Shut Up, Stupid

Klingsor

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If you believe in any kind of democratic process, you encourage people to participate in it. Hopefully, those people will offer their thoughts, however uninformed, while listening to the views of others and remaining open to new ideas. Maybe we all learn something. Doesn't always work that way, of course--as this forum amply demonstrates.

But I'd still rather engage in that messy, painful process than resort to "Shut the fuck up."
 

dandelion

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Friend, all of your posts are a "bit of an aside."
All things are related, especially in politics.

Boiled down- you don't know the difference between informed and uninformed in regard to yourself? That is probably the source of your trouble grasping what this thread is about.....Maybe take dandelion's advice; watch a few episodes of Stargate SG1 and Scrubs, then go apply for a position at NASA as a MD.
well i read this science fiction book...it said there was no such thing as reality, it was all just illusion and if you know the key, you can change it all. A lot of truth in that. No such thing as absolutes. It is all just as we imagine it to be, not as it really is, and others imagine it differently.

if you're not clear on Pi, the esoteric nature of the discussion might be slightly too advanced for you but if you've gotten this far I suppose it's too late.
Its a great image, the national pi cut into slices and divided into defence, armaments, police, more armaments, foreign subsidy (er, regime propping), more defence, oh and some for people. oops, no. pi bonding..chemistry. Or the pi meson, pion
 

vince

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This seems to me a ridiculous claim. We have all seen countless instances of people who think they know what they are talking about when they do not. Some people have a great aptitude for confidence in their opinions, regardless of the degree to which those opinions are based on sound information. Such self-confidence has more to do with personality than with actual knowledge.


I agree. I have met people who have the basic facts of an issue completely backwards and truly believe that their misinformed opinions are correct and no amount of proof is enough to dislodge them for those opinions. They honestly don't know what they are talking about and are too stupid to realize it. Dig down under the bravado and the confidence is often revealed to be a deep seated insecurity about being wrong.

You're telling me you personally don't know when you're talking out of your ass and when you actually have relevant information to add to a discussion? You're not aware of the difference between the two while you're having a conversation with someone? Boiled down- you don't know the difference between informed and uninformed in regard to yourself? That is probably the source of your trouble grasping what this thread is about.

Maybe take dandelion's advice; watch a few episodes of Stargate SG1 and Scrubs, then go apply for a position at NASA as a MD.
I don't know how you came to the conclusion from the post quoted above, that Calboner doesn't know when he is out of his depth in a discussion. He didn't say anything about himself or his own "personal" understanding of a topic. He was writing about other people- "We have all seen countless instances of people who think they know...." I am at a loss to explain how you came to that point.


Unless it is a counterattack for him saying your opinion was ridiculous. In that case let me point out that there is a difference between attacking an opinion and sarcastically attacking another's character. The former is encouraged on these forums, but the latter is not and is generally the sign of a weak argument.


On the topic, it's true that in general, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing and that most times we should let professionals do their jobs. However, I think one should endeavour to inform themselves and do enough research to know whether or not the person we are hiring and trusting is competent. Just because someone has a PhD or MD after their names or is a "Certified" mechanic, does not mean they are good at their jobs. I have had many encounters with doctors, lawyers and especially mechanics who were obviously uninformed about some aspect of their work and were just making it up as they went along. As an example, I'll be damned if I will STFU when a pimpley faced, overweight doctor tells me that my 13 yo should go on birth control pills because her second menstrual period was a little bit painful. Common sense enters into things at some point.


Same goes for politicians and the chattering classes of full time and well informed pundits, advisers, generals and financiers. Look at the state of things in the US with a perfectly good economy in the toilet and the government in deadlock. The results that the pros have delivered suck. Mostly because they are corrupt. Sometimes I think the pickle fryers wouldn't do any worse.
 
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monel

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All I get out of the OP is his admonition "I'm smarter than you and you should STFU!"

I think it is fine to be of the opinion that another is an idiot and so I will disregard anything he has to say. However it is dangerous to hold that since I think he is an idiot, he just should not speak. Opens the doors to a dangerous impediment to debate.
 
