You appear to have somehow completely misread my post. I didn’t call anyone “peak stupid”. And the “fun and friendly banter” to which I referred was the ongoing commentary about the linguistic oddity of “electronic engineer”.
I think @robby nailed it. “Liver doctor” instead of hepatologist, or “foot doctor” instead of “podiatrist”, are informal constructs that doctors use to communicate with the lay public. A GP is more likely to tell a patient that they’re referring them to a liver specialist rather than to a hepatologist. The informal terms are linguistically curious but serve a purpose in informal communication.
Thank you for clarifying @puzzlegal’s misunderstanding.
A few more words about this tempest is a teacup. I was initially critical of a poster who started a vacuous and carelessly titled thread in FQ, which was quickly closed. After that, the conversation devolved into general banter about the term “electronic engineer”. No one was “pretending” that they didn’t understand what it meant, or feeling smug about it. It’s just a linguistic oddity. Yet you came roaring in full of fire and brimstone as if you’d been personally and grievously offended.
As for the crack about engineers and literacy, first of all the more complete – and obviously facetious – quote was that the odd term “electronic engineer” was to me “proof that engineers as a group, as bright as they may be, are not the epitome of literacy”. This was a riff from my background of being briefly in an engineering major in college before I switched majors, and that sentiment comes from self-deprecating jokes that were part of the engineering culture, at least at that time and place. Engineers were proud of their skills in the hard sciences like math and physics, and jokingly disavowed any interest in literacy (or the liberal arts in general).
That’s true, and some engineers are bad writers, but I do have one in my writers group, who is not half bad at fiction writing. She gives good feedback too.
In general though it’s bad form for engineers to discount an entire field just because they don’t do well in that subject. I’m thinking of people like Elon Musk here. He sucked at liberal arts and so concluded it just wasn’t that important. If he had bothered to read some books he might have developed the empathy the world so desperately needs.
Both my Mom and my grandfather were engineers, so I know them well. My Mom couldn’t wrap her head around why I wrote fiction. “Why would you write something that didn’t happen?” She enjoyed movies so I can’t quite follow the logic there. But at any rate, she wasn’t a very good writer. In all fairness, I’m not a very good engineer. But I don’t use it like a badge of pride or anything.
Yes to the first question. But go ahead and engage in the thread and others that Uzi pollutes, but for the sake of your blood pressure and mental health, maybe put the asshole in ignore.
Good analysis. He also ignores the fact that the oil industry is in decline, and that a separated Alberta would be a sitting duck for almost immediate US colonization. And when oil revenues dry up, it’ll become a third-world backwater. Uzi is not just an idiot, he’s also a traitor to his own country in seeking its breakup.
Uzi’s profile indicates he’s in Hong Kong. I assume he’s originally from Alberta and perhaps plans to return there, as I can’t think of anything else that would make him so obsessive about the fringe issues of Alberta secession. Unless he’s one of the paid foreign agitators that have been so closely associated with the movement.
Another often clueless RW apologist has just started a thread in GD about stereotyped groups being responsible for the labels they get labeled with.
The question is superficially worded neutrally. But the fact it gets asked at all is about like “Flat earth: truth or lie?”. The fact somebody wants to talk about it at all says they devoutly believe in the bad/stupid side of the “debate”.
I don’t know what’s gotten into Tokyo Bayer that he’s now decided to play the troll in the Confronting racism thread. Twisting my words out of all sense. Talk of “screaming.” Did he blow a gasket or something?
As someone that got really annoyed at you earlier in that thread, I agree: I think he’s latched onto a pedantic point that misses the thrust of the thread and is defending it even after a clarification made it moot.
Once again, I am not looking for a name for someone who fakes being an expert in many things. I am looking for the name for someone who claims to be an expert in many woo subjects, like ghosts, UFOs, ESP etc., people that talk out of their ass on subjects that are hard/impossible to check on.