>> ^Deano:


I think the smart answer from you would be to accept I'm not going to type hundreds of names out for you. That's not a real answer or proof. Your response is disingenuous.
We're going with our knowledge of what this demographic is. Note I've never said or claimed that footballers are universally "dumb". I said they aren't especially bright. I have said and will always maintain they certainly are not the smartest slice of the population. And by the way going back to the video, Mitchell is clearly taking the piss. It is a comedy program with exaggeration a key component.
"Thick people can't handle school"? I think there's a huge number of educationalists would argue that one. Provision levels and equality of opportunity along with socio-economic factors play a huge role. Footballers from poor working-class families more often find themselves excluded from progressing in the educational system and it's not always because they're "thick". In London I know the debate re the lack of educational achievement in boys linked to the decline in male teachers. You cross that with the race issue and it's even more complicated.
Ah now you're going with my definition of football intelligence? Well that's what I've been driving at. They're good at football. They know how hard to strike the ball, when to time a run, how to employ gamesmanship. They have good spatial awareness. You could now start to talk about different kinds of intelligence. But that's a bloody complicated area. I would however continue to separate football smarts from intellectual ones and general life skills.
You're right, having good advice on hand is advantageous. But some footballers are smarter than others. Tevez for example might be the dumbest, or unluckiest, guy in the game. Mostly the infrastructure is already in place for these guys. Word of mouth is important. I would love to know whether they would make more or less if they didn't employ representation. It would be interesting to know wouldn't it? I suspect it would take a huge amount of balls at a young age to do it yourself or entrust mum or dad.
I never intended to claim Klinnsman's diving was dumb, merely that I note it as a low light of his professional career. I saw him play once and he was excellent in what was really a workmanlike Spurs team.
I'll call it a draw with Barton. I don't know if you're calling me dumb but yes he is an unpleasant thug. He's a moron who's been unable to learn from his mistakes. Guess who's got the most yellow cards for QPR this season?


Of course you're not going to type out hundreds of names and that wouldn't be enough anyway - that's my point. I could name clever footballers - including ones who have a reputation for being dumb (Frank Lampard) - which would be pointless too. It's all anecdotal, it's basically meaningless.

I'm not sure what point you're making with regards to education, "it's not always because they're 'thick'" seems to be agreeing with me.

I didn't mean to say you're dumb, I was referring to Barton's thug past implying that he isn't a genius. Getting most yellow cards isn't necessarily bad, he's a tough tackling midfielder so it's his job to throw himself about (and getting a booking is clever if it stops a goal!). I took your comment about Klinsmann diving to mean he's stupid, sorry about that.

It's certainly complicated and the socio-economic and race issues you touched on only make it more so. In fairness, I don't know. You make good points and you aren't falling into the trap that bugs me, the idea that British footballers are barely capable of tying their shoe laces (or putting on their own bibs ... oh!). I expect they are above average, a bit, but you make good arguments for them being a bit below average.

This clip is from Mock the Week, there was a Franky Boyle bit about the England team writing their own song (this is the best I can find: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpbvF1dESFY&feature=related ). I know this is exaggerated for comic effect but for me, people saying that or laughing at that are the thick ones. Comic exaggeration of an already at-best exaggerated opinion is brainless.

>> ^Quboid:

>> ^Deano:

How many names am I supposed to give you? Is there a specific number that should convince you? Put it like this ff you were mining the wisdom of crowds they'd be the last crowd you'd go with.
A lack of education, also known as ignorance and poor critical thinking is linked to lack of comprehension and the wider phenomenon of stupidity.
You're incorrect about intelligence being a differentiator on the field. The number characteristic coaches look for is attitude. Players with an intense competitive desire and a controllable amount of aggression WITH talent are the ones who make it.
Off the pitch, being able to make smart decisions about contracts, sponsorship is where you'd be right. Actually maybe that means Beckham is a genius and I'm totally wrong! Or maybe he's well advised.
I always admired Klinnsman in that regard. If you forgot the diving you might recall he sorted out his own contract and only hired a lawyer and an accountant. The value of an education there is that you actually eke out a bit more money over the long term.
As for Barton his propensity for violence suggests he's not the poster boy for the football intelligentsia. I know he's been working via twitter to build a different kind of reputation but I'm yet to be convinced. It's amazing what you can cut and paste on the web.

