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An Over-reaction? Locked

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Posted by zugmann on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 12:36 PM

Miningman
 Fortunately he has managed to maintain his sanity whereas I'm not certain of some of those always attacking.   

Like I ever had any! 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 12:34 PM

Many Forum participants continue to gaslight Euclid. 

 Fortunately he has managed to maintain his sanity whereas I'm not certain of some of those always attacking.   

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Posted by Euclid on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 12:27 PM

charlie hebdo
 
Convicted One

 

 
Euclid
I did not write what you have attributed to me.

 

If you look a little closer, you'll see that I quoted the  comment you were responding to as well as your reply.

My observation applies to more than just those comments. Just as a one example, we've got an entire thread devoted to petty critiques of grammer,  on a blue collar message board no less.

I believe cabin fever is fueling petty discontent in a number of ways.

 

 

 

"Petty?  Petty?"   "Well, excuse me!"   [apologies to Wildians and SNL fans]. 

The parts you object to are more about idiomatic phrases and their etymologies than about *grammer* [It's spelled grammar,  unless you are using a term of endearment for your grandmother ].

 

It is not petty at all if you would care to actually look at it.

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Posted by Euclid on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 12:22 PM

Convicted One
 
Euclid
I did not write what you have attributed to me.

 

If you look a little closer, you'll see that I quoted the  comment you were responding to as well as your reply.

My observation applies to more than just those comments. Just as a one example, we've got an entire thread devoted to petty critiques of grammer,  on a blue collar message board no less.

I believe cabin fever is fueling petty discontent in a number of ways.

 

True, but you packaged the comment I was responding to with my reply, making it look like you were quoting me as having said both.  And this is not an issue of grammer. 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 12:19 PM

Convicted One

 

 
Euclid
I did not write what you have attributed to me.

 

If you look a little closer, you'll see that I quoted the  comment you were responding to as well as your reply.

My observation applies to more than just those comments. Just as a one example, we've got an entire thread devoted to petty critiques of grammer,  on a blue collar message board no less.

I believe cabin fever is fueling petty discontent in a number of ways.

 

"Petty?  Petty?"   "Well, excuse me!"   [apologies to Wildians and SNL fans]. 

The parts you object to are more about idiomatic phrases and their etymologies than about *grammer* [It's spelled grammar,  unless you are using a term of endearment for your grandmother ].

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Posted by Convicted One on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 12:10 PM

Euclid
I did not write what you have attributed to me.

If you look a little closer, you'll see that I quoted the  comment you were responding to as well as your reply.

My observation applies to more than just those comments. Just as a one example, we've got an entire thread devoted to petty critiques of grammer,  on a blue collar message board no less.

I believe cabin fever is fueling petty discontent in a number of ways.

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Posted by zugmann on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 12:01 PM

Euclid
Yes, I am aware of that.  My point is that unless a person does happen to know about that connection to the movie, the term as commonly used, will be absolutely meaningless.

Or they could spend like 3 seconds and look it up.  I mean, we can't dumb down everything for everyone. 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Euclid on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 11:54 AM

Overmod
Euclid: "gaslighting" is a literary reference, to a movie with Ingrid Bergman in it, in which the technique is a major plot element. It is a very short and very direct reference to invoke the movie name to describe the idea.

Yes, I am aware of that.  My point is that unless a person does happen to know about that connection to the movie, the term as commonly used, will be absolutely meaningless.

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Posted by Euclid on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 11:48 AM

Convicted One
 
Euclid
Euclid wrote the following post 9 minutes ago: 54light15   I hate all of these terms- wheelhouse, stay in your lane, gaslight,...   The term, gaslight in particular seems to be an unusually long way around the simple point of messing with someone's head.

 

I suspect that "cabin fever" is taking it's toll on some here. Haters gotta hate.

 

I did not write what you have attributed to me.

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 10:35 AM

charlie hebdo
*Besserwisser*  is German for a know it all,  literally a person who knows better.

