Neanderpundit

“With the mouth, everything is easy”-Izzy.

Some pit bull calling himself “Madrocketscientist” has been worrying away in comments about how “easy” it is to make decisions based on technology. Dick made this comment:

“Scientists and docs are no different than machinists and cops.
There are good ones and bad, and it’s up to the end user to figure it out, regardless of their schooling. “

which is demonstrably true. And it begs the response I gave, which was

“Problem is how can the end user know? “

So we have established that the entire point of the discussion (at this point) related to how one chose doctors and scientists (and by inferral, any professional) and Madboy comes back with

“Easy”

Of course I was boggled by the obtuseness of this, and gave a couple examples of how professionals come across difficult situations EVERY DAY, and those situations are often untenable at the beginning, and how they were demonstrably not “easy”

So I got accused of creating “Strawmen”. Hello: The point I responded to specifically REFERRED to doctors. But I guess you missed that.

It’s ok, I figure. I was a punk once, and knew it all. After madboy worries away at some point (I’m not even sure which one, at this point, he so utterly missed the original) I tried to give him an easy way out, but he came back with this bit of genius. Hope you enjoy the fisking.

I fail to see how staying informed is hard without resorting to extreme cases.

Got some news for you buddy. Life is an extreme case. All of it, all the time.

I have no problem digging up a basic amount of knowledge about any given topic.

Neither do I. Come play Trivial Pursuit or jeopardy with me. You will lose, everyone does.

Between the resources of the internet and my public library, I can give myself a quick primer in any topic within a day of getting curious about it.

And you will immediately know enough about that subject to make informed decisions! Yay you!

Does it make me an expert? Hardly, I’d still defer to the experts,

Which expert? How do you know which one to trust? You know, the POINT OF THE ORIGINAL DISCUSSION WHICH YOU MISSED IN IT’S ENTIRETY.

but such research tends to open up additional avenues of research, so I can explore further until I am satisfied that I have enough data to begin asking intelligent questions of the experts.

And when new subjects about which you want to learn come at you at a geometrically increasing pace, and the individual subjects develop layers of complexity that are nothing short of fractal in complexity, then what? You gonna live on the internet? You gonna move into the library? Wait, I know, you’ll just get Apoc to plug in a disk and it’ll download itself directly into your brain. Wait, this isn’t the Matrix. Or is it?

Maybe for you, it isn’t easy.

Actually, it is. I absorb information with incredible ease and learn new skills faster than anyone I know. I’m the most cross trained person in my company, and there is no skill I have not been able to acquire in short order.

For me and every person I know, this is what we do, every single day.

Good for you. I do too, and I’ve been doing it since you were in diapers, and I’m better at it than you. I promise.

We encounter something we know little about, and we start hunting for information until we are satisfied we can begin to tackle the topic.

Wow. That’s awful cool. When you’re an adult, you’ll add this step: “We encounter something we know little about, We decide if it’s worth our effort to learn, and if it is not a total waste of time, we start hunting for information until we are satisfied we can begin to tackle the topic.” That’s something maturity might bring you. Maybe not. Most of the time, learning a new discipline is a waste of time, and we farm it out to subordinates.

Knowing the basics of science, logic, statistics, math, and reasoning just help the process along by helping to avoid bad data.

Knowing the basics of common sense just help the process along by knowing what tasks are mission critical and which to avoid. Frinstance: My doctor is an internist. I spent a lot of time choosing him, and have developed a personal relationship with him, and I know what his skillset is, and I trust him. When I have problems with my knees, he could research knees, learn to read MRI’s, become an osteopath, do surgery, and fix my knee.

Or he could refer me to a competent osteopath he knows. Thus keeping his core competencies intact and not diluting them with less useful skills that are time consuming and expensive to obtain. And I have arrived at this point, because I took the time, as you suggest, to be able to make good decisions. I am probably in the top percentile, in that respect. Most people pick a doctor out of a phone book. And that was my original point, that whether it is a scientist, or a doctor, or an architect, or a septic system installer, the world places such demands on everyone that it is impossible to make informed decisions about everything, and that is demonstrably true. And you have missed that point over, and over, and over, and over and over again.

Now granted, I’m 35, maybe you’re 80 and it’s not as easy for you (I reckon if I survive to an advanced age, I’ll have trouble absorbing new data).

I’m 50. And I have absorbed a lot of data. I’ve had good teachers. Statistics, for instance, I learned from- who was it in that conference? Oh, yeah. W Edwards Deming. Robotics- who was it that taught me robot programming first? Oh, yeah, I remember, now, it was Joseph Engelburger. I learned EIP interfacing of robots and machine tools from… No, wait. I didn’t learn that from anyone, I developed it myself. And the automation systems I work on now are sophisticated enough that the software is being written as we work, since nothing of it’s kind has existed before.

So yeah, Madboy. You’re right. Everything is easy. You just get back to me with that in a few years when your eyes are open to just how complex making those decisions is, and tell me all the skills you acquired on the way that are dead and useless now, occupying your cranium forever with no purpose, and tell me how that all worked out for you.

Or maybe you could read this and- oh, “Educate yourself” You know, it’s easy.

yeah, I thought you wouldn’t. So here’s your prize for Internet Obtuseness, for continuing to argue a point (That you MISSED and about which you were demonstrably wrong) long after everyone in the discussion had gone off to something new, the Coveted Og Award for Obtuseness and Utterly Missing the Point in a Comment Thread: