Tag: question

Now You Fool Me

Now You Fool Me

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

Whoever said that, must’ve really known conmen.

Political parties disagree with the opposition, and vice versa. They even react to current events, whether domestic or foreign. But ever noticed a politician publicly disagree with another voice on the same team?

The only other place you’d probably see that, is in the army, where you’re trained never to question authority. But that isn’t the case, nor should it be so in politics. Politics is where stupid ideas must be refined in a fire of counterarguments, before anyone dares make them anything more.

But that isn’t the case in reality, the world over. And that should tell you all you need to know about the herd and the lack of individual reasoning. Something that should be of great concern to progressive countries.

In the Godfather, Michael Corleone advises his brother, ‘don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family.’

But, should it apply to people who are part of the machinery that directly or indirectly runs a country? The interest of the masses, at least in theory, should be first priority. And yet we almost never hear an independent thinker strongly and publicly disagree with a brash party strategy or decision.

Even when a politician is found guilty of a wrongdoing, the almost uniform, cinematic, tailored reactions of fellow-party members, dialogues included, reflects suspicion far more than it does unity.

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Question the Question

Here’s a thought.. And I welcome your thoughts in return..

Back when I was in the ninth standard/grade in school, while I wasn’t too bright in studies. With the exception of Math and Physics. In those two, I was competing for between the 6th and 9th position in class. They weren’t subjects I had to study or know. It just somehow came logically.

Feeling comfortably confident while preparing for a Physics exam, I got thinking about the kind of questions I would have asked, had I got a chance to set the paper. I did manage to frame quite a few interesting and not-so-direct questions. I was glad that I also managed to answer my tricky questions.

Then something struck.

It dawned on me that it isn’t very easy to frame intelligent questions. And that I wouldn’t have been able to do so had I not known the subject well. Considering I hadn’t had similar luck with a lot of other subjects at the time or even later.

Voltaire knew what he was saying when he urged us all to “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

image: wizrocklopedia

The way I see it, all of us are trying to be experts at one or more things. Which is a good thing. But we aren’t experts when we think we know the answers. We become experts whenever we frame the right questions. It is because questions set us on the right course. Answers, on the other hand are abundant and commonplace. Most importantly, answers frequently change too. Hence the importance on questions.

Don’t believe me, ask someone for their views on a topic or question close to your heart. With the limited information you give them, you’d be amazed at all the confident advice you receive. But if they’re not initially replying to your question with some intelligent questions of their own, you can safely assume one of two things: either they’re experts and have done some thinking around that space recently; or they haven’t a clue.

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by Shrutin Shetty
Posted on September 24, 2013March 29, 2018
2 Comments on Question the Question

Captcha This

Know how you have to type those alphanumeric characters online to prevent spam?

Now those measures seem to be getting scarier by the day.

It started with a string of arbit letters, graduated to CAPTCHAs, deformed sets of characters that you’d have to really strain your eyes or make a face, to be able to read; and went on to three characters which sway about (that’s my favourite one by the way). Then came image identification. And there are also those simple math questions, say a “1+2=?” and so on.
But now, those q’s seem to have gotten tougher. I was faced with a “7*9=?” yesterday. Sure took me a while and a few fingers on that one.

It was fine till the simple additions, and might still be ok as long as you got enough fingers to calculate on.
But as hackers and spamming gets a step further, I shiver to think of the kind of questions we’d be faced with in the years to come, just to prove we’re “still” human.
Imagine having to solve a complex mathematical derivative problem to create an email account. Or worse still, having to read a 10 line story and answer questions on it; a “How could Priscilla have handled the situation differently?”