I'd like over 50% of footballers, that would convince me. It's all anecdotal otherwise. The last crowd I'd go for would certainly not be footballers, it would be unemployed, ex-convicts who left school early because it was too hard for them.
Again, while a lack of education is linked with stupidity, this is because the reason is often that thick people can't handle school. Leaving school for a lucrative career is very different.
The characteristic that coaches look for is being a good player and more intelligent people will generally be slightly better. You mentioned this yourself - footballing intelligence. That's not a separate part of the brain, that's good old intelligence, along with experience on the pitch. If you have 2 players with equally intense competitive desire, controllable aggression and talent, the smarter one is the one who will pick better passes, position themselves better, concentrate better, be a better player.
Klinsmann is far from the only player who did his own contracts but then that's not really relevant - having good advisers might be the intelligent choice; if they get you 30% more and take 15% then they're worth hiring. Also, frankly, diving is intelligent given how pathetically advantageous it is.
You can add being a thug to Barton's rap sheet and that is pretty dumb. Whether he's just copy and pasting from www.NietzscheForDummies.com we don't know but even if he was, this would require a greater understanding of the world than British footballers are given credit for.


I think the smart answer from you would be to accept I'm not going to type hundreds of names out for you. That's not a real answer or proof. Your response is disingenuous.
We're going with our knowledge of what this demographic is. Note I've never said or claimed that footballers are universally "dumb". I said they aren't especially bright. I have said and will always maintain they certainly are not the smartest slice of the population. And by the way going back to the video, Mitchell is clearly taking the piss. It *is* a comedy program with exaggeration a key component.

"Thick people can't handle school"? I think there's a huge number of educationalists would argue that one. Provision levels and equality of opportunity along with socio-economic factors play a huge role. Footballers from poor working-class families more often find themselves excluded from progressing in the educational system and it's not always because they're "thick". In London I know the debate re the lack of educational achievement in boys linked to the decline in male teachers. You cross that with the race issue and it's even more complicated.

Ah now you're going with my definition of football intelligence? Well that's what I've been driving at. They're good at football. They know how hard to strike the ball, when to time a run, how to employ gamesmanship. They have good spatial awareness. You could now start to talk about different kinds of intelligence. But that's a bloody complicated area. I would however continue to separate football smarts from intellectual ones and general life skills.

You're right, having good advice on hand is advantageous. But some footballers are smarter than others. Tevez for example might be the dumbest, or unluckiest, guy in the game. Mostly the infrastructure is already in place for these guys. Word of mouth is important. I would love to know whether they would make more or less if they didn't employ representation. It would be interesting to know wouldn't it? I suspect it would take a huge amount of balls at a young age to do it yourself or entrust mum or dad.

I never intended to claim Klinnsman's diving was dumb, merely that I note it as a low light of his professional career. I saw him play once and he was excellent in what was really a workmanlike Spurs team.

I'll call it a draw with Barton. I don't know if you're calling *me* dumb but yes he is an unpleasant thug. He's a moron who's been unable to learn from his mistakes. Guess who's got the most yellow cards for QPR this season?

There's various ways to do this yourself I'd imagine. You could search for software that allows you to block images of a certain size. I'd bet there is a Firefox extension for this.

Call an ace an ace - this worked. Obama continued a working policy.

Taxpayers on the hook for billions they'll never see recouped: NOT success. These same companies expecting the same bailouts again down the road? NOT success. While we're on the subject: Medicare fraud to the tune of 60 billion EVERY year? NOT success.

Bush was wrong and His Earness was wrong. These corporations should have filed for bankruptcy.

And stop with the Obamacare costing millions of jobs. You don't have any evidence to back it up.

SIGH.

These weak sauce "success" stories are nothing more than obamedia shills defending their king.


P.S. LIBERALS run Detroit and have for decades. Until that changes, it has NO chance.




>> ^heropsycho:

So are you admitting partisan vitriol is bad or not? If you are, then stop doing it yourself. Call an ace an ace - this worked. Obama continued a working policy.
And stop with the Obamacare costing millions of jobs. You don't have any evidence to back it up.
>> ^quantumushroom:
Had Bush executed these erroneous bailouts (oh wait, he did!)...
Answers your question about Bush approving of the auto bailouts.
...the left would be howling about their obvious failure.

Meaning if Bush were President now, the left, using the same exact stats, would declare the bailouts a failure. Which, by the way, they are.

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Treasury Admits What Everybody Already Knew: Taxpayer Losses On GM Bailout Are Going to be Massive
Had Bush executed these erroneous bailouts (oh wait, he did!) the left would be howling about their obvious failure.
But let's say Obama did save "thousands" of jobs. The economic uncertainty created by obamacare has cost millions more.

