Wow, until I went to your link, I had no idea where to order anti-Hillary tee shirts and videos, and "One Armed Christian Fights Back", and all those great news stories about sex ed class trips to buy condoms, and which bathrooms transgendered people are not supposed to use, and the latest thoughts of Alan Keyes and Jerry Falwell.
So if this theory of the origin and huge supply of oil is good science, why is it published on such an obviously political site and not in the MSP? Given the current occupants of the White House and the Naval Observatory, it is a little hard to argue that the powers that be choose to suppress information which would promote the use of oil over other sources of power. Course, if we knew there is an almost inexhaustable supple, we might not be willing to pay $100 a barrell and fight wars to protect the sources of oil over which the aforementioned Bush and Cheney and their cronies have control.
The interesting thing about this theory is that it explains the actual behavior of the supply of oil, namely that the more we use, at a faster and faster rate, the more that proven reserves grow. Oil does act as if it is self-regenerating. But it really makes no difference whether it is abiotic or biotic, or whether it has all been produced. We will never run out of oil.
Sorry Judy, you're absolutely right. If I'd taken a closer look at the article and its host I wouldn't have used it as my source. A quick Google News search only brings up a few similar articles, none of which reach quite as far in their conclusions as that one did:
What does the source of the article have to do with anything? The only thing of importance here is the substance. BS is published in "unbiased" scientific journals everyday, partly due to the fact that everyone trusts the source so much that they don't even bother to look at the actual information. If I did care at all about source, I would not look in a scientific journal. I would search for some unheard of genius who has spent his lifetime fighting against a scientific establishment that is desperate to suppress truth (i.e. Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein, the list goes on). Attacking the source of an article without even discussing its substance reflects an inability to attack, let alone understand, the substance itself.
I think it's important to be extremely skeptical of the source of everything you read in today's media, whether it's in a tabloid or the New York Times. In this case, WorldNetDaily, or whatever it is, is not actually the source of the study under discussion. The original study is from Science Magazine, which has, as far as I know, a perfectly good reputation as a high-quality scientific journal. I don't see how the mere fact that WorldNetDaily wrote about it casts doubt on the validity of the original study, any more than it would cast doubt on the study itself if Salon or the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour or Dan Rather had reported on it. To judge the study itself, I'd want to see peer-reviewed studies on the same question in journals comparable to Science.
As for WorldNetDaily, its biases are clear, so it makes sense to be careful about taking its secondary reporting on what's in the study at face value. But these days, I almost prefer sites like WorldNetDaily that advertise their attitudes plainly to more conventionally "objective" news sources. At least with WorldNetDaily, you know what to watch out for. Much more dangerous, in my opinion, are those journalistic sources that pretend to be -- or perhaps even believe themselves to be -- unbiased, while in fact filtering everything they report through a decidedly subjective lens. In this category, sadly, I put pretty much every major newspaper, broadcaster, and news magazine I can think of. I no longer believe that truly objective news reporting exists. Several years of exposure to the Internet's ability to poke holes in what seems, on the surface, like seamless, unbiased reporting has seriously disillusioned me about the ethics, intellect, and capacity for critical thinking of most modern journalists.
If you want to get close to a full picture on any topic, and you can't do the primary research yourself, it seems to me that it's necessary to try to find a number of different reports on the same subject -- if possible, reflecting a number of different political persuasions. Compare what the NYT and the WSJ say about some subject; check it out on NBC and CNN and Fox; read what some leading bloggers say about it; see if you can find some international reporting. (Google News is good for links on the last point.) Then you might begin to know enough to make up your own mind -- even if all that's left, by the time you've sifted out all the conflicting reports and the competing viewpoints, is that you don't know what to think!
Lucy, tabloids publish intentionally false information that is expected to be understood as such. Also, you usually don't have to know that it's the National Inquirer who is publishing it in order to figure out that Bat-child isn't coming to destroy the earth. Usually the substance speaks for itself, even in the case of a tabloid. That being said, let's say tomorrow the National Inquirer decides to publish something true, and I were to analyze it along with other information on the same topic. If I then decided that it was, in fact, true, it would not matter to me that it was published in the National Inquirer.
