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Author Topic:   Young Know-it-alls
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 22 of 72 (382654)
02-05-2007 5:08 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Dubious Drewski
02-03-2007 7:13 PM


I'll be brutally honest. In this day and age, one can go through life being a know-it-all and not suffer any consequence. Just on this forum alone, there are at least 3 examples that I can think of of very old people being know-it-alls that don't quite know it all by periodically posting impressive messages for the easily impressed. Their posts sometimes resemble the posts made by the typical know-it-all teenager that thought he could impress everyone with the 2 words he memorized from his biology text book.
So no, apparently you can go through a whole lifetime's worth of experience and still remain a know-it-all without being penalized. I say if not being able see any flaw in your line of thought and thinking you know it all makes you happy, then go for it.
Have any of you been in this position?
Everyone, and I do mean everyone, went through this know-it-all stage at the beginning of his social life. Some people learn how to grow out of it sometime right after their teen years. Unfortunately, most people seem to remain a know-it-all throughout most of their lives.
But more importantly...
Drewsky writes:
My concern is that I see myself as a headstrong and naive guy who's got alot to learn, but at the same time, I cannot find flaws in my thinking.
Right away, I can see a fatal flaw in this sentence. The flaw itself is a matter of life and death. It's "a lot" not "alot".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Dubious Drewski, posted 02-03-2007 7:13 PM Dubious Drewski has not replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 36 of 72 (394004)
04-09-2007 1:18 AM
Reply to: Message 35 by fallacycop
04-09-2007 12:42 AM


I would argue that what can be perceived as random are actually chaotic in nature.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by fallacycop, posted 04-09-2007 12:42 AM fallacycop has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by fallacycop, posted 04-09-2007 9:32 AM Taz has not replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 50 of 72 (435141)
11-19-2007 11:58 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by Stile
11-19-2007 9:21 AM


Re: Blissfully Ignorant <= Blissfully Knowledgeable
Stile writes:
Can you show me an example where being blissfully ignorant is better?
Sure thing. If you are a woman who lives during the dark ages, your chance of living a full life without being tortured for witchcraft or heresy increases exponentially with the level of ignorance you are at.
On the other hand, you would live a horrible life if you know certain things. Even if they don't torture you to death for heresy, you'd be forcing yourself to pray to a nonexistant god. Sounds pretty damn terrible to me.
Added by edit.
Just think of the matrix. Would you be happier not knowing it's there or would you be happier it's there but there's not a damn thing you can do about it?
Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by Stile, posted 11-19-2007 9:21 AM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Stile, posted 11-19-2007 1:06 PM Taz has replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 55 of 72 (435175)
11-19-2007 4:46 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by Stile
11-19-2007 1:06 PM


