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| Posted By : crystalwizard - 5/9/2008 9:19 AM | Here's a little experiment for you to try.
Pick a topic. Any topic. It doesn't have to be a topic you know anything about either. In fact, you can make it up if you want.
Now, create a list of 'facts' about the topic. If you are making something up, then make up the facts. If you are picking a known topic, find some facts and then make up some others that fit in with the ones you found.
Now start telling these facts about the topic to people. Tell your family, friends, co-workers. Make sure you state them with the right tone of voice. Conviction is critical. Your listeners must believe by your body language and tone of voice that you KNOW what you are talking about. This will make them believe you. Next, start posting on the internet in public places. Write detailed essays, post on public forums and make sure you aren't belligerent but simply 'informative'. Maintain that strong conviction no matter what.
Eventually, if you talk long enough, and loud enough, to enough people you will find people quoting your facts (including the ones you made up) and citing YOU as the authority. They'll be serious too. The reason for this? Most people don't check every fact they are told. They simply believe them if the speaker has what appears to be sincere conviction. And those that DO check... if they can find a few of the things you said in some text book or supported by some other 'authority', will assume that everything else you said is gospel too. And they'll repeat what they heard you say with the same sincere conviction, convincing other people of the same misinformation.
(think about that the next time YOU go to quote some 'authority') |
| Posted By : Hermit - 5/9/2008 10:22 AM | Oh. Wow. So when my college profs kept insisting on five main sources they weren't just making me do busywork?
I'd take your word for it, CW, but I'll have to find more evidence . . .  Unless, of course, my own personal observation and experience count as evidence. Some people actually think I'm expert on wine . . . but I'm just a goofy poet hack from central Cornfield, USA.
Read me soon in The Return of the Sword!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
Buy wine: http://fringemonkey.org
Poetry Blog: http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com |
| Posted By : RHFay - 5/9/2008 10:38 AM | Well, I'm an expert on everything, don't ya know. 
Seriously, back in my science days it was important to use primary sources, sources that actually did the experimentation or made the observations first-hand. That meant digging through science journals for your sources, no using "popular" science magazines.
There were reasons for this. Knowing a bit about history, I have been able to catch factual errors in tiny details in some history magazines. It happens, and can happen more frequently the further from the source you go.
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
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| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 5/9/2008 7:40 PM | | One of my interests is the history of military technology. I write books about it, so I have to do research. From which I have learned two things:
1. It simply isn't feasible to go back to the original source for every fact you include. Text sources will be scattered around the world, in many different languages. The equipment you will want to examine will also be widely scattered, if accessible at all. So while I do as much original research as I can, I also have to rely a lot on secondary sources (usually previously published books).
2. Once you become familiar with a subject, you realise that almost all books about it contain errors, as Richard says. What is amusing is tracking the errors back to source, because they often get repeated over and over by authors borrowing from each other. When I point out some of these errors in discussion forums, I am often told "But it has to be right; so many authors include it!" 
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| Posted By : Jaqhama - 5/10/2008 1:49 AM |
crystalwizard said...
Here's a little experiment for you to try.
Pick a topic. Any topic. It doesn't have to be a topic you know anything about either. In fact, you can make it up if you want.
Now, create a list of 'facts' about the topic. If you are making something up, then make up the facts. If you are picking a known topic, find some facts and then make up some others that fit in with the ones you found.
Now start telling these facts about the topic to people. Tell your family, friends, co-workers. Make sure you state them with the right tone of voice. Conviction is critical. Your listeners must believe by your body language and tone of voice that you KNOW what you are talking about. This will make them believe you. Next, start posting on the internet in public places. Write detailed essays, post on public forums and make sure you aren't belligerent but simply 'informative'. Maintain that strong conviction no matter what.
