your earlier post is for everyone. The part in bold should remove all doubt.

And no I am not saying "when the reader is of an opinion A", I am saying "when A is true"

You seem to not know the meaning of "opinion". When it is a person X's opinion that "A is true", A is true for that person. So for X, his own opinion about A being true is the exact same fact as that of A being true.

To prove this further - imagine a person who thinks his own opinion is false!!!

Comment Re:So what about people without that choice? (Score 1) 710

If a doctor says to a patient "come to the hospital if you are having an emergency", and the patient things swallowing a watermelon seed is an emergency, are you seriosuly suggesting that the correct inference is that the doctor instructed the patient to come to the hospital for swallowing a watermelon seed?

1. You had yourself simplified your own statement to "People should do C if A is true". Why are you needing to complicate it further ? Was that aforementioned simplication a mistake on your part? In that case please come clean so that a fresh argument based on your newly simplified statement can be made.

2. In this case, doctor cannot truthfully claim to not having advised the "patient" to report for a checkup. Doctor is guilty of not defining emergency with mathematical precision.

And I am suggesting the reader is incorrect in addition to suggesting what should happen *if* the reader were correct.

1. You have not proven with mathematical precision that the reader is incorrect.

2. Even if you had, you are incorrect in claiming "People should do C if A is true" does not mean "People should do C" for some people.

2. Recommendation is clearly for PEOPLE, not for the reader.

The recommendation *is* for "people", referring to a group to which the reader belongs (along with everyone else).

1. If "people" refers to a group (to which the reader belongs) AND also to the complement of that set (everyone else), only a person intending to deceive would word it in so complicated a manner. An honest person would simply call it "people", or "everyone".

2. Now, for everyone, the recommendation is "People should do C", which is now clarified to "Everyone should do C" whenever the reader is of an opinion "A is true". You are claiming otherwise.

If I say "You can't teach an old dog new tricks", I'm not saying that everyone can teach a dog new tricks except the reader.

1. Completely irrelevant example. This statement is addressed to the reader, and making claims about only the reader. The statement in question "People should do C if A is true" is making claims about NON-READERS, which is the source of error in this case.

2. Since the statement "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" is not talking about "everyone other than the reader", obviously neither an ability nor an inability of "everyone other than the reader" in teaching any tricks to any canines is under question.

Comment Re:I see a problem here... (Score 1) 380

Something is seriously wrong with this post of yours -

.... 2 ..... If a cartel wants to increase prices, all it has to do is agree to raise its prices. It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that they need to increase their input costs to raise their prices

My points 1, 2 and 3 were prefixed with "It makes the alternative unviable by". So "it" in the points 1, 2 and 3 meant alternative products.

Now read my post again. If a cartel wants to increase prices of alternative of its product, it needs to raise input prices of the sellers of the alternatives of its product.

I don't read this post of yours in more detail, because it suffers from an enormous misreading of my post.

Comment Re:So what about people without that choice? (Score 1) 710

No, you have to be stupid to not infer it.

Consider the statement "People should do C if A is true"

1. The READER is evaluating the predicate "A is true".
2. Recommendation is clearly for PEOPLE, not for the reader.

If, instead, you had said "you should do C if A is true", the "you" can conceivably considered to be addressing the reader.

Comment Re:I see a problem here... (Score 1) 380

No, cartel doesn't just increase the price of its own product mindlessly. It makes the alternative unviable by
1. getting it outlawed using the said "coercive" force at its disposal
2. increasing its prices by increasing business costs - taxes, buying off the required middlemen using bribe / business "concessions" / threats
3. slandering it using immense media propaganda so that public boycotts the alternative or at least considers it far inferior

So your "unless" clause of coercive force is perfectly applicable here.

Comment Re:Tradition (Score 1) 681

In a sensible operating system, applications would be in a menu categorized nicely. Using categories, you would be able to isolate applications within 4 or 5.

Even within that, tooltip for each application should have a short description to remove such doubts, but let us say such tooltips are also searched in case of the search paradigm so we can assume the applications are not kind enough to include tooltips.

Comment Re:I see a problem here... (Score 1) 380

unless perhaps there is a coercive agent to help enforce

So basically you are saying that in the real world where there IS the coercive agent i.e. government, this idea does not make business sense? Probably when the original poster said it does not make business sense, he meant the real world and not an imaginary one.

Comment Re:So what about people without that choice? (Score 1) 710

"rsilvergun thinks A is true" is not the same as "A is true"

For rsilvergun, the addressee, it is same.

And if I say "People should do C if A is true", this is different than saying "People should do C", because "rsilvergun thinks A is true" is not the same as "A is true".

"A is true" will be evaluated by the reader. So whoever the reader, if the reader thinks "A is true", then the following 2 are equivalent :
1. "People should do C if A is true"
2. "People should do C"

Knowing fully well that your addressee, rsilvergun, does think "A is true", your statement amounts to "People should do C" for him. And for every other reader who thinks "A is true".

The fact that rsilvergun thinks A is true does not affect what I am advocating.

For rsilvergun, you are advocating "people should do C".

Comment Re:Because I'm lazy (Score 1) 279

Maybe I should have said "likely defects in the code".

Exactly. Like I noticed you missed the adjective "possible" for defective in the second instance. I concluded not only a possible defect in your argument, but I concluded a likely defect in your argument. And I was right.

An unused declaration is very similar to this situation, and not only points out a possible defect but a likely one. Compiler could very well be right in his situation too.

Comment Re:Because I'm lazy (Score 1) 279

However by default most programmers expect the compiler to be warning about possible defects in the code, and a declared but unused variable is not a defect in the code.

It is a possible defect.

If you want proven defect, only a compilation error is a proven defect, so just turn off warnings while compiling.

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