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Garbage in and garbage out

Posted by R. Berg on November 08, 2003

In Reply to: Garbage in and garbage out posted by jennita on November 08, 2003

: sorry Smokey, maybe my question was not clear to you. actually, what I want to ask is what does the author mean by saying "garbage in and garbage out" in those sentences? to allow you understand more, I put one more sentence to spport the old one. so hope you see it clearer.

: here it is:

: " It is mind-boggling to see how little humanity has progressed socially and psychologically since the Neanderthals. We have high-speed computers, but our minds and psychosocial capabilities are still infected with the
: primitiveness of "garbage in and garbage out".
: The dumbing-down of the world by the perversions
: of the Third World has been very successful."

: Thanks again
: jennita.

: _______________________________________________
: : :I can't clarify the thinking of whoever wrote the sentences that you quote; in fact, I tend to think they illustrate what the author is complaining about. Early in the computer era "GIGO" (Garbage In Garbage Out) was a catchword reminding people that if the programs or data that you put into computers are garbage, all you'll get from the computer is more garbage. I tend to regard the sentences you have quoted as a pretty good sample of non-computerized garbage.

Jennita, the quoted passage sounds like a snotty racist diatribe. Its message is that civilization would have advanced further than it has if not for those pesky dark-skinned peoples who ruin things. Going on to specifics, however, its use of the "garbage..." phrase isn't very clear. The writer may have meant something like "Most thinking isn't very good. That's because individuals are surrounded by other people's poor thinking in the first place, so they don't have high-quality raw material to use."

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