On Dec 23, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Stefano Mori wrote: > > 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.
There is a trap here. The greatest benefits to humanity has often come from the belief you can know how to and make massive changes for the better. You can't simply shrug off this aspect. I think most of the Iraq problems were foreseeable, maybe not all but most were. I think a lot of what has happened in Iraq was monumentally stupid btw. But I am not going to fault someone for wanting to try and make it better. > > > 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". Well it is partly. Intentions are important but not the sole factor here. When someone is trying to help you can fault the execution but not the intention even if it was misplaced. > > > 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? Yes, but you cannot fault someone for trying or wanting to help. What you can fault them for is if they did it in a monumentally stupid way. --Larry _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
