Collounsbury had to go away for a few days on business. He apologized for the interruption to his thread in GD and promised to return as soon as he can.
As for the rest, well, it’s just chemistry I guess. Isn’t that right Fucknugget 
Enjoy,
Steven
A small request: if Collounsbury and/or Tamerlane ever do get around to creating a recommended MENA reading list in Café Society, it would be nice if someone would post a note either here or in the GD thread, since I don’t often pop into Café Society. (Hint: an e-mail copy of the list would be even better…that way, I can more easily pass it around to friends and such.)
Actually it would seem to me that the intellectual level of this discourse has declined ever so slightly, and I shall leave it for now, pending the arising of more substantive matters. But not to worry, mtgman, we shall meet again, no doubt.
I second Eva Luna’s motion.
Another case of discrimination. Fox News are so many for me, I can’t count them: Terri Keenan, Laurie Dhue, Kirin Chetrie, E. D. Hill, Lauren Green, Paige Hopkins, … 
december, you know, if you fill up all the fingers on one hand, you can move to the other;)
[sub]Some of us use both hands:D[/sub]
Since Milly asked me to come back to this, here I is.
Well, it is strange and perhaps bizarrely flattering that a small rant on people advancing uninformed nonsense as opinions on the MENA region has engendered less comment on the substance than on myself.
However, it is rather besides the point, is it not? Now Scylla my old man, (and others by reference) please, it is a pit thread and I thought I might indulge myself in some ranting. For all that, there is a large kernel of truth in my scorn of American navel gazing. It is of course less apparent to the provincials (I throw this in to play to my stereotype, I do enjoy my stereotype you know, it’s rather like the ‘smart and crafty jew’ stereotype, cutting both ways, but unable to shed it, I should play to it for the amusement value) but real.
More seriously, the geopolitical and geographical position of the USA allows for a great deal of insulation from the world and a consequent lack of incentives to be as informed and as engaged as many other populaces. Canadians have incentives to know the USA, for example, but few Americans have incentives to know Canada.
I am a great believer in incentives, can one be in business and investing and not be? However, as we all know, aligning incentives is sometimes not a trivial task. Let’s look at languages. What incentive does an American have to learn other languages? Well, from experience, I would argue for a certain type of or set of activities, there are real incentives, but they are not necessarily clear. It is something vaguely resembling a “commons” problem insofar as the benefits are somewhat diffuse and harder to discern that the costs. Certainly the cost of acquisition of a language is high for most Americans – exposure reduces such costs and I benefited from such early on, but most Americans by the accidents of geography do not. Given the likelihood of utilization, versus upfront costs, it is easy to see how and why Americans are so piss-poor with for. language. A similar calculus of early up front costs and substantive knowledge about the world ex-America, which is not to argue there is something “bad” or stupid about Americans in this regard, but simply to acknowledge that the incentives are diffuse, and Americans have long had the luxury of being insulated “from the world” in a kind of blissful ignorance.
Now as to Izzy, well what can I say? Izzy apparently agrees with Brutus. All well and fine I suppose, although I don’t hesitate to observe my dear Brutus is terribly gifted with deep analytical facilities of a nature to inspire confidence.
Now Izzy has nice little time criticizing my objectivity. While it is of some, shall we say entertainment value, to see someone advancing inductive arguments, it hardly addresses the evidence. I suppose I might be insulted to see someone critiquing my readings of the data, whose best response to the sociological evidence is he “doesn’t think so” without a critical and coherent argument grounded in either data or theoretical frameworks.
Now to the issue of whether I respect opposing viewpoints, well, I have strong views on issues I know well, and I do not tend to credit bullshit arguments based on bullshit evidence, nor can I say I am kind in my treatment of the same.
Let us take the issue of Lewis. If anyone bothers to actually read my recommendations, if only for the goddamned motherfucking novelty of it, one will find that Lewis is not 100% in accord with my views, and indeed even our own little Izzy in his unlearned manner has noted Lewis has views in disaccord with my own. However, I recommend the author and even in advancing rational reasons why I disagree with Lewis on certain matters, I have clearly noted my respect for his scholarship and analyses. Izzy correctly notes that no one has utilized Lewis against me.
Well, that’s not my fucking fault, now is it? If you read Lewis you will find ammo. Oh yes, even in the goddamned books I have specifically recommended. Now I will in response vigorously critique Lewis’ read of things, my characterizations of naïve and classically oriented I believe to be spot on – for all that at the same time I have respect for his clear depth of learning and his very fair minded approach to his evidence. I say naïve perhaps in the context of the practitioner versus the academic. I live what he writes about. And while I have deep respect for historical analyses, indeed contempt for those who think they can do business here in the long run without such understandings, they are limited by certain kinds of blinders. As am I, of course. I am arrogant and rightfully so given my record, but I am not blind to my faults nor my limitations. So Izzy, have at it, read Lewis’ body of work and be armed. He is a complicated writer, accessible but judicious and complex. Reading him you will see where I am come from, and where I diverge, and then you can make an informed judgment on my judgment.
