On 2008-Dec-22, at 01:02, Lawrence Sica wrote: > Isn't hindsight grand? How can you know what you will do will make it > worse unless you try? Unless of course it is monumentally stupid.
I don't remember now if it was Jared who said, regarding Iraq, that the problems were foreseeable and reasonably guessable before the invasion. I seem to remember he said it in reply to Chuck who thought, well, we didn't know until we tried. (Sorry y'all if I got the names wrong). It isn't about hindsight. It is about not assuming you know how to, and are capable of, making massive changes for the better, no matter how well intended or how much you feel for the cause. It is never never never OK for someone to defend themselves from criticism just because they feel in their heart of hearts that they "meant well", or that they "had to try". Reason I've got a bee in my bonnet about this is, the other evening some guys in the street were looking to sign me up to a charity. Fine, the charity was for helping people with drug addition, so I was likely to sign. The guy giving the pitch was very passionate about how many people they actively help, 25 000 a year, and that they really get in there and help these guys out, they spend lots of time with people, they do it long term. They had glossy leaflets and stuff and pictures and everything. "Cool. So after two years, how many are still off the drugs?", I ask. The guy explains that because people move, they can't keep track. I'm like, OK, well of the ones that don't move, how many of those are off the drugs? He reiterates that people move so blah blah. Eventually one of his colleagues, a girl who can listen, comes over and gets the question and she's trying to explain the question to him. He finally gets the question, and says he doesn't know. They both don't know. She goes off to call her manager on the phone, and meanwhile he reassures me the manager is a really great guy, really great--a veggie and everything. Meanwhile the guy starts his pitch again from the top, running through how many people they help and cure every year. He uses the word "cure". Later, the girl comes back off the phone and says the manager doesn't know, and actually nobody at the charity knows. I say, well, it would be a really great statistic to have in your leaflets, even if it is only 10%, that would still be awesome. Even 5% would be significant, all those people actually helped to stay off drugs long term, long enough that it may actually stick. The reason I asked a question this time, and not in the previous 4 charities I did sign up to, was that I'd heard of what went on at another charity. This other charity worked to help people who were getting into trouble with the law due to violent behavior, and they would reassure the judge that it was not necessary to send the person to jail, rather, the charity had an intensive programme set up that would really handle the case and really help them behave properly. So the judge agrees, and hands the case to the charity. Three months later somebody asks whatever happened about that case about that violent guy who was harassing people in the community. "Oh, the guy made sexual advances towards our case worker so we had to disengage from him." I won't mention the charities by name, but if you live in the UK you'll likely have heard of them. So to reiterate, wanting to help and believing that you help is not the same as actually helping, methinks. Wouldn't it have been nice if Bush had actually been trying to find real evidence of whether what they were trying to do in Iraq was working? Stefano _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
