The Pros and Cons of...... Cecil

Great Debates
1

… i am relatively new to this but i have had. a reasonably thourough look around… there are a lot of people who visit this place.

there are two cases i wish to explore

this page works by “the millions” asking… expecting black and white answers… to … what are often very grey questions.

for example, “is vaccination good”.

“yes” says cecil. No say a million others… many vaccinations (esp MMR) are quite pointless these days… the vaccination rates among others are good enough that the pathogens are… to rare… to pose a risk of the diseases getting caught if the vaccine was avoided.

sorry… … that was… just the first “truth” of this page which came to mind

my point… that while people may come to this page looking for an answer… it is… often dangerous to give it to them… an explanation of the arguements that ones goes through to decide the answer is good… but the answer itself should be… feverently avoided…

the second… thing… about this page which gets me… … … .
atleast… hundreds of thousands… of the hypothetical millions who… “teem”… would agree that “the news” on television is one of the most… misleading trivial sources of information out there… the theme music… the animal story… it is all just entertainment. That does not bother me,… too much… what bothers me is the content itself.

a vietnamese girl is shot in vietnam.
this means… nothing to me.
but tomorrow … a colleague will ask “did you hear about that vietnamese girl?”…

i live in New Zealand. a common story is “there has been a shooting in auckland”… that is… all they know… they give pics of the site… accounts of How he was shot… … this is not news… it is trivial… it does not relate to me in any way …

i take it for granted that the reader of this post agrees… and understands that argument… it is not a new one… books have been written about it.

what worries me is how this page… reflects this love for triviality… … the topics… gum disolving during sex?.. … are … worse… than “one network news”… they do not even pretend to be relevant… that i should… care… … … … it bothers me that people see this as… information… for… information is defined by it being useful… i think…

… … why do you peoples… follow this… source of…pseudo-information… half-truth… … there is not always a yes or no answer to a question … and there is no “truth” in the trivial… it is… just there to … divert…

… as always… these are… musings… … the obvious answer would be “hey morris… dont look at this page”… but what i ahve just explained… is a … growing part of net culture… i used to be happy… that i had avoided … the “media”… though using the internet instead of tv/radio/newspaper… but the net is following… … and … i wish to… at least watch it … go…

2

Jeezus, man, lay off the dots!

Maybe you want to avoid the answer, but the whole point of this place is to fight ignorance. You can’t fight ignorance by avoiding the answer – you do it by explaining and providing the answer.

3

You seem to be missing the whole point here, Cecil is God. Can I get a Mod over here? We need a thread closed! :D:D:D

4

you sum up my point brilliantlly cisco…

for We are Searching for The One Truth… The Word… ?.. as much as it may be an ongoing joke… thinking like that is bad for you… to para-quote someone who someone else will hate me for… “a believing mind is a mind in stasis. a mind without change is dead. believe in nothing”… cecil… advocates… belief… in places… where the facts… often… are not adequate

5

A few points.[list][li]Dont use “…” so often. If you really have to, three dots will suffice. It gives the impression of being distracted by something out of the window in a conversational style of writing, but if you are trying to make a point or ask a question - rather than engage in a meandering monologue - it comes across as not being sufficiently bothered to collect your thoughts so as to express yourself coherently.[/li][li]The vaccination question you mention is a mailbag item, not one of Cecil’s columns. You will find if you read the item again that your niggles are addressed.[/li][li]Few matters discussed on these boards will be addressed by Cecil.[/li][li]Some questions can be answered in a straight-forward, factual way. On the boards, these questions may be found in General Questions. Others are at least partly a matter of opinion and may be found in other fora, like IMHO (hint hint).[/li][li]Cecil answers many GQ-type questions. Many of his columns deal with matters which require judgement on competing views. People read him here and in the US newspapers because he usually makes good calls on these matters, mentions when he is making a judgement call, cites evidence and avoids misrepresentation.[/li][li]As to your suggestion that many things here are trivial, well sure that it is true. But it is only true ex post. Before you find out why chewing gum dissolves during sex you would not know whether the answer is important. It is also the case that an enquiring mind needs exercise.[/li]
picmr

6

Morris, I don’t know if you could have gotten things more backwards if you tried. Cecil doesn’t advocate blind belief; he advocates thinking and investigating and examining the facts. That’s the whole point!