Mom, if I am understanding you correctly, I think that I agree with just about everything you said. I was not saying that one should not be skeptical of the source, one should always be skeptical of any source. The final judgment, however, should be based on the substance of the issue alone. If Hillary Clinton said to me, "your last name is Murphy," I would say that she is right, regardless of how I feel about Hillary Clinton. If Eric Hoffer came back from the dead and said to me, "your last name is not Murphy," I would say that he is wrong, even though I think of him as a good source of information. The same rules must apply to Science Magazine or any other so-called trustworthy source with a "good reputation." Trusting any source 100% is foolish, just as it is foolish to trust the government to educate children. In both situations, anyone who gives the source 100% trust, allows themselves to be brainwashed. In my previous comment, I was arguing against the opposite mistake, which is immediately assuming something is false just because it comes from a source one doesn't like. FOX, CNN, NBC, the NYT and the WSJ are capable of publishing truth and lies. It is up to the audience to make their own judgments. Unfortunately this is an ability that the public usually surrenders, happy to allow someone else to think for it. In the end, the only authority that anyone should recognize is that of their own mind.
I do disagree with the idea that the fact that something is peer-reviewed matters at all. In many or most cases, "peer-reviewed" can be translated to mean, "idiot-approved."
I wrote this before reading the most recent two comments:
For starters, I would never purposefully make an argument using a source that could be so easily dismissed and ignored. It's not worth my time to expect people to believe information printed on clearly biased websites. I think that people making arguments have a bit of an obligation to minimize the amount of ammo that they leave lying around for other people to use against them. If that makes sense. Just like I would never have posted an article written by a moveon.org staffer about Global Warming, even if it was discussing the latest article in Science. I wouldn't have quoted an Al Jazeera article, even if it was a perfectly benign account of a White House press conference. I wouldn't have bothered, because I know that rather than pay attention to the subject matter, people would just see the URL, and ignore it. Had I been thinking I would have used the original article.
What I originally posted wasn't written by the AP or Reuters and posted on the WND's site, it was written by a WND staff writer. Someone on the same staff as the people who published claims that soybeans are making kids gay, the government shot down flight 93 and is covering it up, and that God raised up Islam as a sword to punish us for our morally bankrupt ways. Even if they write something that carries no obvious or hidden bias, there's really no reason to take them seriously, especially as a source for scientific information, especially when the article writer is extrapolating ever so slightly beyond what Science actually reported.
The source of the article taints the subject. As ideal as it would be, it's nearly impossible to discuss something without considering the source.
This is in response to the last couple things:
Mom's right, though I don't think bias is quite as pervasive as she thinks. Luke, 99% of scientists are not idiots, and are normal people just like every one of us and are not trying to cover anything up. There is that other 1%. You can distrust the scientific method if you want to, but that's gonna leave you with almost nothing left to trust. Not that I necessarily think that's a bad thing. Just saying.
It may be difficult, and even impossible, to discuss substance without discussing source. The worst thing one can do, however, is to discuss source without discussing substance. I also don't know what "normal" people you're talking about, but my experience with "normal" people is that they are, in fact, idiots. There are a lot of truly intelligent people out there, but I think they are a minority. I do not distrust the scientific method at all, but I do distrust those who apply it poorly. I especially distrust them today, in the era of government sponsored research. I really disagree with the 99 to 1 ratio, if anything I think it's the opposite. A lot of people aren't necessarily maliciously trying to cover things up, they are just terrified of new ideas that go against their current set of beliefs. There are countless examples throughout history of intelligent individuals who had to fight the idiotic masses and establishments only to have their ideas not accepted until 100 years after their deaths. I would argue that the majority of important scientific and technological advancements occurred in this fashion, and I don't see any reason why today is much different.
The only thing I really disagree with you on, Luke, is that I'm not sure you realize how much completely innocuous and noncontroversial scientific research there is out there. Just gigantic, vast amounts of research in fields that you don't hear about. That's the 99% I'm talking about.
I think I also have a slightly rosier outlook than you on the intelligence of the average person. But living in Philly challenges that every day.