But in Chicago it has a richer, almost Yiddish-humor sense: a besserwisser is someone who thinks they know better ... and won't stop telling you so, perhaps ... but doesn't know as 'better' as they think.  

Compare 'wisenheimer' which is the sort of know-it-all that thinks they see through something and can't stop telling how the trick is done.  This has less the sense of 'intellectual knowledge' that the besserwisser displays and more the sense of knowing as in 'being in on a con'.

Euclid:  "gaslighting" is a literary reference, to a movie with Ingrid Bergman in it, in which the technique is a major plot element.  It is a very short and very direct reference to invoke the movie name to describe the idea.

Terms like these are a bit different from the time-honored American practice (from long before the Europeans came to 'America', I think) that he found so distasteful: to find a disparaging name for people you oppose, often in the hope you can win by getting them to acknowledge impaired status even before the game starts.  Or in the all-too-frequent hope that you can dehumanize 'them' from individuals into a group you can be prejudiced against without anyone being able to accuse you of the 'wrong' kind of prejudice.  I wish it didn't work so well 'when they work it' -- but so often, it does.

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Posted by Convicted One on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 10:04 AM

Euclid
Euclid wrote the following post 9 minutes ago: 54light15   I hate all of these terms- wheelhouse, stay in your lane, gaslight,...   The term, gaslight in particular seems to be an unusually long way around the simple point of messing with someone's head.

I suspect that "cabin fever" is taking it's toll on some here. Haters gotta hate.

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 10:01 AM

54light15

I have to ask, Overmod- Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a "besserwisser?" 

I hate all of these terms- wheelhouse, stay in your lane, gaslight, cuck, libtard; even red state and blue state. I moved to Canada in 1995 and I don't recall anyone using those red-blue terms and none of the others, either. 

 

I dislike them also,  though the etymologies are interesting.  

*Besserwisser*  is German for a know-it- all,  literally a person who thinks he knows stuff better.  After reunification,  it was modified by former East Germans (Ossis) to *Besserwesser* to refer to Wessis who thought only they knew what to do. 

 

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Posted by Euclid on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 9:48 AM

54light15

 

I hate all of these terms- wheelhouse, stay in your lane, gaslight,...

 

The term, gaslight in particular seems to be an unusually long way around the simple point of messing with someone's head.

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 9:43 AM


Nationwide curfew for Israel's Independence Day takes effect

A nationwide curfew for Independence Day has taken effect, with Israelis now barred from traveling more than 100 meters from their homes until tomorrow night at 8 p.m.

Had planned on going to my apartment this evening, but will spend the night at the Yeshiva.

 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 8:49 AM

Louisiana idiosyncratic speech?  Almost neologisms.  Who knows what Arcadian  types mean sometimes unless they explain. I had a female friend in grad school from Lafayette and felt like I was in another world occasionally.  Not far from your wheelhouse, used in the sense of geographic propinquity.

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 8:18 AM

charlie hebdo
... referring to the control station on a riverboat and a pol's qualifications.

I confess I always thought what Barksdale meant was not related to 'qualifications' at all; it was that Singleton lived in the same area he did, yet was picked 'over' him as candidate.  "Right in his wheelhouse' referred either to the area Barksdale was used to 'administering' as 'captain of the ship of state' or in which he did most of his business ... in either case it wasn't about Singleton's "qualifications" at all, more the perceived slap at him by picking a neighbor.

This leaves out the 'other' meaning of the expression: when someone tries to dodge responsibility or assignment by using it to claim it's outside their area of competence... or assigned responsibility/job description.

Now, I love Peter Tamony as much as anyone, but I think he's just wrong in thinking 'wheelhouse' is where batters can best 'wheel' and hit the ball. It's the small place they can show their professional power to telling effect ... and I confess I never thought that part of the strike zone was other than a 'riverboat' derivation.

I had to chuckle at the Carville baseball quote, though: I wasn't familiar with the use of 'tagging' to refer to something in baseball other than putting someone out by touching them with the ball before they can touch the base, in parallel with the touch in 'tag, you're it'.  How one does this with wheelhouse-appropriate skills is... well, something best known to a Carville, perhaps.

