A General Lack of Rationality

[aggienaut]

   My UN summer session class teacher is crazy. Two good examples:

(1) She was talking about how the United States oppresses the rest of the world by "buying" their votes in the GA... basically giving them aid in return for voting in favour of US policies. By doing this, according to her, we are oppressing them and not allowing their voice to be heard.
   BUT, they are voluntarily making the decision to accept US aid rather than vote against US interests, so therefore they must believe the aid we are giving them is more important than voting as they otherwise would have done, therefore they are by definition better off than if they didn't have the option! But no apparently our tempting money oppresses them.

(2) She insists that the ICJ is dominated by "the north" because nine of fifteen justices are from "the north." What is "the north" you ask? My friend Chonchol asked why she'd counted [People's Republic of] China in the north, "its in the northern hemisphere," "well why did you count Sierra Leone in the south, its above the equator" "its economically in the south. You're so literal Chonchol."
   The official website of the ICJ describes the membership breakdown: "Today this distribution is as follows: Africa 3, Latin America 2, Asia 3, Western Europe and other States 5, Eastern Europe 2, which corresponds to that of membership of the Security Council." Basically, if there are more justices from "the North," its by virtue of the fact that three of the five represented continents are in "the North."
   It would be one level of crap if she made the proposition that "the North" controls the ICJ and then backed down from it when presented with the evidence of us three well informed students who argued the point with her, but she WOULD NOT BACK DOWN from her proposition that the man oppresses the world through the ICJ because "the North" is overrepresented, making this whole thing a whole new level of crap.

   And those are only two examples. Basically nearly everything she presents is similarly twisted.


   Midterm today and tomorrow. So far I'm half-way through both my classes and have 100.00% of the points possible. Yes I'm awesome!


And Now For Something Completely Different

   Shoes, Petey, Shalane, and I, from the same day the pictures of Petey playing the guitar were taken.


Related
   Year Ago Today: Getting Screwed by the Man IV

Comments

[mister-spooky.livejournal.com]

eee!!!!!! so cute.

<333

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[emosnail.livejournal.com]

I dunno if I'd really describe the complete absense of rationality as cute.. (=

[mister-spooky.livejournal.com]

not that, silly, the shoe picture. i heart it.

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8472

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Yeah I guess it is, what with the in-n-out sticker on her boyfriend's shoe and all.

[clumsy.livejournal.com]

hey those red slippers! my cousin has the zact same ones in purple!

red slippers

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think I've actually seen a few people wearing them.

[my-little-pearl.livejournal.com]

isnt it annoying when people get proved wrong yet.. wont admit they are wrong? i guess you just cant.. change someones mentality. some see it as strong willed.. but it may be a weakness.. "a closed mind, will leave you empty, use your mind to use your soul"

open minds

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The main way I avoid ever "losing" an argument is by (A) not arguing things I'm not sure of and (B) if I do in fact find that I may be wrong I concede the point before it becomes an issue. One only looks like an idiot really if they refuse to see that they've lost the argument.

Re: open minds

[my-little-pearl.livejournal.com]

i know what you mean. i usually say.. well.. from what ive read..or from what ive researched, ive found that.. and then i later say: well, i havent fully researched that aspect of it. or.. ill have to look that up later =) it shows them that i actually look up what im talking about. its intimidating.

Re: open minds

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

also I think it helps that my opinions usually ARE more right. hehehehehehehe.

But really, also I think usually on any kind of contentious issue I try to look at it from the other perspective as well, because I have to satisfy MYSELF that my finding is more teniable, and that helps me anticipate critiques of it and better answer them; I've found that a lot of people seem to have not contemplated the opposing arguments at all, so when they're presented with them in argument they just improvise wildly and stupidly.