Well, I didn't mean it was literally a mental disease, that part was more tongue in cheek. But that's pretty funny. I am, at best, a very amateur psychologist.
You're right about credentials though for sure, but how do you judge an intricate argument on its merits when you just don't know much about the topic? For instance, read some of the articles for and against anthropogenic global warming written by scientists. I can find very convincing arguments on either side, full of lots of facts I probably can't easily verify and lots of conclusions drawn from them that I can't easily validate are sound logic, because I know so little about climate science.
Without me spending years rapidly converting my intelligence into domain specific knowledge, as the people making those arguments have done, how do I know which side to believe when I step into the voting booth? It's an epistemology problem, and a tough one.
I think it's safe to say that people posting here have the assumption that they're talking to a bunch hackers giving their opinion, and not getting legal council.
The enforcement of pseudo political correctness by having to post IANAL at the front of every opinion that may have even remotely looked like legal advice is part of what degraded the quality of Slashdot's comments way back when, if you ask me. Of course you're not a lawyer, this is not a legal community.
Why ask a legal question to a bunch of non-lawyers? What good could come of that? There are only two possible responses
Because chances are, some people here might have actually paid $200 an hour and talked to a lawyer about this subject. I can't afford that on a regular basis for one off questions.
I've read a number of posts asking for legal advice here, and a number of those posts contain the answer, "Here's my opinion, but you _really_ need a lawyer, dude."
I'm sure with your background in the gambling world, you've had some exposure to those laws. I took what you said at face value and with a big pinch of salt. Should my site ever create a sweepstakes, I'll certainly be more cautious as a result of what you said, and I probably will pony up the Benjamins and talk to a lawyer about it.
You also have a good point in that anyone who makes legal decisions about things pertaining to their business because of what they read in an online forum has problems.
3. You have an idea of the ballpark you're playing in instead of being entirely clueless. You have somewhat of a clue to talk about the next time you see your lawyer.
"Why ask a legal question to a bunch of non-lawyers?"
If you ask the question here, and it's about startup law, you can get great responses from people who say, "Our startup ran into the exact same issue and our $500/hr lawyer told us the following information". Gather enough responses like there and you have:
1) Maybe enough information to keep you from needing to talk to your lawyer at all or
2) A good foundation of information that results in you needing less of your (really expensive) lawyer's time.
Of course, if you're smart, you'll throw out any response that doesn't begin with some explanation as to why the commenter knows wtf they are talking about.
It can be harmful to Google for medical information about a condition you have if it leads to improper self-medication. It has also helped people save or improve their lives because they knew the right questions to ask or areas to explore.
That's an excellent example of a false dichotomy (or the N==2 case of the Fallacy of Exhaustive Hypotheses). I offer a third hypothesis as an existence-proof of said fallaciousness: another possible good that can come from it is that a set of people who care about the topic might have an interaction that they enjoy. Other possible examples of good are left as an exercise to the reader.
My feeling is that people are trying to find other people with similar experiences. They want to know some things before they actually go and talk to a lawyer, so that they are more informed than someone who just walks in off the street.
When I read PG's comment, I thought his comment about psychologists was about your assumptions of other people's thoughts, not the throwaway line about disease.
I stopped reading your post when I felt your arguments were depending on a piling up of assumptions on other people's mental state - their motivations, comprehension and intentions.
No. It without a doubt precludes me from ever being 100% certain I'm voting the right way. But I feel comfortable voting because I think I'm more frequently correct than the average voter.
On the other hand, 80% of men think they're an above average driver.
Most interestingly, the study points out that people who are truly way above average underrate themselves, illustrating the old adage that the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.
You make an interesting point, those who achieve well are often self-deprecating.
When I began I thought I was great at golf, it helped that I was actually making near 300 yards with a driver. However I quickly learnt that I nearly always slice the ball, and when I don't I can break 300 yards.
A similar thing happened with my writing, once I broke a certain point and I suddenly realized I'd just climbed a molehill and noticed the mountain. It's incredible how a small amount of knowledge will make you feel smart, but a moderate amount of knowledge will make you feel stupid, and a considerable amount of knowledge will make you feel just plain ignorant.
Some of it's the regression effect, where the extreme results really are flukes -- and the achievers are aware of it -- while average results are more likely to be statistically representative. Of course, "aware of it" is key, which is why the results sometimes diverge at the other end of the scale.
As most people will not read that PDF, I think it is important to make one thing clear about your last sentence: although people in the top quarter underestimate themselves, they still estimate themselves to be in the top quarter and they also estimate themselves to be better than those in other quarters.
True, but the top quartile only estimated themselves 6 points higher than the bottom quartile estimated themselves. The top quartile is the only group to actually underestimate their abilities, and do so by over 10 points.
Ironically, the third quartile is the most accurate at estimating their own abilities, being almost spot on. The people in the other three quartiles generally also believe they are in the third.
To quote liberally from the paper to save everyone reading the whole thing:
"As Figure 2 (page 5 of the pdf) clearly illustrates, it was participants in the bottom quartile [...] who overestimated their logical reasoning ability and test performance to the greatest extent. Although these individuals scored at the 12th percentile on average, they nevertheless believed that their general logical reasoning ability fell at the 68th percentile and their score on the test fell at the 62nd percentile. Their estimates not only exceeded their actual percentile scores, [...] but exceeded the 50th percentile as well. [...] Thus, participants in the bottom quartile not only overestimated themselves but believed that they were above average. [...] Other participants were less miscalibrated. However, as Figure 2 shows, those in the top quartile once again tended to underestimate their ability. Whereas their test performance put them in the 86th percentile, they estimated it to be at the 68th percentile and estimated their general logical reasoning ability to fall at only the 74th percentile"
Yes, but atop quarter members that estimate themselves to be in the top quarter don't necessarily estimate themselves to be better than non top quarter members that estimate themselves to be in the top quarter. The 'better' is 'within the top quarter'.
But that is totally contrary to the blog post you just made :P I was trying to point out the extreme fallacy in your argument.
At the end of the day you suggested that postulating an opinion on a subject should be left to the experts.
I think were looking at things the wrong way: people should be free to express themselves and their thoughts how they wish. It's up to each of us to decide who is "right" and who we wish to listen to.
I think basically I approach this the opposite way from yourself :)
You're right about credentials though for sure, but how do you judge an intricate argument on its merits when you just don't know much about the topic? For instance, read some of the articles for and against anthropogenic global warming written by scientists. I can find very convincing arguments on either side, full of lots of facts I probably can't easily verify and lots of conclusions drawn from them that I can't easily validate are sound logic, because I know so little about climate science.
Without me spending years rapidly converting my intelligence into domain specific knowledge, as the people making those arguments have done, how do I know which side to believe when I step into the voting booth? It's an epistemology problem, and a tough one.