Just read this very cool rant. I think that Hatrack would have a higher proportion of knowing than any other board on the planet, but read it to the end and you'll see that's not the point.
Warning, some profanity.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
The problem I have with this rant is that if we are to take his line of reasoning seriously--which is essentially that no one knows much about Iraq, democracy, war, economics, etc, and that even if someone did he still wouldn't be qualified to have an opinion about what to do in Iraq--then the end result is that no one does anything about anything. There could really be no international policy. For that matter, there could be no intranational policy. In fact, if we take his argument to its logical extremes, there is very little anyone could do about anything even in their own daily lives.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
I think the point was that he wants everyone with the ability to type to shut the hell up. Not that there isn't anyone alive qualified to make decisions, but just for us morons to be quiet already.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
The thing is, he didn't convince me that he actually knows anything either. And most of the knowledge stuff aside from actually having been on the ground in Iraq I did atually know the answers to.
And who does exactly he think IS qualified to have the answers. I certainly don't think academics in their ivory towers do.
AJ
[ June 11, 2004, 01:44 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
quote:I'm only saying this so that you will stop pretending that you know the solution to "the situation in Iraq." You don't have a clue. Even if you did know all of the things I listed, you still would only have a cursory understanding of how to help "the situation." Even then, the best you could do was offer a semi-demi-psuedo educated guess about the best course of action that would be rife with sweeping generalizations and the lacking in significant evidence. Even then, you might as well use a dartboard.
Even taken in context, even with whatever subtext there may be, how else can you interpret this paragraph to mean anything other than "You're not qualified to have an opinion and even if you were you still wouldn't be qualified to have a real opinion"?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Some thoughts on this rant:
"You don't know _______". When I *do* know it, does that invalidate his entire rant?
Does he think that his statements are more correct when they have explitives? I have to really try to listen to somebody that addresses me in that manner.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
Swearing is the effort of a feeble mind to provide emphasis.
Some of his points are valid--people really are forming solid opinions of this matter based on little or no information--but his final arguement that this therefore means no action should be taken is ridiculous.
I'm willing to bet the author of the peice has little or no understanding of how corporate finance works, but I'm willing to bet they still have opinions about Enron that are solid enough he'd want to take action on them.
So what he's saying makes a whole lot of sense to him now, but I dare you to try and use it on him in a few days, when thinking and ideas warrant some sort of action he wants to see happen.