META/POLL: The Purpose of Criticism

[Martin Phipps]

On Feb 20, 10:34 pm, Tom Russell <milos_par... at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Feb 19, 7:24 pm, Martin Phipps <martinphip... at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Real people are more predictable than that.  If you truly know a
> > person, you can predict how they will react.
>
> I completely, totally, and emphatically disagree.  Some people are
> like that, yes-- but they are the least interesting people on the
> planet.

I thought you'd say that.  But then there'd be absolutely no reason to
present character witnesses in trial if people's behaviour were that
unpredictable.  Your point seems to be that people are unpredictable
and that's what makes them interesting.  I obviously disagree.  A
person may be interesting because you don't know exactly what they are
going to do next but if their behaviour were quite so random you'd
soon lose interest in them.

Martin