So to see you again using such smug language on another thread, proclaiming unsubstantiated conclusions and refusing to reconsider your position when faced with counterevidence or to otherwise provide solid, direct evidence of your own, while calling someone else smug, is equal parts amusing and concerning. If you think smugness leads to confusion, I think it's time to reevaluate your own approach to discourse.
Perhaps I should more proactively split the interaction in my head, "is this a political expression?" or "is this, say, an academic expression?" (here, I'm def., politics: concerned with the who-and-why of belief, over its content). The problem for people like me is that they're often closely related, and we're in positions in which we're surrounded by a kind of politics we didn't consent to.
In particular, the discursive environment of, say computer science, is pathological to the literal and honest use of language. I find the "politics of computer science" qua the people, attitudes, approaches, etc. of the discourse to be basically dishonest. This, i think, is a case very easily made today especially. I used to think it was merely corporate hype, but it actually runs all the way down to fantasist researchers whose preference for fantastical metaphor grossly exceeds their capacity for good faith communication.
So Babbage in having peddled his ideas for money back then, and gualling quoted in his oblivious tone, is a totem for this issue. He was not so extreme as we see today, for sure; but did not hesitate to use the misapprehensions of his benefactors for money. I dislike how readily he is quoted on this.
In any case, I am not always well composed in a climate I find basically dishonest, that's for sure. I'll censor myself more in the future on this. And perhaps I should just finally give up caring about this issue, and consign this disappointment as one more in the bin of nihilism: the "science" of computers is a schizophrenic hall of mirrors where people play bad-faith games with language and incredulous onlookers take up these games and proceed sincerely. What content there is to the innovation is buried, what might be said honestly about it, nearly impossible to discern -- and so on. Very well.
I'd say I thought physicists and philosophers were above it, but string theorists did play similar games in the 90s -- and I was angry all the way through the popsci of that too.
If you're tired of discussing something, maybe it's fine to just let it go and let someone else handle it. But you come off a bit unapproachable when you bring negative energy into the conversation. This is a place where we can learn from each other, a forum, not a battlefield. Positivity opens minds, negativity shuts them. It's not any one person's fault if you've encountered their ideas before, and besides, you might be wrong sometimes, as we all are.
I'm sure you'll share some relevant quotes from these accounts any day now then
My view arises from the accounts of people who spoke to Babbage and his interactions with the government, press and similar. He would often dramatically overpromise on what his inventions, always incomplete, could do -- and leave people "hyped". The phrase "thinking machine" was one iirc, lovelace engaged with in order to at once speculate on the many ways the machine will perform (never did, nor could), and caution against an exaggerated interpretation.
However, much evidence by people who interacted with babbage show he was far less cautious than lovelace in order to have the government pay vast sums to fund his engineering. Though, no doubt, towards the end of his life when he's writing a philosophical autobiography -- and has no inventions to show anyone -- he's somewhat more reserved about these accomplishments, and indeed, goes far to include many irrelevant others to pad his CV.
Forgive me for finding his oblivious contempt expressed towards the politicians who were funding his enterprise rather less than charming. It's today a quote trotted out by people very similar to babbage, and this says quite a lot.