# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 120
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2381 "2024-04-17T15:51:49Z")
Oh, I have no desire to “protect” Crane. My comments had nothing to do with him personally. Consider me selfish if you like - I’m old (not 90, but old enough). Don’t you think that someone like - random example - Louis Farrakhan should be called out for his anti-Semitism, not for the color of his skin? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2382 "2024-04-17T15:58:00Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > Oh, I have no desire to “protect” Crane. My comments had nothing to do with him personally. Consider me selfish if you like - I’m old (not 90, but old enough) > > Don’t you think that someone like - random example - Louis Farrakhan should be called out for his anti-Semitism, not for the color of his skin? The difference is that unless we die first, we will get old, too. And then our grandkids will make fun of us because we are so awkard in virtual reality. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2383 "2024-04-17T15:59:14Z")
HELLO! I thought I was the only person here who remembered that! ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2384 "2024-04-17T16:00:43Z")
This is the fucking Pit. Calling members out for being anti-Semitic trolls doesn’t constitute trying to “foist” anything on anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2385 "2024-04-17T16:05:00Z")
I’m so fucking glad to know you’ll be dead soon. When it happens, there will be a memorial thread here and I will be sure to remind everyone what a despicable scumfuck you were, and that your death should be an occasion for rejoicing. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2386 "2024-04-17T16:06:02Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > This is the fucking Pit. Calling members out for being anti-Semitic trolls doesn’t constitute trying to “foist” anything on anyone else. Quite right. You or @DocCathode can do that all you want. With my blessings. But don’t scold me about daring to converse at all on a non-controversial topic with somebody you don’t like. That’s totalitarian thinking. And that’s what @DocCathode did. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2387 "2024-04-17T16:07:46Z")
That’s poisoning the well, because racial discrimination is much more emotionally loaded than age discrimination. If, in the middle of a conversation in which people actually were criticizing Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism, someone threw off a one-liner about how he has saggy jowls, I wouldn’t feel obligated to sidetrack the conversation in order to chide him for it. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2389 "2024-04-17T16:10:30Z")
OK, I’ll leave this up to @Miller to decide, but this is going too far even for the Pit I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2390 "2024-04-17T16:19:15Z")
[Moderating] Wishing death or illness on other posters is a violation of the board’s rules. Please avoid language like this in the future. No warning issued. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2392 "2024-04-17T16:19:52Z")
(note, I wrote this but was unable to post it while the mods had the thread locked, but find it even more reasonable afterwards) Suggestion - while I have had some (many?) beefs with **Crane** ’s posts, it seems that a number of posters feel that the problems are chronic, not acute. That being the case, perhaps someone should open up a dedicated Pit thread for them. Because I’m seeing more than enough hatred and disgust (and TBF a large degree of Crane being smugly “I’m not touching you”) to justify one. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2393 "2024-04-17T17:04:26Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > That’s poisoning the well, because racial discrimination is much more emotionally loaded than age discrimination. So fine - substitute an anti-Semitic elderly White person for Farrakhan. According to you, it’s legit to attack them for being old and equate being old with being stupid. Me, I would prefer to focus only on their malevolent beliefs. If I jeer at their “saggy jowls” I am detracting from the important issues and making myself look petty. That does nothing for the cause that matters. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2394 "2024-04-17T17:10:36Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > 36-bit nerd wars! My favorite sport. A worthy observation, my learned fellow geek. Long before the IBM System/360 and DEC PDP-11 introduced architectures based on the addressable byte, the 36-bit word was _de rigueur_ for mainframes, and half that for smaller computers like the venerable PDP-1 (excepting the even more venerable baby PDP-8, which was 12-bit). > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Ha! You young punks and your fancy new FORTRAN and COBOL! Back in _my_ day, we programmed in BASIC! And it made me the man I am today! You dare to call us young punks? BASIC was developed in 1963. The origins of COBOL and FORTRAN can be traced back to developments in the second half of the 1950s. This was so long ago that even I, the venerable Wolfpup, had nothing to do with it (for once). > [@LSLGuy](#): > > An IBM 400-series card reader/puncher. You have slipped up on a pedantic technicality, oh noble one. The only thing that might