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 7:12 AM

This corny expression was first seen in print in The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), 04 May 1896 according to Reddit [yes,  yes,  I know!] referring to the control station on a riverboat and a pol's qualifications.  Another *source* suggests a baseball derivation. 

*Not in my toolbox* would be a similar usage. Frankly,  I agree with you that there is a condescending, arrogant or haughty quality to all of these metaphorical expressions.  

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 5:43 AM

charlie hebdo
I think you are a bit off on D-K,  as best as I recall.

Gently put, and I appreciate it. 

The original paper involved, as I recall, people of relatively low relative intelligence (or in some interpretations, I think, intellectual capability of some measure) overrating their competence.  Whether 'Dunning-Kruger' can fully be applied to cases of other assumed, but erratic, intellectual superiority can of course be questioned, and I'd probably defer to your opinion if you think it does not properly apply.  Is there a better "publicly-acknowledged" term for presumed intellectual superiority that is mostly illusory, or for those people who presume expertise without mastery or experience?

Funny perhaps, but 'wheelhouse' never bothered me as an expression, perhaps because it always made me think of Twain's Life on the Mississippi.  The extended sense involving complete knowledge and complete responsibility (in context) of a kind that impressed me when I read it as a child ... and still does re-reading some of the discussion today.  I think it is a much more evocative term than the more modern division of responsibility on a 'bridge' carries.

Of course it could be said to have a sort of upperclass Locust-Valley-lockjaw dismissive snobbery flavor to it ... 'not in my wheelhouse, old boy' (and not fully understanding what being there would mean).  What other semantic senses do people give the expression?  I certainly never even thought of it as intentionally derogatory or dismissive like most of the 'other words' mentioned.   

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 5:30 AM

At Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach, hundreds of swimmers and surfers braved cool autumn weather to return to the water.

Police had closed the beach five weeks ago because of thousands of people congregating there in defiance of social distancing regulations to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The beach was reopened for exercise only. Visitors were being counted to ensure social distancing and they couldn’t linger on the sand. A virus testing tent is nearby since the local municipality has a high rate of infections, particularly among backpackers who often live in crowded conditions.

In Christchurch, New Zealand, surfers greeted a spectacular sunrise as they returned to the waves. New Zealand has eased its monthlong lockdown, allowing some activities if social distancing is maintained.

 

From Associated Press

https://apnews.com/3ee83593a4ea02615353182be249f0e8?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaig

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 1:47 AM

From the latest MIT - to  - Alumni download, excerpted, with several long but very informative and timely articles that I am sure most of you will appreciate the chance to read:

How China's tech sector is turning to mask diplomacy, and the problems that can arise when doctors become social media influencers. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day.
 
But there is a bright spot. Amid the chaos, tech industry veterans have arranged shipments of high-quality goods, using both their political clout and their access to private jets. The result is good public relations, at a moment when the tech industry desperately needs it.
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Posted by 54light15 on Monday, April 27, 2020 11:27 PM

I have to ask, Overmod- Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a "besserwisser?" 

I hate all of these terms- wheelhouse, stay in your lane, gaslight, cuck, libtard; even red state and blue state. I moved to Canada in 1995 and I don't recall anyone using those red-blue terms and none of the others, either. 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Monday, April 27, 2020 10:02 PM

I think you are a bit off on D-K,  as best as I recall.   But that's OK since it's not in one of your many *wheelhouses*  (an expression I detest, BTW). 

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, April 27, 2020 6:31 PM

charlie hebdo
So, mirabile legere,  you're acknowledging that you've overestimated your abilities or knowledge? 

I acknowledge it every day.  And while I do try to bring my ability up to higher levels, and expand my knowledge, I definitely know where quite a few of my limitations are, and defer to better authority in forming opinions when I have them.

Dunning-Kruger is a bit different; it's when you assume that what YOU know is superior to others because it's your idea, and you haven't got much of a clue what the situation is.  Where the problem with this comes in is not with typical 'nutball avoidance' and Brave New Theory Advocacy, but when conventional explanations of something well outside your experience or training turn out to be ... well, just as wrong as the more usual kind of Dunning-Kruger culprits.  I don't like it when that happens, not because I hate to be wrong but because I put thought and effort into learning something that is wrong.