I can think myself in circles about this stuff, and I have been. I could probably write another long post and take the complete opposite tack of the one above.
Yeah Caleb I am far from an expert on every scientific article ever published and I certainly don't claim to be one. I don't doubt that there is a lot of good stuff out there. I'm just saying that peer-reviewed doesn't mean anything to me, and the only thing that means anything to me is the Luke-review I guess.
Really I think most people are smart somewhere underneath all the BS they recite that they hear from someone else. A lot of people I talk to will really impress me with their insights one minute, and then the next minute astound me with their stupidity. A good example that I'm sure you would agree with is in baseball. Think about Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver, and then think about the fact that the things they say represent the opinions that are most widely-believed, not just by fans, but by players, coaches, and general managers alike. And it isn't as simple as all of those people being idiots, probably all of them are smart in some way and probably some of them are extremely smart in a lot of ways. Then there are radical geniuses like Billy Beane who come up with completely new ways of doing things and scare the crap out of all the traditionalists. These old guys get their pride, not to mention their personal fortunes, based on the BS they spout all the time, and they do everything in their power to ridicule and silence people like Beane. I see the situation as a pretty accurate allegory for the rest of the world.
OK, family. You all just blow me away. I'm impresssed by the lot of you.
I just got back from a few hours shopping with the Mom. Is there anyone in the world who is kinder and sweeter than Mom? No, you're right, there isn't. She is SO kind and sweet that she doesn't have to have a bleeding heart to show how kind and sweet she is.
Anyway, that (the Mom) is where you got it from. Don't forget it.
The rest of her family is suspect, however. I mean, those Freys. Whadda bunch.
Also, she doesn't fart. No, really.
And I don't think she'd ever hit me on the head with a vase.
Maybe later I'll post something about people being idiots.
Maybe not. Panda, speaking of idiots, went with me to spread manure today for only the SECOND time in his life!!! The first time, when he was still a puppy, I bundled him into the SAME (italian for shitty tractor}, and he was petrified. In the new JD 5603 (99 engine HP, 85 PTO HP) however, there is actually room for him to sit, and he didn't seem petrified at all. He sat and looked out the glass and seemed to be enjoying it all. On the return trip, though, he tried to lie down across the clutch and brake pedals. Made it hard to operate the tractor. But he didn't seem to care.
Since most of the viewpoints related to an article's source have already been discussed, I am going to just mention that tabloids have suprising accuracy. I'm not talking about the National Enquirer and articles about Alien babies, more along the lines of OK, Star, US, etc. I find they can usually predict celebrity breakups, babies, and new projects long before any announcements are made.
I agree the tabloid articles are often true. I just mean that I cannot judge whether many things are true or false because I haven't seen them, and when considering them, I would more likely trust cnn than a tabloid, and therefore source has a significant influence on me.
A quote from H.L. Mencken about idiots that I think is especially appropriate today, just after John McCain took a big lead in the Republican Primaries:
"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.' The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
On a somewhat related note, I HATE the way that the word "democracy" is thrown around these days as if it is the system of our country and as if it is a good thing. True democracy sucks; it is the domination of the minority by the majority. The USA is a constitutional republic, not a democracy, and that is what has made it work. The success of the country has not been due to the greatness of the men who have been elected by the people, but rather due to the fact that their idiocy was restrained ('til about 1933), by a constitution.
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Yeah I would agree with you Lucy, Bill Clinton was a downright moron.
I know you really meant 2001, and I would mostly agree, but would also add that it happened in 93, 89, 77, 74, 69, 63, and 61, with the biggest morons of all in 33 and 13.
I'm not sure about that Dad. I think most people think of intelligence in the pure brain power sense, or the IQ sense, but I guess I don't think of it that way. Hitler had brain power, but I wouldn't call his actions intelligent. Becoming rich and wealthy through production and through manipulating nature to create something of value requires intelligence, but becoming powerful by manipulating people I think might require the opposite. To get elected, one only has to fit the views of the people and to be able to play the game well, not necessarily be intelligent. This usually, but not always, means one of 2 things---either actually being dumb enough to believe a bunch of BS or being able to put on a really good act that you believe in a bunch of BS. The person in the first situation is definitely a moron, while the person in the second situation is very skilled at pretending he is something he is not. So if you at least have the brain power to understand what is best, but you choose to go against it for the sake of being elected, is that an intelligent choice? I would say no, you are hurting yourself, and it's a moronic choice. Sometimes public opinion gets it right, but usually not.
