Saturday, August 20, 2011
How to Kill Common Sense. One Easy Lesson.
Headline on AOL news:
"Dad, you're kind of freaking me out.
Moments before the deadly disaster at Indiana State Fair, a father spooked his 12-year-old daughter with a prediction.... Words that proved chillingly prophetic.
Not prophetic at all, let alone chillingly prophetic. Turns out the father made a perfectly commonsensical observation: the platform looked fragile and a big storm was coming. If you grow up in the Midwest, this is a common set of skills. You know something about structures and you can gauge a storm. You may not be able to predict the exact wind speed, but you know if this is a "bring an umbrella" storm or a "get the fuck inside and pray" storm. By all accounts this one was closer to the latter category.
But no. This was UNPRECEDENTED UNEXPECTED UNPRECEDENTED UNEXPECTED NOBODY COULD HAVE FORESEEN ON PENALTY OF DEATH!!!!!!
If anyone shows any signs of non-abstract knowledge, shows that he can use his own experience to predict a situation without relying abjectly on the Official Experts, he must be Mystical and maybe Just A Little Crazy.
¶ 4:37 PM
"Dad, you're kind of freaking me out.
Moments before the deadly disaster at Indiana State Fair, a father spooked his 12-year-old daughter with a prediction.... Words that proved chillingly prophetic.
Not prophetic at all, let alone chillingly prophetic. Turns out the father made a perfectly commonsensical observation: the platform looked fragile and a big storm was coming. If you grow up in the Midwest, this is a common set of skills. You know something about structures and you can gauge a storm. You may not be able to predict the exact wind speed, but you know if this is a "bring an umbrella" storm or a "get the fuck inside and pray" storm. By all accounts this one was closer to the latter category.
But no. This was UNPRECEDENTED UNEXPECTED UNPRECEDENTED UNEXPECTED NOBODY COULD HAVE FORESEEN ON PENALTY OF DEATH!!!!!!
If anyone shows any signs of non-abstract knowledge, shows that he can use his own experience to predict a situation without relying abjectly on the Official Experts, he must be Mystical and maybe Just A Little Crazy.
¶ 4:37 PM
