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It isnt back tracking when at the time you made the comment you said it was an off-hand comment.So, it isn't backtracking if you pre-emptively declare that you are backtracking. Right.
>It isnt "backtracking" to criticize a person for one thing while you are doing another. Jon Stewart criticizes news programs whilst his program isnt a very good news program. Fortunately he's in the comedy business.
Unfortunately the similarity doesn't hold, because Jon Stewart doesn't also say "I can do a much better news program than them", whereas you did said that you could write a respectable "5k word essay on this very small point" (and then didn't).
>Equally, my off-hand comment isnt a very good essay but fortunately I didnt post it to an Essays section of a website and then go and read it to a conference audience
As if the section of website where something is published matters one iota. It's not like having an essays section necessitates that you only put George Steiner quality material in it. Heck, Zed Shaw has an essays section on his website.
Also, you keep mentioning this conference audience a lot -- Sounds like sour grapes to me.
As if Defcon is some elite philosophical conference, and Paul Graham failed to keep to the level of previous speakers, like Plato or Heidegger.
