PEP0238 lament

[Roy Smith]

>    Tim> Why is that?  It's because unlike any other builtin arithmetic
>    Tim> operation, "/" today can cause *catastrophic* loss of information
>    Tim> silently, and in ordinary cases.  

Surely assignment causes catastrophic loss of information, no?  If I
say "x = 4", havn't I lost the old value of x?  Multiplication by zero
causes catastrophic loss of information too.  Should we redefine how
those operations work too?