Do you avoid obsessions?

[thumbtack]

Well, I try. But six restraining orders later, I think there's still room for improvement.

 

[FordSVT]

The point in your post I think lies in the fact that unless you are accredited "something", no one will pay too much attention to what you say.

Whereas if you do have a PhD for example, you can say just about anything and be considered the greatest mind of today's generation despite the fact you reached a conclusion/theory on something based on personal observations and deductions (nothing that anyone else with a background in the subject matter - depending on what the subject is - wouldn't be able to accomplish).

At the very least, those kinds of people's voices are acknowledged most of the time, which is sad because you have a ton of people without university degrees that would reach the same (if not a better) conclusion.

Well, speaking as someone who has a PhD, I have to say: what you've written here does not accord with my own experience.

In fact, in my experience, the exact opposite is true. Anti-intellectualism in our society is both deep and pervasive. Far from considering me one of the greatest minds of today's generation, I find that people regularly disparage my credentials, and dismiss my accomplishments as something trivial. Your post is a mild example of this.

If you really think that 'anyone else' could do what I do, then in my considered opinion, you're kidding yourself. If anyone could do what I do, they'd be doing it: the salary, benefits, and working conditions are all terrific. You'd have to be nuts to turn down a job as a university professor.

I for one don't kid myself that I can do the things that other people do. In fact, I would probably fail miserably at most other careers. My younger brother, for example, is a cop: I don't even have the physical fitness to do his job, let alone the toughness and practical judgment. And when it comes to questions of law enforcement I always try to give his opinion the weight it deserves--that is to say, far more weight than my own.

What is more: far from just accepting anything I say about anything, I have found that people are more than willing to contradict me, even on topics that lie within my field of expertise; even when it's clear that they have no special knowledge in this field; and even when they're plainly wrong.

I could provide numerous examples of this tendency from this very website. Just recently, I tried to explain some very basic ethical theory to another poster--something you could get out of any first-year textbook on the subject. His response? "That's just sophistry."

I once explained a famous and widely-debated philosophical argument to another poster, who simply waved his hand and dismissed it as "gibberish and horseshit."

And don't get me started on people's willingness to sneer at my expertise in my primary field, which is history. I once suggested that the Carter administration has been unfairly blamed for "hollowing-out" the USA's military. My opponent accused me of just parroting some talking points I had heard on AM radio.

I haven't listened to AM radio for decades, and I was so affronted by this that I marched down the hall to the library, checked out the best books I could find on the subject, and wrote a lengthy, detailed rebuttal, with notes and sources. My opponent did not even deign to reply.

As a consequence, I really have to wonder how you formed the opinions you presented in your post. They don't sound very well-informed to me.

Words cannot properly express how much I agree with you.

I'm rather certain that about 75% of the population is full-blown retarded or just doesn't care about things like logic, learning and curiousity.

I have an MSc., but I do not claim to be an expert on all things. However, when it comes to electrical and even mechanical engineering topics (which cover everything up to and including this recent oil spill and topics like renewable energy), I like to think I know what Im talking about. My thesis in university was a study on the application of micro-hydroelectric generation in 2nd and 3rd world economies. I have been told to "STFU" by annonymous idiots so many times in the past couple of months.... someone actually told me, "Who cares if you have a degree and work in the oil refining industry, BP engineers don't know wtf they're talking about either".

It would be nice if, for one day, all the things in life that engineers and "experts" have invented and kept going would suddenly just not work for anyone.

 

[FordSVT]

The point in your post I think lies in the fact that unless you are accredited "something", no one will pay too much attention to what you say.

Whereas if you do have a PhD for example, you can say just about anything and be considered the greatest mind of today's generation despite the fact you reached a conclusion/theory on something based on personal observations and deductions (nothing that anyone else with a background in the subject matter - depending on what the subject is - wouldn't be able to accomplish).

At the very least, those kinds of people's voices are acknowledged most of the time, which is sad because you have a ton of people without university degrees that would reach the same (if not a better) conclusion.

