/tangent

Ok, I finally have time to try and explain my original post by putting into context of the debate that I had at work that led to me creating this post.

Here goes.....

My boss is a typical kind of guy that has lots of education but almost no common sense. For example, he insists that my production workspace is a 4'x8' table that is cleared off completely each day. I am sure that the reason he likes large tables is because they are what he has experienced in the lab rooms of the university where he spent over 10 years working towards his doctorate.

I personally don't have a doctorate, but basic common sense tells me that any work space that is more than a few feet out of my reach is extremely inefficient. Furthermore, if I am to put my $100k worth of test equipment away at the end of each day, then why not have the storage shelf for them immediately above my workspace? Additionally, I pointed out that his entire manual of process controls and instructions exist on paper, and if he truly wants to move to a higher level, he needs to start investing in workspace infrastructure. An empty table is not evidence of engineered process, it is evidence of a neat freak that won't build equipment setup into their processes. Beleive it or not, this is a 5 year arguement that I've been having with him that was still going strong until my other boss got involved and I was able to sell him on my ideas in under 10 minutes.

Anyway, boss #1 is talented at arguing, in fact I've heard him say that the key to getting his doctorate was the ability to defend his thesis. Although, I understand this to be true about doctorate thesis, I also have first hand knowledge that this guy doesn't defend a damn thing. Often his tactic is to persevere until everyone else gives up. However, he is pretty good at basic anal arguementive tactics. for example: I once refered to design issue problems with our product, and he went into a rant arguing that I couldn't 'know it was a design issue unless the issue was identified and solved. When I responded that I have over 20 years in my career and when a pile of boards build up next to a test bench and no production or vendor issues are found.....its always a design issue. And, "I have a track record of finding them if you won't." Guess what? He won that arguement. Not because he came up with anything reasonable, he just kept repeating the same things over and over until everyone just stopped caring. Being an owner has priviledges I guess.

So anyway, back to my story ( I told you that this would be long one). We were having some light and entertaining debate about politics when he tried the basic tactic of "how do you know that? did you check official records?" Then he uses a personal anedoctal story to back it up. He said the other day he read a CTV report that suggested that the new copyright laws would make bit torrent software illegal, so he wrote a letter to our mla stating that bit torrent software was used for legitimate reasons, "could you please reconsider?" the MLA responded with a political response(ie no swearing) that pretty much said 'thats bullshit, we aren't making bit torrent software illegal' with a link to a website that showed the proposed legislation. My boss said he read the legislation and could not find a damn thing that is even remotely close to making bit torrent clients illegal. Nice story, right? It compells a person to want to do their own fact checking because obviously the CTV journalist screwed up with his interpretation of the proposed laws.

But the funny thing is, the arguement that we were having was about equalization payments to Quebec. My boss was arguing that Quebec doesn't get them, and he was further challenging my facts with his "how do you know?" tactic even though the information that I got my facts from had full citations for each fact....many refering to government reports and statistics canada info. He kept saying over and over again. "You dont know that, you didn't do enough fact checking."

Well another day goes by, and I complain about how the Liberals used EI funds to balance their federal budget, and how I object to the terminalogy because i would never consider dipping into my savings account as "balancing" my monthly cashflow...

my bosses response. Have you guessed it? Yup, he asked "how do you know that money was taken from the EI fund by the Liberals? did you check the aduitor general's reports?"

then he goes onto to say " you have the responsibility to properly inform yourself before passing judgement or getting involved in the electoral process...." and he did a bit of a 'dangers of uninformed voters' rant.

This is a bit laughable considering that he considers himself as 'informed' yet he was wrong on the facts on both ocasions. And, yet I was 'uninformed' because I didn't validate my facts with the conscientious approach of a scientist.

This got me thinking.

I think my bosses standard for fact checking is seldom followed.
Acording to my boss that would make the whole lot of us 'uninformed' voters.

Yet, he and his ilk would still consider themselves part of the informed voters.

I think this standard is unrealist. And, I believe I used the words 'vial crap'

Dont get me wrong, being informed is a good thing, I just don't beleive that my boss's way of defining it is acurate.

Furthermore, I was thinking "what if it is true? what if all of us are truly uninformed?" "Does it matter? Is it wrong?"

Then I remember a comment from Trudeau " The voters are never wrong, sometimes misinformed, but never wrong " and I have to agree with the first part of his statement the most....ie "the voters are never wrong" is the essence of democracy. Sure they can be misinformed, but the concept of democracy means that they are never wrong. However, we know this not to be an absolute, right? because democracy in this country is not unlimited. It is restricted, and kept on a tight leash from our legal system, our constitution, and our legislative policy.

Anyway, lets get back to the informed. Not the truly informed, but the pompous "informed" that dont have the basic common sense to truly know what the rest of us canadians might truly want. Do their opinions count in a democracy? Yes, they absolutely do. But, thankfully, no more so than us 'simpletons' right?

I am comfortable to say that the "informed" are only capable of making a better Canada if the "uninformed" are included in the general democratic process. Did I ever mean to describe the "uninformed" as the same reckless incompetant idiots that Mustang wrote about? No that was not my intention.Yet, the concepts of freedom of speach and universal right to vote suggests to me, that it isn't that bad of a thing to allow the occasional idiot to vote freely. They don't account for the swing vote in this country, anyways.


Edit: cleaned up some grammar, spelling mistakes, etc. Damn, I should have gotten more schooling and less common sense.

all that typing and no rep points?

what symbol are you calling brackets?

() parentheses
[] brackets
{} braces