have been called a “puncher” in those great ol’ days of Real Computers would have been a burly fellow whose job was to keep riffraff out of the inner sanctum of the raised-floor computer room, by violence if necessary. This sacred place was strictly reserved for the High Priests of computing. No, the thing that perforated computer cards was a card **punch**. > [@TroutMan](#): > > 36 bit? What kind of fancy processors did you have? Until the advent of byte-addressable architectures from the mid-60s onwards, pretty much all mainframes – the IBM 704, 709, the modernized 704x and 709x series, the DEC PDP-6 and PDP-10 (DECsystem 10) and DECsystem20. The DECsystem10 continued the 36-bit tradition until the late 70s. The PDP-8, which defied all tradition with its 12-bit words, had an absolutely ingenious architecture and what it could do with only 8 instructions was just sheer genius. It was a very capable machine despite the limited word size allowing it to directly access only 128 12-bit words at a time (a “page”), plus another 128 words in lower memory called “page zero”. By indirectly addressing through a word containing a full 12-bit address, a PDP-8 program could address 4K of memory. Using extra hardware, you could flip around between as many as 8 of these 4K memory banks, for a maximum total memory of … wait for it … an incredible 32K! Yes, a great deal of ingenuity was required of programmers to optimize memory use. I mention this because of my continuing lament about Kids These Days, where even the most trivial programs have memory requirements that are minimally many megabytes and often literally gigabytes. The amount of memory that the most trivial program requires now would in those days have cost more than the GDP of the entire world. Tell me that today’s programmers have not lost all the old ingenuity for optimization and efficiency and aren’t just lazy and wasteful. Sorry for that. You may now return to bashing anti-semites, or whatever the hell you were doing. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2395 "2024-04-17T17:24:19Z")
I completely agree that such “jokes” are wrong. But you’re doing the exact opposite of focusing on Crane’s malevolent beliefs. You sidetracked the thread into a discussion of Max\_S’ tasteless joke, which IMO was stupid and inappropriate, but not nearly as much so as Crane’s literal Holocaust denial. I would have preferred that the thread stay focused on that. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2396 "2024-04-17T17:28:56Z")
Hey - YOU could have let my remarks go. I’d say you were an equal participant in the “sidetrack.” However, with that caveat I agree with the rest of your post, so I’m gonna let things go now. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2397 "2024-04-17T19:25:06Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Tell me that today’s programmers have not lost all the old ingenuity for optimization and efficiency and aren’t just lazy and wasteful. Engineering labor is far more expensive than memory and clock cycles. Programs need to be optimized for reducing the labor needed to write, debug, and update the code. So, yes, today’s programmers have lost that old ingenuity, because it’s just not cost effective to have it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2398 "2024-04-17T20:05:22Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Crane’s literal Holocaust denial. Thinking the IOF are worse than the SS, while wrong, is not the same as denialism. Perhaps I missed the actual post where he did that? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2399 "2024-04-17T20:15:07Z")
I assumed he meant [“softcore” Holocaust denial](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/the-trump-administrations-softcore-holocaust-denial/514974/), meaning diluting the Holocaust with false comparisons. (non-paywalled [alt link](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/31/deborah-lipstadt-historian-donald-trump-advisers-soft-holocaust-denial)) ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2400 "2024-04-17T20:16:56Z")
Two things can be true. Louis Farrakhan, anti-semite. Louis Farrakhan, calypso singer [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/nUPxElXRTtQ/maxresdefault.jpg ""Ugly Woman" by The Charmer, Louis Farrakhan") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUPxElXRTtQ) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2401 "2024-04-17T20:19:45Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Thinking the IOF are worse than the SS, while wrong, is not the same as denialism. Perhaps I missed the actual post where he did that? Minimizing the Holocaust is a form of Holocaust denial. It’s debatable if “the nazis weren’t as bad as the Israelis” counts as minimizing, of course. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2402 "2024-04-17T20:21:56Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > diluting the Holocaust with false comparisons. Wrong, sure, _false_, that’s not quite the same thing, to me. Both groups _are_ comparable in that both groups are génocidaires, so comparing them is not in itself an act of denial. That Crane is mistaken at how much _worse_ the SS were compared to the IOF doesn’t make him a denialist, though. Because the IOF is pretty damn bad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=119) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=121)