Just for the record, I really hate to say Bush is mostly a moron. I don't want anything to do with the thoughtless anti-Bush mob of lemmings that hates him for anything and everything he does without any actual thought about it. Not that everyone who dislikes Bush fits that category, but most do and most who don't happily join that category for the sake of agreement.
Luke, I think you've taken the term "moron" to mean someone who makes bad or wrong choices or decisions. By that definition, most of us are morons most of the time. I think it dilutes the meaning of the term, and I think it's awfully hard on people who mostly just try and do the best they can. Morons are truly few and far between.
Is this an objectivism thing? I'm certainly an adherent of individualism but that includes the ability to make wrong or bad decisions and not be considered a moron. By your definition, I'm a moron of the first order.
Dad, as far as I know, there have been no objectivist writings on the definition of a moron. I think you're right that moron wasn't the best word, at least not for some of the people on that list, but my last comment explained exactly what I meant when I used it. Also I think you're a little too humble. What you have done with the farm during the last couple decades, although I took it for granted until recently, has been in no way moronic. I'm sure you made a truckload of mistakes along the way, but as you point out, so have most people, everyone from the garbageman to Albert Einstein. When you made mistakes, however, you were the only person who had to pay for them, which is something a politician can't say. My experience is that most people don't try and do the best they can, and even if that was the case with the politicians I wouldn't care. Just about every terrible crime ever committed was done by someone who believed he was trying to do the best he could.
23 comments:
Wow, until I went to your link, I had no idea where to order anti-Hillary tee shirts and videos, and "One Armed Christian Fights Back", and all those great news stories about sex ed class trips to buy condoms, and which bathrooms transgendered people are not supposed to use, and the latest thoughts of Alan Keyes and Jerry Falwell.
So if this theory of the origin and huge supply of oil is good science, why is it published on such an obviously political site and not in the MSP? Given the current occupants of the White House and the Naval Observatory, it is a little hard to argue that the powers that be choose to suppress information which would promote the use of oil over other sources of power. Course, if we knew there is an almost inexhaustable supple, we might not be willing to pay $100 a barrell and fight wars to protect the sources of oil over which the aforementioned Bush and Cheney and their cronies have control.
Lot to think about on a Sunday morning.
Well.
The interesting thing about this theory is that it explains the actual behavior of the supply of oil, namely that the more we use, at a faster and faster rate, the more that proven reserves grow. Oil does act as if it is self-regenerating. But it really makes no difference whether it is abiotic or biotic, or whether it has all been produced. We will never run out of oil.
Sorry Judy, you're absolutely right. If I'd taken a closer look at the article and its host I wouldn't have used it as my source. A quick Google News search only brings up a few similar articles, none of which reach quite as far in their conclusions as that one did:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/01/31/scilost131.xml
I don't get what's wrong with this site. As for the theory, it was published in Science magazine.
The abstract of the Science Magazine article is here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5863/604?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=abiotic+oil&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT
What does the source of the article have to do with anything? The only thing of importance here is the substance. BS is published in "unbiased" scientific journals everyday, partly due to the fact that everyone trusts the source so much that they don't even bother to look at the actual information. If I did care at all about source, I would not look in a scientific journal. I would search for some unheard of genius who has spent his lifetime fighting against a scientific establishment that is desperate to suppress truth (i.e. Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein, the list goes on). Attacking the source of an article without even discussing its substance reflects an inability to attack, let alone understand, the substance itself.
So when looking at articles in tabloids, and considering the validity of said articles, one shouldn't consider that it's published in a tabloid?
