It seems plausible that the implied causality is backwards - perhaps it&#x27;s not that people don&#x27;t mind the parens because they use LISP, but rather that people use LISP because they don&#x27;t mind the parens.  Personally, I don&#x27;t think I ever did mind them, but I&#x27;d be really surprised if that&#x27;s not at least a moderately important filter on the set of people who become lispers.