Not sure why this is downvoted, it’s absolutely correct. I tried this myself; it would have -greatly- simplified scraping Word docs because the custom tags would have been available for XPath querying. Alas, Word strips it all on open.
From the paper: "The purpose of writing is to convey ideas to the reader. The purpose of formatting is to make the document easier to read, not to look pretty."
I find that thesis a bit reductive. For technical writing, I can agree - the purpose is to convey ideas. But, there is a whole other class of writing that isn't intended to convey ideas, but _emotion_.
Also from the paper: "The purpose of document design is to display the logical structure of the document through its formatting, thereby making it easier to read."
Again, there's a whole other class of documents whose formatting takes precedence over the logical information, intended to evoke emotion.
Not to take away from Lamport, who is seriously brilliant, but there appears to be a blind spot here.
"I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a litte practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"
Here's a quote from the creator of Calvin and Hobbes that's particularly relevant to the above passage:
> Calvin’s vocabulary puzzles some readers but Calvin has never been a literal six-year-old. Besides, I like Calvin’s ability to precisely articulate stupid ideas.
How many people here think of encryption as a second amendment right?
If you find yourself arguing that it is - what happens when you are largely, if not wholly, dependent on a third party to be able to exercise that right?
We've decided that corporations get first amendment rights independent of their members - do they also get second amendment rights?
Are these just silly arguments? It's late Friday afternoon...
The US Govt considers encryption a form of weapons tech so that it falls under Munitions Exports Controls (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...). But the proposed law doesn't outlaw private use of encryption, only potentially outlawing corporations from offering it, so I don't know the 2nd Amendment would really apply.
I think, at this point, one could successfully argue that the proposed law follows 'reasonable regulation' and so protections aren't afforded. But it would be an interesting discussion.
The banks also turned around, repackaged those same predatory loans, and marked tranches of them as AAA-investment quality. Where was the responsibility in that activity?
Now society in towns is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists,—talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having. They have, they tell you, an intense love of nature; poetry,—O, they adore poetry,—and roses, and the moon, and the cavalry regiment, and the governor; they love liberty, “dear liberty!” they worship virtue, “dear virtue!” Yes, they adopt whatever merit is in good repute, and almost make it hateful with their praise. The warmer their expressions, the colder we feel; we shiver with cold. A little experience acquaints us with the unconvertibility of the sentimentalist, the soul that is lost by mimicking soul. Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of sentiment? Was ever one converted? The innocence and ignorance of the patient is the first difficulty; he believes his disease is blooming health. A rough realist or a phalanx of realists would be prescribed; but that is like proposing to mend your bad road with diamonds. Then poverty, famine, war, imprisonment, might be tried. Another cure would be to fire with fire, to match a sentimentalist with a sentimentalist. I think each might begin to suspect that something was wrong.
This still feel relevant today in explaining the push back against modern liberalism and social justice movements. Emerson was apparently not a fan of virtue signaling.
