Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] the poetry of donald rumsfeld

[Pierce T . Wetter III]

> > * IMHO, we haven't had a Secretary of Defense since 9/11
> Speaking about 9/11, I find the whole thing a good illustration of
>
>   1. something happens
>   2. some people interpret (i.e. abstract, transform) what they
>      "observed", facts related to what happened, and produce a theory
>   3. other people mix there own "observations" with what people in 2
>      said about what happened and arrange bits of the whole thing to
>      produce a "plausible" theory
>   4. the rest of us makes no direct observation but we build our own
>      theory based on what we hear and we happily ignore/hide any
>      contradiction or suspicious deduction
>   5. one of the theory emerging at 4 becomes the official explanation
>      of 1 and it also becomes the truth (since one could see it on
>      every TV channel and in every newspaper).
>
> As an illustration, here is an alternate theory about 9/11 that does  
> not look less plausible than the official theory  
> "http://newsmine.org/archive/9-11/questions/ghost-riders-in-the- 
> sky.txt". Let us guess why it did not become officially recognized as  
> the truth.

  Actually its a lot less plausible then the current explanation. I  
won't bother giving details since the document is typical of the  
tinfoil hat brigade type of conspiracy theories, but if you make a list  
of assumptions that have to be true, you'll find that this document has  
a much longer list of much more implausible
assumptions. It also ignores the fact that the US showed a video tape  
of Usama discussing and taking credit for the attack...

  Also note that its been through 5 revisions already, some of which  
were complete rewrites. This sort of crackpotism is always like that,  
you smack down one theory and they come up with a completely different  
one...

> Not that I say that it contains more truth than the official version,  
> but rather that to promote peace, responsible behavior or whatever in  
> this direction, one should start by thinking a lot about the "truth"  
> on an event before jumping to conclusions and reacting.

 Reality and perception are a difficult thing, yes, see the last 4000  
years of philosophy. However the post-modernist credo that "everything  
is true to some extent" is not a useful strategy for conducting your  
life. If everyone could make decisions based on perfect information,  
the world would be better yes. When does that happen? Not "deciding  
until all the facts are in" is making a decision...

 For instance, it takes 150 years to truly understand a war. On that  
note, I reccommend McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom" to those trying  
to understand the Civil War...

 Meanwhile, I'm glad slavery's over...and I'm glad the North one the  
war...though after reading McPherson's book, I now can understand and  
appreciate the South's point of view...

Pierce