Eventually, if you talk long enough, and loud enough, to enough people you will find people quoting your facts (including the ones you made up) and citing YOU as the authority. They'll be serious too. The reason for this? Most people don't check every fact they are told. They simply believe them if the speaker has what appears to be sincere conviction. And those that DO check... if they can find a few of the things you said in some text book or supported by some other 'authority', will assume that everything else you said is gospel too. And they'll repeat what they heard you say with the same sincere conviction, convincing other people of the same misinformation.
(think about that the next time YOU go to quote some 'authority')
This process seems to work perfectly well for most politicians.
(You're not thinking of running for office are you CW?) 
You can read some of my stories here:
Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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| Posted By : crystalwizard - 5/10/2008 5:20 PM | Jaqhama said...
(You're not thinking of running for office are you CW?)
I'm going to have to hurt you for that insult!
How rotten do you think a hamburger would be by the time you received it if I mailed it to you from Texas? |
| Posted By : Rob Mancebo - 5/14/2008 1:56 AM |
Anthony G Williams said...
2. Once you become familiar with a subject, you realise that almost all books about it contain errors, as Richard says. What is amusing is tracking the errors back to source, because they often get repeated over and over by authors borrowing from each other. When I point out some of these errors in discussion forums, I am often told "But it has to be right; so many authors include it!" - Oh yes. Even well known, highly reguarded authors pass on mistakes. Sometimes even primary sources contain mistakes--people don't always understand what they see.
- This is why we can all have such wonderful, scholorly arguements . . . 
- We all have to be careful because common usage can change true meanings. I'd bet not one person in a thousand knows that what people call 'Celtic knotwork' isn't celtic at all. It's Irish Folk art which is actually inspired from the Norse. Or how many folks (sadly, even trained soldiers) think a 'clip' and a 'magazine' are the same thing?
- If only a few people know what a word really means, does it still mean the same thing? So, if so many authors mis-use or mis-interperate a point of history or a word, does the meaning actualyl change????
- A scary thought that ignorance is so powerful as to drag language and history down to the compatence of the lowest user. 
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| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 5/14/2008 3:04 AM |
- If only a few people know what a word really means, does it still mean the same thing? So, if so many authors mis-use or mis-interperate a point of history or a word, does the meaning actualyl change????
- A scary thought that ignorance is so powerful as to drag language and history down to the compatence of the lowest user. Oh yes, that happens a lot - especially in English, the most anarchic of languages (French has a committee to decide these things). Just consider the word "gay", for instance. It used to mean "light-hearted, frivolous"; then it became appropriated for "homosexual"; and now (amongst UK kids anyway) it has become derogatory expression detached from either meaning ("Ugh - that's really gay!").
There are of course some notable transatlantic divisions on meanings of words and phrases, too. I was at a conference in the UK at which a US speaker caused great confusion by referring to a "shop". Eventually someone twigged and said "Oh, you mean workshop!". In the UK, a "shop" is a small retail outlet, which is called a "store" in the USA, which in the UK means a place to keep things until they are needed...
I also rather like the phrase meaning that you really don't care about something, which is "I couldn't care less" in the UK and "I could care less" in the USA - which are logically completely opposite!
On the technical side I am intrigued that the West has always called Kalashikov's 7.62mm assault rifle the "AK-47". This is actually the designation of the pre-production gun, of which a few hundred were made for army testing between 1947 and 1949. Various changes were made before the gun was formerly adopted as the "AK" in 1949, and in modified form later as the "AKM". In fact, virtually every Kalashnikov in this calibre you're likely to find is an AKM, but the West calls 'em all "AK-47". Not a lot of people know that, even if they're interested in guns.
And of course there's the term "shrapnel", which refers to a specific form of artillery shell much used in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but has been adopted to refer to any shell or bomb fragments.
There are lots, lots more - and the process is constantly going on.
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| Posted By : Chaos, Perpetual - 5/14/2008 2:22 PM | Yes, the art of aspiring to become a master BS'er.
It's true what you say in the final paragraph of your post, though...much is often misrepresented in this insistent style of rhetoric.
-TBS |
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