"You can't seriously compare teaching command line kungfu to some wannabee geeks in their spare time with the hardcore brainwashing given to infantry troops so they acquire enough Pavlovian reflex to stand and run below a shower of bombs and bullets."
1. All geeks learned the command line at some point. Even Linus. Calling the next Linux a "wannabee geek" is wrong.
2. basic training is for all soldiers, not just infantry soldiers. You choose infantry for the baggage it carried, and you didn't care that you were flat wrong.
3. I find your use of "pavlovian reflex" wrong. It has a negative connotation, but is all reflexive action "pavlovian". If so, all of my command line use is pavlovian because I do it reflexively without conscious thought. With that in mind, the military style is perfect because it's designed to train people to do things reflexively when the time comes.
4. basic training teaches many great things. You're dismissal of it as teaching people to "run below a shower of bombs" is wrong. I learned CPR amongst many other good things in basic. Things that again require one to do them almost reflexively, just like I use the command line.
1. If Linus is a geek (he is, isn't he?), then the next Linus is a wannabee geek. How is calling a wannabee geek a wannabe geek somehow wrong?
2. It was an example and he never said basic training was ONLY for infantry.
3. You say all reflexive action is pavlovian but then say that using the term pavlovian reflex is wrong. That is wrong.
4. He never indicated that basic training doesn't teach some decent things. However, it does also teach people to act on orders without thought. You may not like the reality communicated, but the reality is that one of the objectives for basic training is to indoctrinate and enforce conformity. So that when you do have to run below a shower of bombs and bullets you don't question it, you just do it.
In short, nothing he wrote was wrong. You just didn't like it.
I'll simply say that using the command line is a reflexive act, and that basic training, which is good at teaching reflexive actions, is a good model to use.
He thought otherwise, and since this the core of the issue, I believe he is wrong on the primary point.
His wording was intended to imply negative things with loose language, and if you can't see that then you can't.
I'll give one example. I said, "Grown adults are taught in a manner similar this everyday in basic training for the army."
He said, "You can't seriously compare teaching command line kungfu to some wannabee geeks in their spare time with the hardcore brainwashing given to infantry troops so they acquire enough Pavlovian reflex to stand and run below a shower of bombs and bullets."
You claim he didn't say that basic is ONLY for infantry. True, but then I have no idea what he was saying. I said that basic is a good model for teaching reflexive action. He was responding to that, so he was either creating a straw man with the infantry thing, or he did get it wrong that basic is ONLY for infantry.
also, a wannabe is pejorative, here's the wikipedia definition.
A wannabe (slang for "want to be") is a person with an ambition to be someone or something that she/he is not. The term is pejorative and intends to convey the foolish nature of the desire due to the incompetence of the "wannabe" to accomplish the goal.
(As any short description, my "portrait" maybe a bit of a caricature but I believe it expresses the meaning well enough.)