Of course I also have to chuckle at the widespread evidence of Dunning-Kruger behavior in academics and experts forced into thinking or acting outside their field.  Most lay people don't think that highly-educated people can be just as cockily overconfident in their own intellectual powers while being just flat wrong as the usual run of soi-disant besserwissers.  But sometimes ... in the present crisis, a lot ... they can even be worse.  At least I try not to be, most of the time, whether I come off as being careful or not.

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Monday, April 27, 2020 4:35 PM

Overmod

 

 
charlie hebdo
Trump is incapable of doing an even adequate job.  It's simply not in his personality or cognitive realm

 

I happen to agree with you, and that's before I acknowledge your specific distinctive competence to assess those sort of things.

The point I would make is that Trump is far from the only one to blame here, and a wide range of interests have manipulated the situation for their perceived benefit, including managing the feat of blasting Biden's prospective candidacy and Trump at the same time while apparently thinking we wouldn't notice ... I won't go into the subsequent politics except to note there are at least equal-grade lulus both in figures like DiBlasio and Newsom and that moron in New Orleans on the one hand, and the emergent-political-administrator folks who seem to have risen to prominence in 'gevernnent' science and health 'advisory' positions (where pseudo leaders like Trump will mistake their position for a credential of competence in something other than expedient career advancement, and as corporate management-without-a-clue so often does run a version of corporate reorganization with a 'magic bullet' solution du semaine ... added to in this case by Trump's penchant for taking credit for the idea just a bit too soon) on the other.

(And no, I'm not saying some variant of 'throw all those bums out and listen to ME because I have all the Super-Genius answers, either.  I have to do Dunning-Kruger review every day on what I think I know, and be prepared to change when I am, as happens so often, wrong.  But that's why it's good to point to why something might work, rather than just why I believe it, and get consensus on what to do subsequent to that with 'consent of the affected' and not just because it's expedient.) 

 

So, mirabile legere,  you're acknowledging that you've overestimated your abilities or knowledge? 

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, April 27, 2020 12:54 PM

54light15
He's at his craziest when he plays the invisible toy accordion.

That's harsh!

But I love it.

Now we need a 'meme' like the one with Hitler dancing a jig, where someone finds video of him doing this 'live' with his hands and loops it.  And overdubs accordion/bandoneon music... the zanier, the better.  Perhaps accompanied by ukulele and a kid's section of those 1/8 Suzuki-method training violins...?

Nearly as good as that vote heem away song.

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Posted by 54light15 on Monday, April 27, 2020 12:02 PM

He's at his craziest when he plays the invisble accordion. Or is it a concertina? 

Donald's got a squeezbox

No one's gonna sleep at night! 

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Posted by 243129 on Monday, April 27, 2020 9:23 AM

BaltACD

 

That really isn't much more outlandish than his previous blatherings on the subject.Confused

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, April 26, 2020 8:56 PM

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Erik_Mag on Sunday, April 26, 2020 8:34 PM

NKP guy

   After all, who's considered better?  

Wall Street Journal. Smile

For science coverage, I prefer more focused publications such as Science News or science blog sites, paying more attention to sites where the author is aware of what his/her field of expertise is in and is not in. Equally important is knowing the limits of my own expertise.

Another big help is knowing how to read between the lines - I knew something was screwy with the recommendation to NOT wear masks and knowing that there were reports of asymptomatic people were infectious.

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Posted by NKP guy on Sunday, April 26, 2020 7:28 PM

Erik_Mag
I don't consider the New York Times to be "the last word" on medical news.

   Nor do I.  But it's the next best thing.  By the way: are there any other readers here of its excellent Science section on Tuesdays?  

   The NYT may not be "the last word" on medical news (what would be?), but for me, at least, it's pretty much the last word on "news." 

   After all, who's considered better?  

 

 

 

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