Mu in hacker culture

According to the Jargon File, a collection of hacker jargon and culture, Mu (here pronounced "moo") is considered by Discordians to be the correct answer to the classic logical fallacy of the loaded question "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" [1]. Assuming that you have no wife or you have never beaten your wife, the answer "yes" is wrong because it implies that you used to beat your wife and then stopped, but "no" is worse because it suggests that you have once and are still beating her. As a result, various Discordians proposed "mu" as the correct answer, alleged by them to mean "Your question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect assumptions". An equivalent English reply would be 'not', instead of 'yes' or 'no', as 'not' is one possible meaning of 'mu'. Hackers tend to be sensitive to logical inadequacies in language (one anecdote relates of Richard Stallman that he once was asked, in regard to the Editor Wars, if he preferred Vi or Emacs; he answered "Yes."), and many have adopted this suggestion with enthusiasm.

Posted by: Madfish Willie at 03:33 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 "I have not been beating her of late, but would not rule out the possibility of resuming."

Purely a rhetorical response. She's the one who already had a gun when we got married (and had used it to defend herself).

Posted by: triticale @ at November 13, 2005 10:46 PM

2 So if NU means "woman" what does MU mean again? Sorry, I'm confuzzled.

Posted by: Mark @ at November 17, 2005 01:44 PM

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