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You didn't insult the Economist, but their audience. And your point is simply factually wrong. It's probably easy to find statistics on their readership showin

You didn't insult the Economist, but their audience. And your point is simply factually wrong. It's probably easy to find statistics on their readership showing they're far more educated and international than average. But I'll use a slightly more fun way to show it: it's the only medium I know that regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica.

coldtea 10y ago
>It's probably easy to find statistics on their readership showing they're far more educated and international than average. That doesn't say much -- in fact the idea that these university degrees say anything of importance about the readership is totally contrary to how I view this, which would be much closer to the concept of the "intellectual yet idiot" (IYE) as proposed by Nassim Taleb (and similar ideas, put forward many more prominent thinkers through the last few centuries, e.g. the idea of the Philistine, or Flaubert's mockery of the educated middle class' "received ideas"). >But I'll use a slightly more fun way to show it: it's the only medium I know that regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica. Kind of makes my point. The ruling elites where never known for their intelligence -- but it's even less so in the 21st century (Trump anyone? Bush? Even Obama and Clinton are more mass media darlings than men of state the way someone like Churchill or De Gaulle was, with a knowledge of the world's intricacies and world history). As I said, I'm not very much for received ideas and preconceived notions of what's worthy and what's intelligent. And degrees really don't tell me anything for this. Any idiot can have one (I should know, for I have one). Even more so, any idiot can have the money to buy a "refinery in Vietnam". It might take business savvy (if the money weren't inherited in the first place, or stolen from the public, e.g. by some corrupt public official), but that's not the same thing as someone understanding foreign affairs.
- jamespo 10y ago
  I fail to see how you have pulled Trump and Bush into this, are they both subscribers?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Conversations often expand from their narrow initial scope based upon the received responses. So, while this was about the Economist in general, the parent response commented on how it "regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica." -- as a way to show that the readership is especially refined and/or intelligent. My response to this was that the elites who might be interested in buying "whole airports in Gambia" or be involved with the "UN's High Commissioner" are not necessarily refined or knowledgable about world affairs much more than the next person. Not even prominent politicians can be trusted to be nowadays -- to which I used Trump and Bush as examples. (That said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were both subscribers too. Many otherwise inane public figures are subscribers - I've met my share).

coldtea 10y ago

>It's probably easy to find statistics on their readership showing they're far more educated and international than average. That doesn't say much -- in fact the idea that these university degrees say anything of importance about the readership is totally contrary to how I view this, which would be much closer to the concept of the "intellectual yet idiot" (IYE) as proposed by Nassim Taleb (and similar ideas, put forward many more prominent thinkers through the last few centuries, e.g. the idea of the Philistine, or Flaubert's mockery of the educated middle class' "received ideas"). >But I'll use a slightly more fun way to show it: it's the only medium I know that regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica. Kind of makes my point. The ruling elites where never known for their intelligence -- but it's even less so in the 21st century (Trump anyone? Bush? Even Obama and Clinton are more mass media darlings than men of state the way someone like Churchill or De Gaulle was, with a knowledge of the world's intricacies and world history). As I said, I'm not very much for received ideas and preconceived notions of what's worthy and what's intelligent. And degrees really don't tell me anything for this. Any idiot can have one (I should know, for I have one). Even more so, any idiot can have the money to buy a "refinery in Vietnam". It might take business savvy (if the money weren't inherited in the first place, or stolen from the public, e.g. by some corrupt public official), but that's not the same thing as someone understanding foreign affairs.

jamespo 10y ago
I fail to see how you have pulled Trump and Bush into this, are they both subscribers?
- coldtea 10y ago
  Conversations often expand from their narrow initial scope based upon the received responses. So, while this was about the Economist in general, the parent response commented on how it "regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica." -- as a way to show that the readership is especially refined and/or intelligent. My response to this was that the elites who might be interested in buying "whole airports in Gambia" or be involved with the "UN's High Commissioner" are not necessarily refined or knowledgable about world affairs much more than the next person. Not even prominent politicians can be trusted to be nowadays -- to which I used Trump and Bush as examples. (That said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were both subscribers too. Many otherwise inane public figures are subscribers - I've met my share).