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Calboner

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When I came home to find that this thread had grown a full page while I was away from my computer, I was somewhat sorry to have missed the opportunity to reply to JSZ's puerile reposte to me (#19 above). Luckily, Vince and Monel (##27 and 28, immediately above) have spared me the need to do so.

JSZ, you picked the wrong person to condescend to on this site. Prior to this, I had formed a favorable opinion of your intelligence on the basis of the posts of yours that I had read. But the schoolyard quality of your response to my criticisms--criticisms in which, in contrast to your reply, I took your statements seriously, indicated what was unclear to me, and did not resort to misrepresentation to make my points--has changed that.

As for pi, I failed to understand what you meant because you wrote "PI," implying an initialism. That pair of letters represents a letter of the Greek alphabet and is written, in Roman characters, "pi," not "PI."
 

DevonTexas

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The big difference here is that:

1) Most people pay taxes (I paid $35K last year) so that gives us a right to blather on about anything the government decides to use our hard earned money for.
2) Citizens have a right to vote. If they understand the issues they are voting on, well that is the question.
3) There's probably more stupidity that comes out of Washington, so it's fairly balanced no the intelligence spectrum.
 
D

deleted15807

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^ The only reason why 'stupidity' comes out of Washington is because stupidity works. And by 'works' I mean it gets you re-elected. And such that stupidity works it is the fault of the electorate. Washington isn't home to stupidity it works wherever political rhetoric can trump critical thinking and rational decision making. And old quote still applies 'A country gets the government it deserves'.
 

romansadella

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I would say that the reason people are more prone to debate politics and state their opinions on it is that they impacted by politics on a daily basis. Now, it's certainly true that many other professions and fields impact our lives all the time, but politicians have the unique privilige of dictating law. In particular, the fact that the government collects taxes provides a direct point of contact between most people and the field of politics. People's daily interaction with politics isn't voluntary. Now I certainly believe that there need to be clear, fair, objectively defined laws in place, an impartial judicial system, and there needs to be a reasonable level of taxation. The alternative is anarchy which will almost certainly quickly deteriorate into some form of dictatorship. That being said, people are entitled to have an opinion on and debate politics since government coerces people. Furthermore, the government has a monopoly and therefore we're all stuck with its 'product' whether or not it's any good. In most other professions, if someone is selling a bad or worthless product, people will stop doing business with them and gravitate toward the producers in the field that are turning out a good product. If government sells a bad law or policy, we're all stuck with it, regardless of what we want.

Furthermore, politics doesn't actually require expertise of its leaders. It does require popular vote, but elected officials need to meet very few requirements, none of which is based on expertise or education. Residency, age, and in some offices place of birth are the only major requirements. So, it's actually very possible and common for political leaders to not be qualified experts on either the topics of the legislation which they pass or on politics as a field of science. It happens that many of them do have expertise in certain fields, including an education in political science, but it's not a requirement the same way that say, surgeons have to have taken extensive medical schooling and training.

I guess in short, I would say that people so freely and brazenly discuss politics because politics impacts them in a very direct and unique way that other professions do not and that politicians aren't very good at their job which I suppose would be to create an efficient and stable government that provides safety but doesn't intrude too hard on people's lives.
 

NYCdude

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Everyone has the right to vote, therefore everyone has the right to voice their opinion. And every opinion matters. This is just not true in the other professions you pointed out. That's politics. You can call it stupid, but you sound like an idiot calling it into question, citing your extensive knowledge of a system that you clearly fundamentally do not understand.
 

D_Percy_Prettywillie

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JSZ, you picked the wrong person to condescend to on this site.


We agree on most things that I've read and I think this topic suffers from a lack of clarity in regards to the subjects it is targeted at. So before you lampoon my attempts at being playful (not trying to be condescending, certainly not to someone who posts with the quality that you do) let me... re-posit the initial sentiment.

Everyone has a right to an opinion. Certainly, everyone should take some vested interest in the political system in the United States, and no one is really an "expert" on politics, but rather on the subjects that constitute the label. That being said there are people who are extremely vocal that fall into one if not all of the following;

1.) They aren't interested in politics deeper than the surface. Think of it like reading the headline of a newspaper and not the actual article.

