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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: WS-Emperor naked?
 The common logical fallacy is fallacious unless it happens to be true. However, I won't dispute it being a fallacy almost all of the time, since that is why I said it makes me uncomfortable. I certainly don't recommend it as a way to make decisions, but unfortunately, I think this time it was warranted. And my personal opinion was, and remains, that it does not pose a greater problem in and of itself, except perhaps for the unlikely circumstance that the various stakeholders think that this is sufficient as is,because it isn't. It is, I obviously believe, a worthy advance. For those who disagree, the door to paricipate in improving it is open with the caveat of OASIS membership, of course. Ciao, Rex At 3:37 PM -0400 4/4/04, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: >At 6:48 AM -0700 4/4/04, Rex Brooks wrote: > >>Lastly, who wants to cast the vote the prevents allowing the only >>viable, public standard completely uncoupled from partisan >>politics, that stands a chance of saving a single life in a time >>when another incident such as 9/11 or 3/11 could happen at any >>time, especially if that public standard, because it IS public, CAN >>be amended to do its job better? > >Without knowing anything about CAP, I do recognize here a very >common logical fallacy that leads to bad policy and bad government. >The assumption that we must do something because, hey it might work, >ignores the very real costs of doing something, including, >sometimes, the possibility that it may be actively harmful and >perhaps even counterproductive. Solutions based on newer technology >are not always better. If CAP is bad enough, it indeed might be >better not to have it at all. It is ridiculous to claim that we >should support because it might stand a chance of saving a single >life, unless we can also say with reasonable confidence that it will >not costs lives (or freedom, or privacy, or wealth, or any other >concepts we hold dear). > >The only reasonable way to judge a standard like this is to tally up >the advantages *AND DISADVANTAGES* and see if the advantages >outweigh the disadvantages. Sometimes it's a judgement call which >different, rational people may come to different conclusions about. >For instance, the law enforcement community places almost no weight >on privacy and civil liberties. Many citizens place much greater >weight on those values. Nonetheless you have to make the comparisons >to speak sensibly about such matters. > >I am reminded of the XML 1.1 debates, in which I was repeatedly >accused of being morally suspect merely because I dared to raise >the question of what the disadvantages of moving to a new version of >XML were, and whether the advantages were of sufficient weight to >counterbalance them. > >As I said, I really don't know if the advantages of CAP outweigh its >disadvantages or not; but if I felt they did I would have no >compunction about casting a vote to reject it, even in the absence >of other alternatives. Sometimes when faced with a bad spec, that's >the only sensible and logical choice. Sadly the inertia of standards >efforts (not just at OASIS but at the JCP, the W3C, and elsewhere) >means standards tend to get approved even when they shouldn't be I >suspect a procedural change might be in order. To be approved a spec >must pass two separate and independent votes: one by those who >worked on the spec, and one by interested parties who did not >participate in the development of the spec, and made no investment >to be wasted if the specification fails to pass the vote. Sadly, I >know of no standards body that operates in such a bicameral fashion. >-- > > Elliotte Rusty Harold > elharo@m... > Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003) > http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA -- Rex Brooks GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA, 94702 USA, Earth W3Address: http://www.starbourne.com Email: rexb@s... Tel: 510-849-2309 Fax: By Request 
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