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This reminds me of the account of Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda, Last King of Scotland, who complained to his advisor about there being no doctors available and
by prepend 3y ago
This reminds me of the account of Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda, Last King of Scotland, who complained to his advisor about there being no doctors available and it being the advisors fault to not prevent the expulsion of doctors. The advisor replied that he has counseled against the expulsion and argued not to do it. Amin replied that it was still the counselor’s fault because the counselor did not convince him of the argument.
“You did not pursuade me.” [0] As played wonderfully by Forrest Whitaker in perhaps the best portrayal of someone disconnects from reality due to power and ego.
[0] https://youtu.be/d8JZWfaffUA https://youtu.be/d8JZWfaffUA
- SilasX 3y agoDid the advisor counsel against expulsion of doctors per se, or against the expulsion of an ethnic group that made up most of the doctors, without mentioning this aspect about them? If the latter, I’ve been in a similar situation, though without the ethnic cleansing. A co-worker insisted we use Slack’s thread feature, but couldn’t list any advantages to it over what we had been doing. Eventually, I discovered those advantages, and was (rightly IMHO) upset at the coworker for not being able to articulate what were actually good arguments for a useful feature. There’s a big difference between “don’t do that because I’m wise and I say so” vs “don’t do that because it has this specific consequence from this specific model” which later bears out. (Hence my rule: “Don’t tell me I’m wrong; instead, improve my understanding to the point you don’t have to.”) (Of course, in Amin’s case, you should have a general presumption against expulsions in the first place…)