Now, as to Pipes, I have made the argument. If you want to substantively argue that my judgment on him is incorrect, perhaps it is, then arguing the motherfucking bloody facts, dig into it, and stop whinging on. I have given plenty of ammunition, have at it. I may add that I have indeed engaged those who disagree with my POV w/o dismissing them, as I recall I think I crossed swords with Squink on this issue. He raised data based issues that were responsive to the overall body of science on the issue, I disagreed with him, but I completely respected him as I recall. You I have not, for your analysis has been without the least effort to address the substance. Now, given your problematic relationship with evolutionary theory and biological sciences, that is not surprising. Let me even point out that one can even see a difference between my POV and Dseid’s.
However, Dseid clearly has a command of the underlying science and has a coherent, science based POV. The same with Jill Gatt. I am fine with that. I think I am right – why hold my opinions if I did not?—and I will argue strenuously for the POV until presented with better evidence. Real evidence based on the data and a coherent reading of the data.
Well, enough of this, I rather make the point for those capable of something approaching clear thinking.
Now, the question of my qualifications, the answer is I am fluent but non-native speaker of Arabic with multiple dialects. Now, always take the description of fluency in Arabic with a grain of salt for any non-native speaker of the language, and indeed any Arab who did not grow up in the region. Arabic is a sea, as the expression goes in Arabic, and it is exceedingly difficult to have a command that really merits ‘fluency’ – I will just say I can conduct business meetings in the language, translate on the fly although not with the skill of a professional simultaneous translator (to do so in felicitous phrases that truly capture the meanings in between western and Arabic languages is a real pain at best). In short, I am pretty fucking good at it.
As to my experience, I’ve done business in and with the MENA and African regions for a decade or so, and yes I have graduate training relevant to the same in inernational business and economic policy with a few certificates in Arabic and Islamic studies thrown in for good measure. However, this is all empty words, it’s the meat that counts.
As I have said in the past, judging a poster is best done not on the claims but on the substance. One can review my commentaries on Afghanistan and make one’s own judgment on how they stand up to the test of time, which should be useful to provide a baseline for judging my current writing on a subject quite literally close to home.
I don’t recall having done this. Unless you mean objectivity in assessing the validity of opposing viewpoints.
You give yourself too much credit here. The fact that reasons are rational is meaningless until it is established that they are true. Sure it is “rational” to dismiss the work of someone who is “naive” - a very logical argument. But it is merely an empty assertion.
Not the point I was making. My point was that you cannot prove much from the relative lack of vituperation that you direct towards Lewis, because of the fact that he has not been held up against you.
It is not incumbent on me to read Lewis’ body of work in order to see how right you are. If you can make your point from info at hand OK, and if not you will just have to let it be.
In general, if people are as uninformed and ignorant as you make them out, it should be a relatively easy task for you to show how their arguments are ignorant. Simply asserting that they are ignorant, without showing any specifics as relating to the arguments that they are making is little more than a small-minded personal attack.
Give it a shot sometime.
So you mean there is some obligation on others to prove that Pipes is not an ideologue? Just because you’ve made some broad assertion? Not the way things work. (I am aware that you’ve made some vague references to some analysis or other that you feel proves your point - and invited others to look it up themselves to see how right you are. Nothing in that. Same in regards to your other assertions that you “backed up” by telling people to read some back issues of The Economist to see other people who shared your view. Again, a very skewed view of how debating give and take are supposed to work.)
I don’t recall squink. And I’m not here to reargue my past arguments with you.
But what I will say - and I think I’ve noted this before - is that your weakness is in using “data” as a dodge, to cover your inability to address, or even bother to understand, logical arguments that others are making. This is probably in itself a product of your arrogance, but you use links to data and scientific jargon to cover for yourself. So that someone arguing about the logical implications of accepted scientific facts gets treated to links to sources proving those very scientific facts, which are not actually being doubted. This, accompanied by all sorts of scientific jargon, and generally poorly phrased sentences and paragraphs, adds little of substance to the argument. But it does look impressive to those who are not following the actual arguments all that closely but are in general sympathy with your POV. There goes that valiant hero Collounsbury, fighting ignorance again. Right.
OTOH, even having had experience with your MO, I was surprised and somewhat amused by your demand that I provide a link to source data to prove that the average adult Chinese male was taller than 4’9". Can’t imagine what was going on in your head with that one. So maybe it is in part a mental hang-up that you have.
