Philistine. Without wine tasters (and yes, there are professionals who do this, and then produce books every year) I'd be forced to rely on marketers, and they all lie through their teeth, plus they generally have no sense of taste whatsoever.Godavari said:
Poll: If you could erase any proffesion from society, which one would it be?
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I only said wine tasting because the whole practice is BS. Apparently (and I'm paraphrasing from an article I read on cracked.com, so take this with a mountain of salt) there was a study in which wine testers were asked to rate two bottles of wine. One was labeled as a shit bottle but had excellent wine in it, and the other was labeled as excellent but had shit wine. The tasters rated the bad wine in the good bottle higher.Frungy said:
None. It's futile.
Politicians are necessary for any government. Sure they lie and scam, but you know, society would barely function without them, and if they were all gone, more would have to rise to take their place controlling the villains of the world.
Marketers need to exist unless you want everything to be indie or word-of-mouth. Getting rid of marketers is stupid.
Law enforcement. Really? No. I'm not even going to explain why that is a moronic idea.
Tax collectors, again, I actually want a functioning government so I don't get constantly screwed over.
Prostitution, like someone else said, more prostitutes will come (hurrr) and people should be able to do what they want with their bodies.
Soldering. Okay, I had to look up soldering to make sure it didn't have a secret definition, and I assume you mean soldiering? Yeah, no, without any army, governments would still fight each other, and would just be forced to do so through drafts or militias, so those who don't want to fight would be forced to anyway.
So, my vote is on Activision CEO.
Politicians are necessary for any government. Sure they lie and scam, but you know, society would barely function without them, and if they were all gone, more would have to rise to take their place controlling the villains of the world.
Marketers need to exist unless you want everything to be indie or word-of-mouth. Getting rid of marketers is stupid.
Law enforcement. Really? No. I'm not even going to explain why that is a moronic idea.
Tax collectors, again, I actually want a functioning government so I don't get constantly screwed over.
Prostitution, like someone else said, more prostitutes will come (hurrr) and people should be able to do what they want with their bodies.
Soldering. Okay, I had to look up soldering to make sure it didn't have a secret definition, and I assume you mean soldiering? Yeah, no, without any army, governments would still fight each other, and would just be forced to do so through drafts or militias, so those who don't want to fight would be forced to anyway.
So, my vote is on Activision CEO.
EDTITED: Why did you skip out lawyers? really why couldn't i vote for lawyers? the guy who assaulted me and broke my arm is out of prison now because he had a good lawyer (one which was better than the police prosecution at least)
so i voted for politicians instead....
those might not be the reasons that soldiers get sent to war, but they are the reasons a lot of men and women are prepared to die.
but yer marketing, what a bunch of .....
so i voted for politicians instead....
policies and agendas etc could be submitted secretly. the people then have to vote purely for what they think is the best idea, and not a charasmatic leader and not for party loyalty. the sleazy politician will then have a lot less to gain from being a sleazy politician, as there will be no way of bribing him etc because no-one knows who he is.Vodka Dude said:
can you honestly say that someone who risked his life to liberate women from the rule of the taliban in afganistan is a bad person? or a person who faught to take a genocidal maniac (such as sadam hussein) out of power is also a bad person?Eagle Est1986 said:
those might not be the reasons that soldiers get sent to war, but they are the reasons a lot of men and women are prepared to die.
but yer marketing, what a bunch of .....
But what sort of people are attracted to the power and prestige of politics? Those who value and crave power and prestige, and who want to be powerful and prestigious, NOT those who actually want to run the country.Sewblon said:
In short the current system actually selects for precisely the characteristics that we loathe in politicians, that they're more focused on enriching and empowering themselves that actually serving the country.
The jury system is based on random selection precisely because those who like to sit in judgement over others are precisely the wrong people to select, and the same principle applies to politicians. If you want the job you're the wrong person for it.
I like cracked.com too, but what that illustrates is not that the profession is BS, but rather the effect of bias on a subjective experience. Juries find people guilty if they "look" guilty, often regardless of the facts, bosses hire people who "look" successful, often regardless of their CVs, etc.Godavari said:
Personally I can tell the difference and the wine tasters who I read can also. Sometimes I disagree with them a little, because tastes differ, but I'd say that they're about 80% right, which is better than most weathermen and economists, so I give them the benefit of the doubt.
There is a degree of truth to that, but is possible for randomly selected people to be plain incompetent. With elected officials we know that they can at least get the populace on their side and articulate their positions. And anyone who can't do those two things won't be able to govern effectively in a country with a population the size of the U.S.A'sFrungy said:
Well somethings I believe will always exist, like soldiers, we have had warriors since our species has existed.
I say lawyers.
I say lawyers.
Marketing definitely. All those shitty commercials about detergent make me wanna wash my clothes with my bare hands. Not to mention they ruin the program. Sometimes commercials are so long I forget what I was watching.
4 votes for prostitution? Really? But prostitution is great.
4 votes for prostitution? Really? But prostitution is great.
If there are professional wine tasters, then there is a whole cross section of humanity with far more money than sense.Frungy said:
On that note, I say get rid of professional athletes. They're just as twatty as bankers, without even pretending society needs them.
And so now ask yourself, of the two characteristics you've identified, namely:Sewblon said:
1. popularity with the populace, and
2. being articulate
What bearing do either of those characteristics have on actually performing the task of running a country or city? Being popular may help when you make unpopular decisions, but generally speaking politicians don't like making unpopular decisions (or at least not decisions that are unpopular with their supporters). Being articulate is likewise not necessary as every politician these days has speech writers, media co-ordinators, etc.
In short the criteria you've identified have little to nothing to do with the job.
What you need in a politician is someone with lots of common sense, a good grasp of the way in which their decisions will affect the man or woman in the street, and a concern for the good of the people. The Greek system accomplishes two of the above by drawing common people and making sure they know they'll be back in the general population at the end of it so they'd better make a good decision. Common sense, unfortunately, is an uncommon virtue, but given that most politicians are deliberately self-serving and make bad decisions deliberately, I'd happily take my chances with Joe Bloggs.
They travel around, taste various wines, and then write books. Sounds no more extreme to me than other novelists who travel to famous places to "research" their latest romantic novel, "Busty Blondes with Big Bazoombas... in Ancient Greece!"Chipperz said:
.