Re: Blissfully Ignorant <= Blissfully Knowledgeable
Stile writes:
I think you have it incredibly backwards. The more ignorant you are, the higher your chance of saying something silly that the wrong person would take to mean you're a part of witchraft or heresy. It's the ignorant who were tortured, they didn't know enough to cope in the lifestyle they were born into.
Did you even stop to think of what I said or were you just responding to win an argument?
Most people that were acused of heresy or witchcraft actually knew something that most ordinary folks didn't. Old midwives that knew of remedies or methods of treating wounds were often the target.
What are you talking about? You need to know certain things in order not to be tortured for heresy. You need to know what not to say, and who not to talk to.
Stile, did you stop to think about what I said or is winning an argument more important than thinking?
The more you know about something, the more likely you'll let it slip out. If you see something that is done to someone that is unjust, there is more of a chance that you will let it slip out than if you thought like the rest of the crowd. And even if you could keep your mouth shut, just imagine the mental anguish you will suffer living your whole life seeing everyone around you doing evil things to innocent people and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it.
So, again... being blissfully ignorant is <= being blissfully knowledgeable. Weren't you trying to show the other way around?
I'm just trying to get you to stop putting so much weight on being the winner and see this from another perspective. Your response to me show me that you didn't even allow a few seconds of thought in my response. All you seemed to care about was someone disagreed with you.
What are you talking about? You need to know certain things in order not to be tortured for heresy. You need to know what not to say, and who not to talk to.
This reminds me of a comedy sit com episode I once saw. Can't think of the name right now.
Anyway, this guy pretends to be mentally retarded to get money from his brother who thought he caused his younger brother to fall off a tree and become stupid. He takes his retarded younger brother to work one day. The boss, which is a complete idiot, can't figure out how a tube goes up in one of those suction funnels. The boss keeps hypothesising that it's magnetism or antigravity. Finally, the younger brother can't stand it anymore and yell out "it's suction you idiot" and then goes on to say "oops, I think I should get a job now".
It's not that easy to keep your mouth shut when you hear someone make an idiotic comment.
Those who were tortured had it done to them because they were ignorant... they didn't know to keep their mouth shut or to fight their battles more wisely.
Again, did you stop to think about this or is winning really that important to you?
Knowing something and knowing to keep your mouth shut are two different things. I know plenty of people who are very knowledgable at various fields but suck at being politically correct.
When I was in college, one time I was at a discussion group. Somehow, the topic of the defeat of the Spanish Armada came up. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing in that room when pretty much everyone agreed with each other that the English fleet was twice as large as the Spanish Armada. I couldn't keep my mouth shut so I corrected them and told them the Spanish Armada was much larger than the English fleet, that the defeat was due to a storm and ingenuity of the English commander. Boy, did they all agree I was an idiot.
I also remember the time when I called the west indies the "west indies". Everyone in the room agreed I was an idiot because supposedly there was no such thing as the west indies.
How about this. Have you ever been to one of those creationist discussion groups and someone decides to be a smartass and "refutes" gravity? The worst one I've ever heard was when someone tried to refute gravity by saying rocks don't orbit mountains like they should be according to gravity.
The point is you could keep your mouth shut if you know you are in danger for letting it slip out. But the more you know and the longer you live, the more likely you'd let something slip out that defies church beliefs, which during the middle ages would have meant heresy.
Why is there not a damn thing you can do about it? The whole point of the movie was about the people who were outside of the Matrix, obviously there's plenty I could do about it.
Ok, I guess I should have been more clear.
The matrix trilogy only take place many centuries after the matrix was first created. You really have to see the whole story to know this. The matrix was created not because the machines needed us as a power source. They could have used fusion for all they cared. It was an attempt to incorporate humanity into their existence because they thought they owed humanity that much (after all they owed their existence to us). For a very long time, and I'm talking about centuries, there was noone on Earth or in Earth that was not in the matrix. Absolutely no chance for freedom from the matrix. And for a very long time (centuries), occasionally there were those that were wise enough to come to realize the existence of the matrix. Most of these individuals lived horrible lives in the matrix because they knew it existed but they also knew they couldn't do a damn thing about it.
These individuals were part of an anomoly in the matrix that the archaetect couldn't get rid of. See, eventually, this knowledge of the matrix would spread to enough people and the anomoly would grow big enough to crash the system, killing everyone connected to the matrix.
The answer was stumbled upon by another program called the oracle who discovered that these individuals who would eventually find out about the existence of the matrix would not cause a problem for the matrix if they were given a choice. This was where the One came in. The One was the ultimate version of the anomoly, one who not only knows of the existence of the matrix but also realized the inner workings of it.
Anyway, sorry for getting sidetracked. The point is for many centuries, noone had a choice to leave or not. There was simply no way to leave the matrix. And in fact, the knowledge of the existence of the matrix ultimately killed billions of people when the system crashed.
And I would be happier knowing. I could at least then work towards what's real.
How? I'm talking about a time period that preceded the events in the trilogy by centuries.
The person who wants to stay ignorant wants to lead a meaningless life. This Matrix example of yours shows this very nicely.
Um, no. The knowledge of the existence of the matrix killed billions of people in the past. This is why the machines decided to let the ones that knew of its existence leave the matrix.
Just remember that the real bad guy in the story of the matrix is the human race. The machine civilization had always been trying to preserve the existence of both races (humanity and machine).
But forget all of that. If you knew that your whole life is nothing but a dream world and that there is absolutely no possibility of you leaving it, you're telling me that you would be happier? If so, why?

Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Stile, posted 11-19-2007 1:06 PM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by Stile, posted 11-19-2007 5:46 PM Taz has not replied
 Message 65 by Stile, posted 11-21-2007 4:44 PM Taz has replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 66 of 72 (437156)
11-29-2007 12:05 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by Stile
11-21-2007 4:44 PM


Re: Thanks
Well, I understood you from the beginning. My silence just mean I agreed to disagree.

Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Stile, posted 11-21-2007 4:44 PM Stile has seen this message but not replied

  
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