Didn't Bush make those bailouts? I mean weren't they done up but Bush people?

So are you admitting partisan vitriol is bad or not? If you are, then stop doing it yourself. Call an ace an ace - this worked. Obama continued a working policy.

And stop with the Obamacare costing millions of jobs. You don't have any evidence to back it up.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Had Bush executed these erroneous bailouts (oh wait, he did!)...
Answers your question about Bush approving of the auto bailouts.
...the left would be howling about their obvious failure.

Meaning if Bush were President now, the left, using the same exact stats, would declare the bailouts a failure. Which, by the way, they are.

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Treasury Admits What Everybody Already Knew: Taxpayer Losses On GM Bailout Are Going to be Massive
Had Bush executed these erroneous bailouts (oh wait, he did!) the left would be howling about their obvious failure.
But let's say Obama did save "thousands" of jobs. The economic uncertainty created by obamacare has cost millions more.

Didn't Bush make those bailouts? I mean weren't they done up but Bush people?

Holy crap people are stupid. Go watch the video... It defies common sense and gravity.

You can tell it is being lifted in the air because of the way the feet are. If it was a balancing issue, your feet would be on the ground one second, then in the air. In every case here, the dog brings his feet forward everytime they pull up on the string around his stomach.


Want to argue, well go look at the video.. If the spine was a rigid board pivoting around front feet, that isn't the case here, as the head and front feet stay perfectly still. Well ok, you say, he is just doing a front hand stand, well think about doing one yourself, you have to bend your legs and kind of spring into the air. This isn't happening in the video, someone is simply lifting the dog.

>> ^conan:

What? First Computer built in Iowa? Yeah Yeah Yeah, everything was invented in the US. It's like when we had exchange students from the states, asking us beforehand their trip if we have cheese and washing machines. First Computer was built in Berlin by Konrad Zuse. Bitches think they know IT :-)


You criticize Americans for claiming to have invented everything and then turn around and do it yourself. Zuse's claim to having the first "computer" is as tenuous as the Iowa claim. His Wikipedia article even says: "The first electronic computer (though not programmable) was the Atanasoff machine developed at Iowa State University during 1939-41."

Also, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware#Early_electronic_digital_computation which has a nice table of early computer features and has this disclaimer: "Defining a single point in the series as the "first computer" misses many subtleties"

Clearly there is a continuous progression of more and more modern looking digital computers during this era. I mean look at the Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer -- was the first electronic digital computing device.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_%28computer%29 -- was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer -- was the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC -- was the first general-purpose electronic computer.

A similar thing happened in aviation, and I'll admit it's a bit silly that we Americans give the Wright brothers such ambiguous credit when there were so many researchers around the world doing nearly the same thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_aviation_-_20th_century

@enoch
I'm gonna respond as I run through your comments.

To talk about fundamentalism, you have to have a foundation (something holy) to be fundamental about. Secular fundamentalism is a misnomer, but I do know what you mean - militant, head-in-the-sand atheists, who are right no matter what, with nothing to back up their case. Those do exist. Heh, I guess the establishment clause or the constitution might be regarded as sacred in some circles.

I am constantly surprised when otherwise very smart people attest to a faith, or indeed a religion. It's not that they are stupid, but they don't apply critical thinking to their faith, for whatever reason, some say "it's meant to by mysterious", "it can't be analyzed with critical thinking", "it's beyond reason". It is like an alcoholic justifying his addiction.

Of course, the word "faith" may mean different things to different people, so to preemptively judge someone before they've said anything about what it means to them is unfair. "I have faith in love".. well la di dah, that so nice.

Stubbornness is the death of discovery, I completely agree there. "The sun revolves around the earth.. because... YOUR FACE that's why!"

I am very open-minded to new ideas, even though it might not seem like it in my comments here, but that's entirely because no one has yet presented any new ideas with any shred of evidence or backup other than, for instance, the bible which is not a credible source. @shinyblurry, I'm looking at you.

I would love to purge you of your faith, enoch, but I don't want to do it by fire. I want you to essentially do it yourself by looking at the world in amazement, looking at how things work, and so on and so on in the same way as I came to this conclusion myself.

I would agree with Harris that all other things being equal, the world would be better without religion than with it. Not a heaven on earth at all, but better.

Harris and Hitchens do go at religion from different angles. Hitchens attack religion, while Harris is attacking faith. You have to remember their background as well, Hitchens was a historian and journalist, while Harris is a neuroscientist. From a neuroscientist standpoint faith is the interesting part, while from an observational position like a journalist the results of faith and religion is the interesting part. So they go after what they think is interesting.

