On 6/6/2010 11:14 AM, clipka wrote:
> Am 05.06.2010 00:12, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
>
>> One person I once heard put it like this, "Nearly anyone can learn to
>> get into MENSA, since the more you work on the sort of puzzles they use
>> to test you, the easier they become." What you are trying to test for,
>> on the other hand, it a bit... harder. You want to know how long it
>> takes them to figure out the tests in the first place, blind, without
>> any prior input. This is nearly impossible for anyone that has variable
>> levels of knowledge and existing skill, which *relates* to the
>> puzzle(s). Its also useless for testing someone that has never been
>> exposed, in one fashion or another, to even the *basic* concepts needed
>> to figure out what you are supposed to do in the first place, never mind
>> how to solve it, once you have that critical detail.
>
> ... which reminds me of some survey they did on different ethnic groups,
> which involved a question along the ways of "All polar bears are white;
> all bears living in Greenland are polar bears; what color do bears
> living in Greenland have?"
>
> Among some ethnic group, a typical answer had been something like "I
> don't know, I've never been to Greenland to see for myself" ;-)
>
> In a culture where the most important thing to get along in life is
> personal experience, that's a pretty smart answer I think.
Hmm. Not really. Personal experience isn't always reliable, so you have 
to rely on information from outside your own experience to fill in gaps. 
That is the whole point of the question, if you can do that. There are a 
lot of people I have seen which take that view, that personal experience 
isn't just more important, but *better* than other forms of information. 
They all tend to believe in completely absurd things, reject good 
advice, in favor of doing things that are blindingly stupid, and/or 
reject real facts, in favor of their "personal experience" on the 
matter, no matter how flimsy that may be. If they run a small shop in a 
village some place, this isn't a huge problem. If they are, say, the 
president of a country... You damn well better hope someone else is 
keeping things from getting out of hand, or who the hell knows what kind 
of nationally, or even internationally, dangerous and stupid things they 
might do. Bush was a bit like that, and still doesn't *get* why torture 
was a bad idea. Palin... is a *lot* like that, and no one outside the 
Teabaggers think that someone in their right mind would want her leading 
so much as a parade, never mind a country.

It might be a smart ass answer, but a correct answer would be, "The 
question itself suggests white, but I haven't seen it myself, so can't 
be sure.", which at least shows an awareness that the information is 
there to look at, even if its not personally confirmed. One ***badly*** 
hopes that most of the people answering, "I don't know, I have never 
been there.", mean the above, not what they literally said. The ones 
that mean it literally, are not people I would want making decisions, or 
planning anything, since, well, its precisely the insane logic applied 
by climate denialists, the wackos claiming the gulf oil disaster isn't 
one, etc. They haven't "seen" it personally, so its **not happening**, 
or even if it is, it can't possibly be as bad as claimed.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message