20.7.04
precognition
(courtesy: the volokh conspiracy, www.volokh.com)
A man who told his doctor that he drinks more than a six-pack of beer a day, had his license recalled, because the physicians reported him. A state law, dating back to the 1960s, REQUIRES doctors to report any physical or mental impairments in patients that could compromise their ability to drive safely, leading to an indefinite recall of the license until the driver can prove that he is competent enough to drive. Aside from a drunken-driving conviction when he was 21, this man said he has a clean driving record and doesn't drink and drive.
This sounds like the movie Minority Report.Because you like to have a few beers, even a few too many beers, you're considered guilty of driving drunk before the fact?!
Eugene Volokh says, "What troubles most people about the Minority Report situation, in which people are prosecuted for murder because precogs (people with special powers of precognition) say that they're going to commit murder, is that someone is prosecuted because of what they were supposedly going to do, not because of what they actually did. But I think we're quite right to prosecute someone for attempting to commit a crime, even if they don't take the final step.
If the police catch someone sitting at his window pointing a rifle at someone, with a finger on the trigger, and then an investigation shows that the person was almost certainly planning to kill the person, I think prosecuting the person for attempted murder is just fine. Some amount of "precognition" is a normal part of the legal system.
Say, someone goes to the doctor's office and says "I'm having these seizures every day or two; I just black out for a few seconds." It may be "precognition" that the person might well black out while driving, but it's a pretty sensible precognition. Similarly, if someone fails a driver's test, it's "precognition" that the person will likely be a bad driver, but it's again a pretty sensible precognition.
Recalling somebody's licence is not considering him guilty of driving recklessly before the fact: no one is being found guilty, or sent to jail. Rather, the person is being judged to be the sort of driver who ought not be given a license. Unless, you think that everyone should have the right to drive until they commit a serious traffic offense or are caught doing something dangerous.
But if you think that driving on the public roads is something that should be licensed, and licenses should be given only to those who the authorities think will be safe drivers, then precognition is precisely what you're endorsing: you're calling for a judgment, before the person does something dangerous on the roads.
The principle of driver's licensing is precisely that the licensing authorities should exercise some precognition about who is likely to be a safe enough driver and who isn't.
MJ Neela says: Patient information should be confidential. To stretch the logic of precognition a little more, the doc could be showing early signs of a psychopathic whistleblower. Should be denied confidential information as aprecaution??? That would be the end of his medical career. Huh!"
A man who told his doctor that he drinks more than a six-pack of beer a day, had his license recalled, because the physicians reported him. A state law, dating back to the 1960s, REQUIRES doctors to report any physical or mental impairments in patients that could compromise their ability to drive safely, leading to an indefinite recall of the license until the driver can prove that he is competent enough to drive. Aside from a drunken-driving conviction when he was 21, this man said he has a clean driving record and doesn't drink and drive.
This sounds like the movie Minority Report.Because you like to have a few beers, even a few too many beers, you're considered guilty of driving drunk before the fact?!
Eugene Volokh says, "What troubles most people about the Minority Report situation, in which people are prosecuted for murder because precogs (people with special powers of precognition) say that they're going to commit murder, is that someone is prosecuted because of what they were supposedly going to do, not because of what they actually did. But I think we're quite right to prosecute someone for attempting to commit a crime, even if they don't take the final step.
If the police catch someone sitting at his window pointing a rifle at someone, with a finger on the trigger, and then an investigation shows that the person was almost certainly planning to kill the person, I think prosecuting the person for attempted murder is just fine. Some amount of "precognition" is a normal part of the legal system.
Say, someone goes to the doctor's office and says "I'm having these seizures every day or two; I just black out for a few seconds." It may be "precognition" that the person might well black out while driving, but it's a pretty sensible precognition. Similarly, if someone fails a driver's test, it's "precognition" that the person will likely be a bad driver, but it's again a pretty sensible precognition.
Recalling somebody's licence is not considering him guilty of driving recklessly before the fact: no one is being found guilty, or sent to jail. Rather, the person is being judged to be the sort of driver who ought not be given a license. Unless, you think that everyone should have the right to drive until they commit a serious traffic offense or are caught doing something dangerous.
But if you think that driving on the public roads is something that should be licensed, and licenses should be given only to those who the authorities think will be safe drivers, then precognition is precisely what you're endorsing: you're calling for a judgment, before the person does something dangerous on the roads.
The principle of driver's licensing is precisely that the licensing authorities should exercise some precognition about who is likely to be a safe enough driver and who isn't.
MJ Neela says: Patient information should be confidential. To stretch the logic of precognition a little more, the doc could be showing early signs of a psychopathic whistleblower. Should be denied confidential information as aprecaution??? That would be the end of his medical career. Huh!"
18.7.04
arbitrary aggrandising
you know, i'm sick of people going around glorifying everyday events and activities as being something more than they actually are...
every kind of talent is a type of "intelligence". so we have kinesthetic intelligence, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, even, god help us, culinary intelligence! why can't they simply say culinary talent? or emotional sensitivity? or social etiquette? or kinesthetic skill? why does everything have to be "intelligence"? far from trying to dissociate from the snobbish purely-cerebral nose-in-the-air connotation of the word "intelligence", this amounts to the desperate bid of "intelligence" wannabes, who want soooo badly to be recognised by the cranial types as one of them... we can't count beyond 2+2, but hey! we can dance like a ballerina on coke...so that make us intelliegent, right?!
another typical one is "architect"...now nobody is the designer, conceiver or planner of anything... they are all architects... so you have the "architect" of peace processes, welfare programs, manifestoes... as a "real" architect, i get quite irritated to see this increasing trend.
every kind of talent is a type of "intelligence". so we have kinesthetic intelligence, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, even, god help us, culinary intelligence! why can't they simply say culinary talent? or emotional sensitivity? or social etiquette? or kinesthetic skill? why does everything have to be "intelligence"? far from trying to dissociate from the snobbish purely-cerebral nose-in-the-air connotation of the word "intelligence", this amounts to the desperate bid of "intelligence" wannabes, who want soooo badly to be recognised by the cranial types as one of them... we can't count beyond 2+2, but hey! we can dance like a ballerina on coke...so that make us intelliegent, right?!
another typical one is "architect"...now nobody is the designer, conceiver or planner of anything... they are all architects... so you have the "architect" of peace processes, welfare programs, manifestoes... as a "real" architect, i get quite irritated to see this increasing trend.