2.) They aren't informed due to their lack of actual interest. (The Inquirer example isn't uncommon. I hear things like that in line at the grocery store all the time. Actual political commentary being made based on the headlines of what is basically science fiction.)

3.) They don't actually engage in debate (if they did they'd be exposed) because doing so might force them to learn something about the other side.

If you fall into one of these three basic examples and are still extremely vocal about your disdain for... let's say George W Bush or Barack Obama, my question is why? Where does that comfort come form? These same people (again, the limited populace I'm referring to) wouldn't do that in regard to anything else (or at least they seem not to) so what is it about politics that makes it alright?

I'm not talking about elected officials or people who have opinions that I think are wrong, or people that aren't "scholars" on the subject but people who obviously have no information upon which to base an opinion, being extremely vocal on what said unfounded opinion entails specifically.

This portion of the population seems like its growing... and if the intent is to remain uninformed and get louder, my response is... shut the fuck up. If that doesn't clarify the original post... I don't really know how to make it any clearer. I'm laboring under the assumption, at some point, everyone who has watched a television or attended a rally has said to themselves "Who gave this nutbag the mic?"



JSZ
 

romansadella

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I get your point that people really bash politics without necessarily knowing what they're talking about in a way that they wouldn't criticize for example medical professionals, but since politics isn't an exact science, I think people feel more free to criticize its leaders.

It also occurred that I think people do the same thing with aspects of the entertainment industry. People will just completely ridicule music they don't they like or bash movies or celebrities that they just don't know a whole lot about. And people will even go as far as to criticize a movie or an album that they haven't actually seen or listened to. It's possible that you can differentiate this by saying that people don't really go out of their way to vocally criticize individual music engineers or cinematographers, but I think in both cases, people are bashing the end product, so it would qualify as the same level of being informed on the topic.
 

B_enzia35

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Come to think of it, I don't think doctors would be a good example. Look at all the fatties and smokers that get told to lay off the food/smokes. They don't, against their doctors' wishes.
 

romansadella

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Well, I agree people definitely don't take the advice of medical professionals, but I think most people would by and large agree that their doctors are correct in telling them to not eat certain foods, smoke, or drink too much alcohol, but I think JSZ is pointing out that people are more prone to criticize the expertise, intelligence, and opinions of politicians and political science majors while other than the smallest lunatic fringe, people don't actually say that medical professionals are irresponsible quacks. People just don't have the self-discipline to take their advice, though they'd probably acknowledge it's good advice.
 

TurkeyWithaSunburn

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:rolleyes:

There are political topics that the majority of the population can't possibly come to an informed opinion on and yet? We hear about it, from the horses mouths more often than not, on a daily basis. If you're not politically savvy or just aren't well versed in one area or another?
Read that paragraph there are two questions asked but neither of them make much sense.

Are you becoming the liberal ranter? I mean the whole post is a long piece of why are voters so damn stupid. If you asked simply, "Why do people feel they can have an opinion on politics when they know nothing about a topic?" That would pretty much sum up the whole post.

I'm sure you consider yourself in the informed minority and can hold an opinion on everything. You do italicize "possibly" in the post, so the vast majority of people are just stupid dolts unable to read a book on a subject or ask questions and think whether something is good or bad?

It's perfectly alright to STFU.

Has anyone else noticed this? Thoughts on why people are more comfortable exposing themselves for idiots in terms of politics as opposed to other professional occupations?



JSZ


Everybody has an opinion about politics because something a politician may do, could affect them. There will be a new tax on breathing, everyone that is right handed will no longer pay taxes, effective some date in the future we will now drive on the left, the noise ordinance is no longer in effect feel free to have stadium loudspeakers on your front yard blaring at 3AM, effective the 100th day of December it's ok to hunt out the stupid people and commit homocide on them.

All I get out of the OP is his admonition "I'm smarter than you and you should STFU!"

Rant rant rant....shut the fuck up about nothing already
:soapbox: That's what I get out of it too. Sorry to say, his posts are coming to quickly fall under the TL;DR category - a lotta words, but with little meaning, clarity or purpose.
It's perfectly alright to STFU.
Sometimes the advice we give to others is the actual advice that should apply to one's self.


And I will now STFU and hope I never see this thread again.