The Known versus the Unknown

In a previous thread, I stated something along the lines of.
Democrats-Homosexuality
Republicans-Heterosexuality

Lemur replied along the lines of
Republicans-Hypocritical, self-hating
Democrats-No position

Then I wondered.
Which candidate would you chose
One that told you exactly what he thought... or one that doesn't have a position on the subject?

I thought the idea of voting for someone who had no thoughts on something I valued as a terrible idea. I'd rather hear him say what he thought than to 'vote blind'.
Then I remembered someone who rathered that the politicians not say how they felt so they could be influenced or see both sides of the issue.
The problem with that, is what if the candidate becomes very radical on the idea, or decides that he didn't like the idea either, and votes against it.
What are your thoughts?

I thought this was going to be about outer space. This sucks.

democrats - the party of no ideas
republicans - the party of bad ideas


what game are we playing again?

I didn't vote for my preferred party because they had no thoughts on subjects just objections right up to the leadership.

Leaders need to show ideas and a stance to lead. Otherwise I won't vote for them even if their party has the general ethos I agree with.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Leaders need to show ideas and a stance to lead. Otherwise I won't vote for them even if their party has the general ethos I agree with.

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The problem the leaders have is that the moment they take a stance to lead they have roughly half the electorate disagreeing with them... :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Scurvy

The problem the leaders have is that the moment they take a stance to lead they have roughly half the electorate disagreeing with them... :2thumbsup:

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That's only a problem if you imagine, as I fear they do, that the job of being a politician is a bit like being a C list celebrity, a content free zone where success is credibility, and credibility is success. (Woot. I bet no one has ever used a Transvision Vamp lyric in a serious post on the org before)

If they actually tried advocating a position they belived in, with reasons as to why it was a good idea, communicated in a way that many of the electorate, yes, even the stupid ones, could understand even if they did not eventually agree with it (in other words, if they actually tried being politicians) I think they might be pleasantly surprised.

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Originally Posted by Ronin

democrats - the party of no ideas
republicans - the party of bad ideas

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:laugh4:

I thought this thread would be about philosophy...

Well, in my country, the leaders of the respective parties make lots of promises and once elected they often do the opposite.

For example: we will lower the taxes. Vote for us and you will pay less taxes.

Two years later you have to pay taxes for the first time under the regulations made by the new government and...

GAH !! Politicians... ~:angry:

The only appropriate titles for a thread about politcics are: "Nonsense" or "Politics: the art of absurdism" or ...

Pssst Andres, wanna know a secret.....?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

They do that in EVERY country, not just yours :laugh4:

Ah, the known and the unknown, summed up perfectly of course by the great Metaphysical poet, D. Rumsfeld,

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

:dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by Red Peasant

Ah, the known and the unknown, summed up perfectly of course by the great Metaphysical poet, D. Rumsfeld,

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

:dizzy2:

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I love it when people cite their ignorance by quoting this statement by the former secretary. Clearly they're unfamiliar with the rather sound quadratic problem solving method he's alluding to.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then at least you have the consolidation that to you it's a known unknown. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

I love it when people cite their ignorance by quoting this statement by the former secretary.

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Rummy said it on record, so it's perfectly fair game for someone to cite it. Although it's far from the strangest thing that came out of that man's mouth. (Lemur prefers Rummy's solo question-and-answer monologues.)

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

Clearly they're unfamiliar with the rather sound quadratic problem solving method he's alluding to.

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Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not clear on how a discussion of sets and sub-sets corresponds with a polynomial equation. Just for giggles, I checked 101 uses of a quadratic equation, and didn't find any situations that corresponded with known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Obviously, I'm missing the connection. Could you enlighten your less mathematically gifted Orgahs with an explanation?

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

I love it when people cite their ignorance by quoting this statement by the former secretary. Clearly they're unfamiliar with the rather sound quadratic problem solving method he's alluding to.

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Relax. While we acknowledge that what Rummy said actually makes sense, his wording of it made the whole thing funny.

Much like:

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

- Bilbo Baggins

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then at least you have the consolidation that to you it's a known unknown. :rolleyes:

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I believe the word you were looking for was consolation.

Sorry. I wouldn't normally point out another person's poor use of the English language. But when the individual in question has just finished calling another person ignorant and then followed it up with the classic "~:rolleyes: ," it's just too much for me to resist...

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Originally Posted by Goofball

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then at least you have the consolidation that to you it's a known unknown.

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I believe the word you were looking for was consolation.

Sorry. I wouldn't normally point out another person's poor use of the English language. But when the individual in question has just finished calling another person ignorant and then followed it up with the classic "~:rolleyes: ," it's just too much for me to resist...

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:beam:

If one thinks about it, Vlad came up with an almost perfect Bushism. The president would be proud. :2thumbsup:

BG frantically checks his own spelling a million times. :embarassed:

I suggest that you acquire a SOH, Vlad. ~;)

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not clear on how a discussion of sets and sub-sets corresponds with a polynomial equation.

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ax^2 +bx +c is the set of all second degree polynomials.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Just for giggles, I checked 101 uses of a quadratic equation, and didn't find any situations that corresponded with known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Obviously, I'm missing the connection. Could you enlighten your less mathematically gifted Orgahs with an explanation?

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Simple. To solve a quadratic you have to have more knowns then unknowns otherwise it is undertermined system and unresolvable.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

To solve a quadratic you have to have more knowns then unknowns otherwise it is undertermined system and unresolvable.

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Hmm, that hardly seems limited to polynomial equations. Thanks for answering, by the way. I ended my ignomious studies in math somewhere around trig, algreba and statistical math. Not a gret showing, I know.

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Simple. To solve a quadratic you have to have more knowns then unknowns otherwise it is undertermined system and unresolvable.

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Which is funny since Rummys known knowns were in fact mainly bull excrement his known unknows he knew were bull excrement and his unknown unknowns didn't really exist and he knew it .
So no surprise really that they got the equation so wrong and turned it into a pretty unresolvable problem .

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Hmm, that hardly seems limited to polynomial equations. Thanks for answering, by the way. I ended my ignomious studies in math somewhere around trig, algreba and statistical math. Not a gret showing, I know.

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I think you can get by with equal numbers of knowns to unknowns... but essentially it isn't limited to polynomial equations. And with most physics problems you list what you know, what you want to know (known unknown I suppose) and then figure out the gaps in your knowledge and how to get there.

What Rummy said was quite valid, just in a way that wasn't elegant. That lack of elegance caused people to reject it... which is another rule of thumb used in physics, given two solutions to a problem and not being sure which is the more valid choose the elegant one.