Re: Morally equivalent

[Will Mengarini <seldon@eskimo.com>]

* John Haman <mail@johnhaman.org> [22-10/15=Sa 22:45 -0400]:
> The documentation for push is
>
>> push is a Lisp macro in 'subr.el'.
>>
>> (push NEWELT PLACE)
>>
>> Add NEWELT to the list stored in the generalized variable PLACE.
>> This is morally equivalent to (setf PLACE (cons NEWELT PLACE)),
>> except that PLACE is evaluated only once (after NEWELT).
>>
>>   Other relevant functions are documented in the list group.
>>   Probably introduced at or before Emacs version 21.1.
>
> What is a 'moral equivalence' in Emacs Lisp?

The phrase "morally equivalent" is intended to be a humorous reference
to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Equivalent_of_War_speech>.

Back in a workplace in the 1970s, I asked whether
some printer was a DECwriter or "the moral equivalent
of a DECwriter" (meaning a functionally equivalent
printer from different manufacturer), and got a laugh.

The phrase was funny because the speech that popularized it was
widely considered to be overly bombastic, and a failure in achieving
its objectives; this was why "Moral Equivalent Of War" was popularly
referred to by the acronym "MEOW".  (Note that the general prediction
made by that speech, that an energy crisis would worsen, came
true, and many of the speech's recommendations have been followed.
But that is irrelevant to the prevailing attitude at the time;
it was that attitude that resulted in the comic implication.)

Consequently, the word "equivalent" and cognates were often
embellished as "morally equivalent" and cognates; but
this was merely a comic flourish without semantic import.

But that was half a century ago!  Now, nobody remembers it, and I
read this whole thread without seeing a link to the speech that would
explain it.  Even with that link, you had to live through those times
to grok the contempt for U.S President Jimmy Carter that made him a
one-term president and ushered in 12 years of Republican presidency.
(Carter had tried to be what could be described as a hard-ass liberal,
thereby alienating everybody across the political spectrum.)

So, the documentation should be patched to remove the comic archaism.

Comedy in documentation needs to consider its expected lifespan.
Even short-lived documentation often has a target audience that
is busy solving problems, and is uninterested in jokes.  When
the expected lifespan of the documentation is most conveniently
measured in centuries (!), comedy leads to threads like this.

--
The quote "anyone who thinks people lack originality should watch
them folding roadmaps", attributed to Franklin Jopnes, confuses
me because although I am aware that roadmaps can be installed on
folding devices, folding the device renders the roadmap invisible,
leaving only the navigation voice (e.g "turn left at the next
intersection") and necessitating unquestioning obedience to it,
demonstrating a lack of originality that seems to contradict
the conversational implicature entailed in the original quote.