Daniel Dennett also goes against faith, because he's a cognitive scientist (and a bloody brilliant one at that).

Like arguing about God, arguing about Faith requires a definition of the word, otherwise we all just talk about different things.

"the meat of what you are talking about is the prove/disprove god.
this is a futile argument,for neither side can conclusively prove either position.so just as an intelligent person has to leave the option that god MAY exist (though unlikely in their view),the person of faith has to come to the exact same conclusion but in reverse.
my view is that this argument is a waste of time and produces nothing of value."
This cannot be proved either way, but that does not at all mean the two sides are equal. The argument is a waste of time until someone who claims X exists brings some evidence to the table to back up the claim, until that time the discussion is moot.

Why someone has faith, religion etc. is far more interesting, agreed.

Faith carries a stigma, because it implies a whole lot of things, which is why it is judged very quickly.

I'll concede that I may simply not understand people of faith, I don't see the allure of it. I don't have it and I don't miss it, and essentially I see it as a breach of an otherwise floating reasonable boat. heh. I've still not really seen good results of anyone having faith.

It's supposed to be fixed by now, but I've been embedding playlists the same way forever, so I didn't even try the iframe embed code. I know it doesn't work in the preview, but it might work once it is submitted.

Anyway, I have detailed a do-it-yourself way of embedding YT playlists in this Sift Talk post, third comment from the top. Though nowadays, you have to use the entire playlist-ID, including the "PL". Without the "PL", the preview works just fine, but the final submission won't include a loadable video. In reply to this comment by marinara:
hey, you may not know the answer.

i'm enjoying the disabled puppeteer video.
how did you embed the playlist? I haven't been able to embed playlists since youtube changed their embed codes

Cool. I just wanted to make sure there weren't any brilliant ones languishing out there in "no self linking land." : p

Thanks for going through my surplus of a pq by the way!

In reply to this comment by AdrianBlack:
No, I do not do any animation, but I absolutely adore them.
I dabble a bit in some artistic pursuits, but nothing as wonderful as the sifts I find to post.

Yes! I really liked El Empleo as well! I felt bad for him when he laid down to be a doormat, though, lol.

In reply to this comment by MrConrads:
My pleasure! All that animation begs the question though, do you do any yourself?
By the way I absolutely loved El Empleo!

In reply to this comment by AdrianBlack:
Aw, going though my pq toybox again I see, thank you Mr. Conrads!

Corporate media talking heads.. they all regurgitate the same message with nearly the same words. Try doing that yourself elsewhere and you'll probably be charged with plagiarism.

No, I do not do any animation, but I absolutely adore them.
I dabble a bit in some artistic pursuits, but nothing as wonderful as the sifts I find to post.

Yes! I really liked El Empleo as well! I felt bad for him when he laid down to be a doormat, though, lol.

In reply to this comment by MrConrads:
My pleasure! All that animation begs the question though, do you do any yourself?
By the way I absolutely loved El Empleo!

In reply to this comment by AdrianBlack:
Aw, going though my pq toybox again I see, thank you Mr. Conrads!

My pleasure! All that animation begs the question though, do you do any yourself?
By the way I absolutely loved El Empleo!

In reply to this comment by AdrianBlack:
Aw, going though my pq toybox again I see, thank you Mr. Conrads!

Well no worries, someone will in a moment. Actually, can't you do this yourself anyway?

In answer to the post title, I'm going to say: most of the time, yes. You have to be an asshole to make something great. Or do something great.

The two main exceptions are: when everyone involved in a collaborative is fully motivated towards the goal of making something great; or when you're doing something yourself and have the resources and talent and dedication to make something great without the potential for others to fuck it up, which frees you from the obligation to be an over-assertive "asshole" in order to maintain the vision. The first case is exceptionally rare, which is why most movies, games, corporate marketing, and other large-scale creative collaborations are garbage. The second case of doing something great on your own is less rare, but sustained individual creative effort requires focus, and despite not actually being an asshole, the required level of focus can often appear to other people as assholeishness.

[too much detail here]... the bottom line: people will eat up as much of your time, energy, and psychic space as you'll give them with your bullshit. Much of what people call assholeish behaviour is simply a person choosing to focus on their goals rather than waste time on anything or anyone who doesn't serve those goals. Personally I wish I'd been a bigger asshole for the past 10 years.