I think it's important to be extremely skeptical of the source of everything you read in today's media, whether it's in a tabloid or the New York Times. In this case, WorldNetDaily, or whatever it is, is not actually the source of the study under discussion. The original study is from Science Magazine, which has, as far as I know, a perfectly good reputation as a high-quality scientific journal. I don't see how the mere fact that WorldNetDaily wrote about it casts doubt on the validity of the original study, any more than it would cast doubt on the study itself if Salon or the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour or Dan Rather had reported on it. To judge the study itself, I'd want to see peer-reviewed studies on the same question in journals comparable to Science.
As for WorldNetDaily, its biases are clear, so it makes sense to be careful about taking its secondary reporting on what's in the study at face value. But these days, I almost prefer sites like WorldNetDaily that advertise their attitudes plainly to more conventionally "objective" news sources. At least with WorldNetDaily, you know what to watch out for. Much more dangerous, in my opinion, are those journalistic sources that pretend to be -- or perhaps even believe themselves to be -- unbiased, while in fact filtering everything they report through a decidedly subjective lens. In this category, sadly, I put pretty much every major newspaper, broadcaster, and news magazine I can think of. I no longer believe that truly objective news reporting exists. Several years of exposure to the Internet's ability to poke holes in what seems, on the surface, like seamless, unbiased reporting has seriously disillusioned me about the ethics, intellect, and capacity for critical thinking of most modern journalists.
If you want to get close to a full picture on any topic, and you can't do the primary research yourself, it seems to me that it's necessary to try to find a number of different reports on the same subject -- if possible, reflecting a number of different political persuasions. Compare what the NYT and the WSJ say about some subject; check it out on NBC and CNN and Fox; read what some leading bloggers say about it; see if you can find some international reporting. (Google News is good for links on the last point.) Then you might begin to know enough to make up your own mind -- even if all that's left, by the time you've sifted out all the conflicting reports and the competing viewpoints, is that you don't know what to think!
Lucy, tabloids publish intentionally false information that is expected to be understood as such. Also, you usually don't have to know that it's the National Inquirer who is publishing it in order to figure out that Bat-child isn't coming to destroy the earth. Usually the substance speaks for itself, even in the case of a tabloid. That being said, let's say tomorrow the National Inquirer decides to publish something true, and I were to analyze it along with other information on the same topic. If I then decided that it was, in fact, true, it would not matter to me that it was published in the National Inquirer.
Mom, if I am understanding you correctly, I think that I agree with just about everything you said. I was not saying that one should not be skeptical of the source, one should always be skeptical of any source. The final judgment, however, should be based on the substance of the issue alone. If Hillary Clinton said to me, "your last name is Murphy," I would say that she is right, regardless of how I feel about Hillary Clinton. If Eric Hoffer came back from the dead and said to me, "your last name is not Murphy," I would say that he is wrong, even though I think of him as a good source of information. The same rules must apply to Science Magazine or any other so-called trustworthy source with a "good reputation." Trusting any source 100% is foolish, just as it is foolish to trust the government to educate children. In both situations, anyone who gives the source 100% trust, allows themselves to be brainwashed. In my previous comment, I was arguing against the opposite mistake, which is immediately assuming something is false just because it comes from a source one doesn't like. FOX, CNN, NBC, the NYT and the WSJ are capable of publishing truth and lies. It is up to the audience to make their own judgments. Unfortunately this is an ability that the public usually surrenders, happy to allow someone else to think for it. In the end, the only authority that anyone should recognize is that of their own mind.
I do disagree with the idea that the fact that something is peer-reviewed matters at all. In many or most cases, "peer-reviewed" can be translated to mean, "idiot-approved."
I wrote this before reading the most recent two comments:
For starters, I would never purposefully make an argument using a source that could be so easily dismissed and ignored. It's not worth my time to expect people to believe information printed on clearly biased websites. I think that people making arguments have a bit of an obligation to minimize the amount of ammo that they leave lying around for other people to use against them. If that makes sense. Just like I would never have posted an article written by a moveon.org staffer about Global Warming, even if it was discussing the latest article in Science. I wouldn't have quoted an Al Jazeera article, even if it was a perfectly benign account of a White House press conference. I wouldn't have bothered, because I know that rather than pay attention to the subject matter, people would just see the URL, and ignore it. Had I been thinking I would have used the original article.
