Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

internetworkers - Re: [internetworkers] Digest comments

internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: "Internetworkers:http"@metalab.unc.edu://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/ <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Digest comments
  • Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 21:27:18 -0500


On Nov 9, 2004, at 12:13 AM, Ian Meyer wrote:

On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 23:10:12 -0500 (EST), rua AT mindspring.com
<rua AT mindspring.com> wrote:

<snip>

"I don't know about anyone else, but to me, someone who puts blind
faith in a canidate for no reason other than its who their pastor,
family, whatever told them to vote for, is ignorant and backwards."
--The way I grew up, I would have knee-jerked agreed, but then I thought about all those kids who the left was hoping to vote because Eminem said so, or The Boss, or Madonna. And then I think of a life-long member of a church, that has been given good guidance and assistance over the years by their pastor, and I wonder who is being the most ignorant.

<snip>

following *anyone's* lead in voting, because thats how they told you
to vote is wrong.

yes, i have as little regard for people who voted for kerry because
Eminem told them to as for the religious who voted as their Pastor
told them to. The "guidance and assistance" as you put it, however
valid a point, is moot. I can help you out all I want, but I still
expect you to, in the words of the Oracle, "make up your own damn
mind" who to vote for.

Good point - and extra points for the Matrix reference. But, just as the Oracle provided guidance, and then left our heroes to choose, so do experts and other trusted authorities provide context, even though they don't pull the voting lever.

Following the lead of others is how the world works. For example, I'm a Mac user, and a fan of the fink project. When I have a problem, I ask other fink users for help on the email list. Many people can and do help, but I tend to trust advice from the developers and package maintainers. I don't necessarily do exactly what they suggest, and I may sometimes have to pick-and-choose when they offer contradictory advice or alternative hypotheses. But I certainly trust them more, in that context, than I trust other people.

(Okay, that may have seemed a little heavy-handed. But you know why I picked that example. =)

That's not to say that voting is the same as application troubleshooting. But the issue is one of trust, not the applicability of metaphors - yours with The Matrix, or mine with fink. And free societies work better in high-trust environments than they do in low-trust environments. Even subsets of societies - for example, some people have learned to trust people like Ana Marie Cox or Markos Moulitsas or Glenn Reynolds or Dan Rather or whomever. (For further reading, I suggest _Trust_ by Francis Fukayama. It's a seriously good book.)

So voting for a candidate because people you trust have laid out good arguments in favor of or against one candidate or another is actually a very *good* reason to vote for one of them. Because, as you said, you still have to "make up your own damn mind" - about whom to trust, and why.

--
James Dasher
misterdasher dot com
IM misterdasher





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page