7

As for your constant use of ellipses… I’m sorry, I can’t read your posts without hearing William Shatner’s voice in my head:

“Spock…the media…is…just…drivel”

You actually answer one of your earlier questions with this quote here/ You asked “why do you peoples… follow this… source of…pseudo-information… half-truth… … there is not always a yes or no answer to a question”

I am here to seek out truths where they are sometimes hard to find. My mind is seeking constant change and adjustment to my thoughts and beliefs. Belief is not static as your quote suggests. Rather, it’d be more correct if it said “blind belief” or “unquestioning belief”.

8

If . . . you post like . . . you are a member of the . . . Starship Enterprise, . . . do not be sur . . . prised if people do not take . . . you . . . seriously.

Damnit, man, I’m a student, not someone whose eyes don’t track. Lay off the ". . . "

9

My take:

  1. Cecil is God;
  2. I don’t believe in God.

I adopt picmr’s response.

As for triviality on the site, sure, there are gobs of it. Would my life have been affected if I hadn’t gotten the straight dope about the Wandering Jew over in GQ? No. So what? I had a question, it was bothering me, I asked.

But what is your definition of triviality? I read the Economist religiously. The Economist regularly has fascinating articles about current events in such countries as Sri Lanka, Mongolia, and Madagascar. Nothing that happens in any of those is ever likely to affect my life or the life of the vast majority of Economist readers (getting tired of underlining). Is the Economist therefore simply a weekly trivia magazine?
Hell, for that matter, several elite universities award degrees in such “trivial” matters as folklore studies and the like. Are folklorists’ lives trivial?

I don’t think so, but hey, I’m not Cecil … I could be wrong :stuck_out_tongue:

10

Where…do you…look for…the Truth?

11

thetruth.com . . . usually works . . . for me . . . :smiley:

::running::

12

morris

Dude, you have a stuck key on your keyboard. Remove the “.” keycap and clean the little spring. You should also check your shift key, it’s not working either. You probably just spilled something on the keyboard. But please fix it!

13

Captain Kirk! It’s you!

14

Darn, Konrad and iampunha beat me to it!

15

and…um…Beaker did too. God, I feel so ignored. [sigh]

16

There ya go, taking things for granite. Do you know how dangerous that is?

17

Granite? No, he’s just full of schist. :smiley:

18

Often the answers are quite gray, as well. Some people expect black and white answers and recieve gray ones, some people expect gray answers and get black and white ones. How come you are so sure about what we expect?

How do you know a topic is trivial until it is investigated? Many great discoveries have been made from studying the apparently trivial. Besides, if someone is genuinely curious about something, don’t they deserve an answer?

I disagree.

19

Sorry, beaker dear, I guess I just didn’t see it. Here, have a flower.:smiley:

Dammit, morris, can you make your posts more disjointed? Can you add more ellipses too, while you’re at it? I don’t mean to be demanding, but proper capitalization and spelling would be nice, too.

Sarcasm aside, you can’t post a statement such as yours in the way that you did and expect to be taken seriously here.

20

Yay! A flower! Hmmmm, I’m going to have to pout childishly more often.

Back to the OP:
Isn’t believing in the idea “believe in nothing”, still believing something? You set yourself up witha cyclical paradox.

There is no truth. Therefore, and it’s impossible to believe in anything. So believe in nothing. Except that would assume to “believe in nothing” is truth. There is no truth. Therefore, and it’s impossible to believe in anything, not even “believe in nothing”.

Or do you just mean that what we seek here is not truth, and that truth can be found elsewhere? If so, where and how do you define truth?