What I originally posted wasn't written by the AP or Reuters and posted on the WND's site, it was written by a WND staff writer. Someone on the same staff as the people who published claims that soybeans are making kids gay, the government shot down flight 93 and is covering it up, and that God raised up Islam as a sword to punish us for our morally bankrupt ways. Even if they write something that carries no obvious or hidden bias, there's really no reason to take them seriously, especially as a source for scientific information, especially when the article writer is extrapolating ever so slightly beyond what Science actually reported.
The source of the article taints the subject. As ideal as it would be, it's nearly impossible to discuss something without considering the source.
This is in response to the last couple things:
Mom's right, though I don't think bias is quite as pervasive as she thinks. Luke, 99% of scientists are not idiots, and are normal people just like every one of us and are not trying to cover anything up. There is that other 1%. You can distrust the scientific method if you want to, but that's gonna leave you with almost nothing left to trust. Not that I necessarily think that's a bad thing. Just saying.
It may be difficult, and even impossible, to discuss substance without discussing source. The worst thing one can do, however, is to discuss source without discussing substance. I also don't know what "normal" people you're talking about, but my experience with "normal" people is that they are, in fact, idiots. There are a lot of truly intelligent people out there, but I think they are a minority. I do not distrust the scientific method at all, but I do distrust those who apply it poorly. I especially distrust them today, in the era of government sponsored research. I really disagree with the 99 to 1 ratio, if anything I think it's the opposite. A lot of people aren't necessarily maliciously trying to cover things up, they are just terrified of new ideas that go against their current set of beliefs. There are countless examples throughout history of intelligent individuals who had to fight the idiotic masses and establishments only to have their ideas not accepted until 100 years after their deaths. I would argue that the majority of important scientific and technological advancements occurred in this fashion, and I don't see any reason why today is much different.
I always thought that women didn't fart. Turns out they just hide it well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4eEj1lzPkk&feature=related
The only thing I really disagree with you on, Luke, is that I'm not sure you realize how much completely innocuous and noncontroversial scientific research there is out there. Just gigantic, vast amounts of research in fields that you don't hear about. That's the 99% I'm talking about.
I think I also have a slightly rosier outlook than you on the intelligence of the average person. But living in Philly challenges that every day.
I can think myself in circles about this stuff, and I have been. I could probably write another long post and take the complete opposite tack of the one above.
Yeah Caleb I am far from an expert on every scientific article ever published and I certainly don't claim to be one. I don't doubt that there is a lot of good stuff out there. I'm just saying that peer-reviewed doesn't mean anything to me, and the only thing that means anything to me is the Luke-review I guess.
Really I think most people are smart somewhere underneath all the BS they recite that they hear from someone else. A lot of people I talk to will really impress me with their insights one minute, and then the next minute astound me with their stupidity. A good example that I'm sure you would agree with is in baseball. Think about Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver, and then think about the fact that the things they say represent the opinions that are most widely-believed, not just by fans, but by players, coaches, and general managers alike. And it isn't as simple as all of those people being idiots, probably all of them are smart in some way and probably some of them are extremely smart in a lot of ways. Then there are radical geniuses like Billy Beane who come up with completely new ways of doing things and scare the crap out of all the traditionalists. These old guys get their pride, not to mention their personal fortunes, based on the BS they spout all the time, and they do everything in their power to ridicule and silence people like Beane. I see the situation as a pretty accurate allegory for the rest of the world.
OK, family. You all just blow me away. I'm impresssed by the lot of you.
I just got back from a few hours shopping with the Mom. Is there anyone in the world who is kinder and sweeter than Mom? No, you're right, there isn't. She is SO kind and sweet that she doesn't have to have a bleeding heart to show how kind and sweet she is.
Anyway, that (the Mom) is where you got it from. Don't forget it.
The rest of her family is suspect, however. I mean, those Freys. Whadda bunch.
Also, she doesn't fart. No, really.
And I don't think she'd ever hit me on the head with a vase.
Maybe later I'll post something about people being idiots.