Well, speaking as someone who has a PhD, I have to say: what you've written here does not accord with my own experience.

In fact, in my experience, the exact opposite is true. Anti-intellectualism in our society is both deep and pervasive. Far from considering me one of the greatest minds of today's generation, I find that people regularly disparage my credentials, and dismiss my accomplishments as something trivial. Your post is a mild example of this.

If you really think that 'anyone else' could do what I do, then in my considered opinion, you're kidding yourself. If anyone could do what I do, they'd be doing it: the salary, benefits, and working conditions are all terrific. You'd have to be nuts to turn down a job as a university professor.

I for one don't kid myself that I can do the things that other people do. In fact, I would probably fail miserably at most other careers. My younger brother, for example, is a cop: I don't even have the physical fitness to do his job, let alone the toughness and practical judgment. And when it comes to questions of law enforcement I always try to give his opinion the weight it deserves--that is to say, far more weight than my own.

What is more: far from just accepting anything I say about anything, I have found that people are more than willing to contradict me, even on topics that lie within my field of expertise; even when it's clear that they have no special knowledge in this field; and even when they're plainly wrong.

I could provide numerous examples of this tendency from this very website. Just recently, I tried to explain some very basic ethical theory to another poster--something you could get out of any first-year textbook on the subject. His response? "That's just sophistry."

I once explained a famous and widely-debated philosophical argument to another poster, who simply waved his hand and dismissed it as "gibberish and horseshit."

And don't get me started on people's willingness to sneer at my expertise in my primary field, which is history. I once suggested that the Carter administration has been unfairly blamed for "hollowing-out" the USA's military. My opponent accused me of just parroting some talking points I had heard on AM radio.

I haven't listened to AM radio for decades, and I was so affronted by this that I marched down the hall to the library, checked out the best books I could find on the subject, and wrote a lengthy, detailed rebuttal, with notes and sources. My opponent did not even deign to reply.

As a consequence, I really have to wonder how you formed the opinions you presented in your post. They don't sound very well-informed to me.

Words cannot properly express how much I agree with you.

I'm rather certain that about 75% of the population is full-blown retarded or just doesn't care about things like logic, learning and curiousity.

I have an MSc., but I do not claim to be an expert on all things. However, when it comes to electrical and even mechanical engineering topics (which cover everything up to and including this recent oil spill and topics like renewable energy), I like to think I know what Im talking about. My thesis in university was a study on the application of micro-hydroelectric generation in 2nd and 3rd world economies. I have been told to "STFU" by annonymous idiots so many times in the past couple of months.... someone actually told me, "Who cares if you have a degree and work in the oil refining industry, BP engineers don't know wtf they're talking about either".

It would be nice if, for one day, all the things in life that engineers and "experts" have invented and kept going would suddenly just not work for anyone.

 

[SeerSGB]

I can control things like comic-books or DVDs or going to the movies; those cost money, and at my heart I'm cheap. But shooting pictures- especially since I shoot 99% on digital, which is free, doing research on various topics online, writing, or people watching, I've got a full blow addiction. People watching especially cause I take what I observe and turn it into characters or stories for my writing. I had a friend once joke that I always looked like I was on safari, observing animals in the wild.

Math is another big one: Everything has to boil down to numbers for me. I have calculate everything and analyze it and assign it a value. I have to make a effort (a really hard effort) to not let it affect my day to day life sometimes; seeing as the more stressed I get the more I obsess about 'making it add up'.

I have to have a project or a collection going, all the time. If I don't I get into "funks". A former Gen. Practitioner once wondered if I might have some mild form of OCD or the tendencies, cause I obsess on a project to the smallest damn detail and get nervous and all kinds of out of sorts if it isn't the way it should be, or the math doesn't work out, or a piece goes missing.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

My obsessions are often hobbies that are self-destructive or useless but I cannot let go of.

I envy drugs addicts and alcoholics. Their addictions are more socially acceptable than anything, well, geeky.