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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Perhaps "true twits" should be replaced with something indicating that in
> general it's human nature to do so?
It's a survival trait, actually. You forget the times you were wrong but
mostly unharmed, because that's less important to survival than guessing
right. You rarely forget to look both ways before crossing the street if
you've actually been run down before, tho. That's where the whole concept of
"grudge" and "stereotype" sort of thinking comes from.
Just like it's natural to overestimate danger of rare events. If guessing
wrong once in 100 times that the rustling isn't a tiger in the grass, you
get eaten. So naturally every rustle seems like a dangerous predator even if
it almost never is. Hence the wild overreaction to things like a mother
letting the kids walk home from the store, even tho only something like 20
kids a year get kidnapped in the whole country by someone other than their
own relatives.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:01:50 +0200, andrel wrote:
>> Yeah, but I don't think it was actually this kind of trick question.
>> I'll have to find the episode if I have a few hours to spare (we still
>> have many of the XL episodes from the last series to go through
>> anyways) and see what the answer was.
>
> I remember something along the lines of somebody else being appointed as
> a president of america before the independence war or something like
> that.
This seems to cover it, I think:
http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=32722
Jim
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On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:20:13 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> All horses are born January 1,
It's only after they reach 3 that they are given their "real" name. ;-)
Jim
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On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:25:59 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Perhaps "true twits" should be replaced with something indicating that
>> in general it's human nature to do so?
>
> It's a survival trait, actually. You forget the times you were wrong but
> mostly unharmed, because that's less important to survival than guessing
> right. You rarely forget to look both ways before crossing the street if
> you've actually been run down before, tho. That's where the whole
> concept of "grudge" and "stereotype" sort of thinking comes from.
>
> Just like it's natural to overestimate danger of rare events. If
> guessing wrong once in 100 times that the rustling isn't a tiger in the
> grass, you get eaten. So naturally every rustle seems like a dangerous
> predator even if it almost never is. Hence the wild overreaction to
> things like a mother letting the kids walk home from the store, even tho
> only something like 20 kids a year get kidnapped in the whole country by
> someone other than their own relatives.
Makes sense to me. :-)
Jim
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On 7-8-2009 21:40, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:01:50 +0200, andrel wrote:
>
>>> Yeah, but I don't think it was actually this kind of trick question.
>>> I'll have to find the episode if I have a few hours to spare (we still
>>> have many of the XL episodes from the last series to go through
>>> anyways) and see what the answer was.
>> I remember something along the lines of somebody else being appointed as
>> a president of america before the independence war or something like
>> that.
>
> This seems to cover it, I think:
>
> http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=32722
yup, was it already 4 years ago. o how time flies (please don't quote Marx)
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On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:36:02 +0200, andrel wrote:
> On 7-8-2009 21:40, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:01:50 +0200, andrel wrote:
>>
>>>> Yeah, but I don't think it was actually this kind of trick question.
>>>> I'll have to find the episode if I have a few hours to spare (we
>>>> still have many of the XL episodes from the last series to go through
>>>> anyways) and see what the answer was.
>>> I remember something along the lines of somebody else being appointed
>>> as a president of america before the independence war or something
>>> like that.
>>
>> This seems to cover it, I think:
>>
>> http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=32722
>
> yup, was it already 4 years ago. o how time flies (please don't quote
> Marx)
Yeah, I hadn't realized it was that long ago, would've missed it in my
review. :-)
Jim
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Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
> andrel wrote:
> > I remember something along the lines of somebody else being appointed as
> > a president of america before the independence war or something like that.
> Technically, since there wasn't a USA before the independence war, they'd
> have to word the question very oddly. If they say "First American President"
> and mean "First president on the north american continent", then it quite
> possibly would be a native american or some such, etc.
I might have understood this completely wrongly, or I'm remembering it
wrongly, or perhaps I'm confusing it with something else (but similar),
but I got the impression that the first time in history that any head of
state has been given the name "president" was precisely when the USA was
founded, and the title given to its first president, Washington. It wasn't
but after that that other countries followed the practice.
(The word "president" was certainly used before that, but never for the
leader of an entire independent country.)
Thus saying that someone else was "the first president of US/America"
has to be quite a stretch of the word "president".
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> but I got the impression that the first time in history that any head of
> state has been given the name "president" was precisely when the USA was
> founded,
Now that you mention it, I kind of remember hearing something about that.
There was even an argument over what honorific to use, and Washington
decided that just "Mister President" would do. As in, my vague memories of
grade school are telling me you're right in that.
I was also thinking of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Association
which was a kind of bit of local government set up a few years before the
actual revolution. But it doesn't look like it set up an actual leader.
It's possible the original "trick" question was about the first Congress in
America, not the first President?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:46:32 -0400, Warp wrote:
> but I got the impression that the first time in history that any head of
> state has been given the name "president" was precisely when the USA was
> founded, and the title given to its first president, Washington.
Incorrect. The term "President" was used in the continental congress
prior to the first US President. The point of the question is that the
first national government in the US wasn't what we have now, it was the
continental congress, and the president of the continental congress was
elected by the members of the continental congress (more like a
parliamentary leader election than anything).
The point of the question on QI was to say that there were "presidents"
before the current executive leader of the country because there was
actually a different form of national government here before our current
system. The CC "President" and the current executive office called
"President" have no relation to each other, but that's not relative to
the point of the question.
Jim
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On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:31:01 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> But it doesn't look like it set up an actual leader.
Correct, it was for all intents and purposes a ceremonial role that had
no real authority.
> It's possible the original "trick" question was about the first Congress
> in America, not the first President?
Bingo. :-)
Jim
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