Maybe not. Panda, speaking of idiots, went with me to spread manure today for only the SECOND time in his life!!! The first time, when he was still a puppy, I bundled him into the SAME (italian for shitty tractor}, and he was petrified. In the new JD 5603 (99 engine HP, 85 PTO HP) however, there is actually room for him to sit, and he didn't seem petrified at all. He sat and looked out the glass and seemed to be enjoying it all. On the return trip, though, he tried to lie down across the clutch and brake pedals. Made it hard to operate the tractor. But he didn't seem to care.
What was this thread about, originally?
Since most of the viewpoints related to an article's source have already been discussed, I am going to just mention that tabloids have suprising accuracy. I'm not talking about the National Enquirer and articles about Alien babies, more along the lines of OK, Star, US, etc. I find they can usually predict celebrity breakups, babies, and new projects long before any announcements are made.
Just sayin.
Haha.
I agree the tabloid articles are often true. I just mean that I cannot judge whether many things are true or false because I haven't seen them, and when considering them, I would more likely trust cnn than a tabloid, and therefore source has a significant influence on me.
A quote from H.L. Mencken about idiots that I think is especially appropriate today, just after John McCain took a big lead in the Republican Primaries:
"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.' The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
On a somewhat related note, I HATE the way that the word "democracy" is thrown around these days as if it is the system of our country and as if it is a good thing. True democracy sucks; it is the domination of the minority by the majority. The USA is a constitutional republic, not a democracy, and that is what has made it work. The success of the country has not been due to the greatness of the men who have been elected by the people, but rather due to the fact that their idiocy was restrained ('til about 1933), by a constitution.
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Didn't that already happen in 2000?
Yeah I would agree with you Lucy, Bill Clinton was a downright moron.
I know you really meant 2001, and I would mostly agree, but would also add that it happened in 93, 89, 77, 74, 69, 63, and 61, with the biggest morons of all in 33 and 13.
I'm not sure about that Dad. I think most people think of intelligence in the pure brain power sense, or the IQ sense, but I guess I don't think of it that way. Hitler had brain power, but I wouldn't call his actions intelligent. Becoming rich and wealthy through production and through manipulating nature to create something of value requires intelligence, but becoming powerful by manipulating people I think might require the opposite. To get elected, one only has to fit the views of the people and to be able to play the game well, not necessarily be intelligent. This usually, but not always, means one of 2 things---either actually being dumb enough to believe a bunch of BS or being able to put on a really good act that you believe in a bunch of BS. The person in the first situation is definitely a moron, while the person in the second situation is very skilled at pretending he is something he is not. So if you at least have the brain power to understand what is best, but you choose to go against it for the sake of being elected, is that an intelligent choice? I would say no, you are hurting yourself, and it's a moronic choice. Sometimes public opinion gets it right, but usually not.
Just for the record, I really hate to say Bush is mostly a moron. I don't want anything to do with the thoughtless anti-Bush mob of lemmings that hates him for anything and everything he does without any actual thought about it. Not that everyone who dislikes Bush fits that category, but most do and most who don't happily join that category for the sake of agreement.
Luke, I think you've taken the term "moron" to mean someone who makes bad or wrong choices or decisions. By that definition, most of us are morons most of the time. I think it dilutes the meaning of the term, and I think it's awfully hard on people who mostly just try and do the best they can. Morons are truly few and far between.
Is this an objectivism thing? I'm certainly an adherent of individualism but that includes the ability to make wrong or bad decisions and not be considered a moron. By your definition, I'm a moron of the first order.
Dad, as far as I know, there have been no objectivist writings on the definition of a moron. I think you're right that moron wasn't the best word, at least not for some of the people on that list, but my last comment explained exactly what I meant when I used it. Also I think you're a little too humble. What you have done with the farm during the last couple decades, although I took it for granted until recently, has been in no way moronic. I'm sure you made a truckload of mistakes along the way, but as you point out, so have most people, everyone from the garbageman to Albert Einstein. When you made mistakes, however, you were the only person who had to pay for them, which is something a politician can't say. My experience is that most people don't try and do the best they can, and even if that was the case with the politicians I wouldn't care. Just about every terrible crime ever committed was done by someone who believed he was trying to do the best he could.
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