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The article is light on conclusions and full of fluff. This has nothing to do with chimps. A chimp is used as an example of an agent selecting at random...as a
by nagrom 13y ago
The article is light on conclusions and full of fluff.
This has nothing to do with chimps. A chimp is used as an example of an agent selecting at random...as a rhetorical device it obscures the author's point and simply confuses the reader. A proper headline would be "British people seem to be more pessimistic than is justified."
The point that the professor seems to be making is that many of the preconceptions that British people have about the world are pessimistic. That's a fair point, but there's no discussion as to why or what it means - is it a national tendency, is it to do with the images in the media, what are the implications for the economy or the political situation, is it even a bad thing to be slightly pessimistic? What opportunities does the national pessimism create and what opportunities does it destroy?
Aside from a few interesting 'gotcha' questions in the quiz, there's not very much to this article at all.
- daliusd 13y agoWhile I agree with your critique about headline but "pessimistic" is wrong word as well. Question about wind and solar energy indicates that they are optimistic. People are simply wrong quite often. Here is "related" video about wisdom of crowd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOucwX7Z1HU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOucwX7Z1HU I wonder if we could apply idea of "wisdom of crowd" to those quiz questions.
- mxfh 13y agoIt's meant to be a teaser for tonight's BBC TWO show "Don't Panic — The Truth About Population" http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2013/45/this-world-hans-rosling.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2013/45/this-world... This video excerpt makes it looks like it's going to challenge Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" in all fields of over-the-top presentation exaggeration techniques — including the use of ladders: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpdyCJi3Ib4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpdyCJi3Ib4