Coll:
My fine and dearest friend. As you know, I am just a simple man. As a caveman frozen tens of thousands of years ago and only recently unthawed I am confused and frightened by many aspects of your modern world. Frankly, many of your sophisticated words and complex phrasings are beyond my simple hunter-gatherer mores and acculturizations.
Doubtless my simplistic worldview is the reason for my confusion, but I am afraid I do not understand something.
On the one hand, I have read with avid interest your recent thread, and I have taken to heart many of the things you claim to understand with your special knowledge and perspective as an insider to the culture. I would not dare to doubt you. And I understand your frustation at people who criticize things they don’t know about.
On the other hand it seems that you are validating your critique of Americans based on your special perspective as an outsider.
Now, being just a frightened caveman confused by the modern world and it’s myriad wonders, I would ask you for your help in clarifying this for me.
How can one start a rant about people who bitch about things they don’t know about, and then claim special perspective as an outsider to bitch about things one does not know about it?
Which is it, insider or outsider?
Because to this caveman it appears as if you are simply claiming whatever perspective you happen to have as being the correct one, and as we used to say in the stoneage “URRRRR! NNNNGGGG GRAAAAARRRR!” Which you may translate as “Rock don’t float.”
Where has Col claimed special status as an outsider? Certainly not as a Yank, given that he has, in prior threads, noted that his family has been in the States long enough to have profited from the Slave Trade (or the early Industial Revolution, I do not recall which, at the moment), and that shortly after the WTC attack he was actually back in the States dealing with family affairs.
While he may have “gone native,” picking up some spellings and phraseology among the Brits and Brit-influenced folks among whom he has worked for many years, his roots appear to have been planted and nourished among our very own amber waves of grain (or, at least, within the expansion joints in the pavement outside the temples of commerce from which the loans to the farmers of that grain has originated).
Izzy deserves a special reply, I shall have to put some effort into and get back to. May as well do it when I can enjoy myself.
Now Scylla, you’ve got a point.
Sometimes I don’t know myself, am I an insider or an outsider to the US of A. Tom recalls correctly, I come from an early colonial era family, involved in shipping back in the day. A long line of mediocrities if you will. (haha)
Yet I have spent better than a third of my life, close to half I think, outside the US.
I don’t recall claiming to be an outsider to the US, ex-living overseas, but I suppose I sometimes write as one.
Interesting point, I had not thought of it.
Well, I guess I can only say that I myself don’t relly know – I am not trying to play some double game deliberately, but perhaps I am by accident.
By the way, I should note, I am not an insider, properly speaking, to MENA culture – I am close to it I would think, fairly enough, sometimes too close, being accused of having gone native by more than one person, at least in some respects.
Interesting.
Shit Scylla, I wouldn’t have said you were a day over 9000 to look at you. Healthy living and exercise I guess.
So in short, you speak the language, have worked there for 10 years or so, and have an educational background comensurate with your position.
Well, that’s fine and all, but how exactly does that make you a MENA expert? Does a lawyer 10 years out of law school automatically become a legal expert? Does a doctor automatically become a medical expert after 10 years? No. How are you any different? Why should people on the SDMB put any credence into whatever you say?
Just wondering.
Here’s the thing: This is a GROUP message board. People come here to have discussions. It’s full of very smart people. Experts on a multitude of topics. People interested in a topic and wanting to discuss it without having the time to become truly expert on it.
And yet, I have noticed that people can chat about economics without having some Ph.D economist yell at them to shut the fuck up and listen to someone who knows what he’s talking about.
I have noticed that people can have discussions on here about the eingeering of cars without some professional engineer dropping into the thread to tell them all to keep their ignorant cakeholes shut because he has a degree and they don’t.
I have seen many, many people contradict real experts on the their industry like Anthracite, without being told that their opinions were worthless simply because they were not as knowledgeable.
No, it seems that there’s really only one subject on the SDMB that has a resident expert, who’s opinion must be taken as fact, and who has the right to abuse his subjects at will through sheer value of his intellect.
See, we all recognize that you know a lot about the subject. And your input is valued, because you have knowledge.
But the problem is, you’re an asshole. This has nothing to do with the middle east, or the relative gap in knowledge between you and other thread participants. The problem is that you are a rude, nasty person who spreads discord and leaves a wake of insults and anger behind him wherever he goes. This obvious failure in understanding yourself or exercising judgement over your own behaviour seriously discredits the value of other opions you may hold.
Really? I’d have said the exact opposite. I recall quite a few threads in which an “expert” has either flamed someone who challenged them or opened a Pit thread to blast them. (You named Anthracite and I do not know that she has ever done so, but I have certainly seen others do so.)
This, of course, does not change the perception that Col tends to project, and you can certainly take umbrage at whatever of his expressions rankle you, but I think it is a bit disingenuous to imply that he is the only poster who has ever dismissed criticism on the grounds of opponents’ ignorance or his own expertise.