November 15, 2007

• This is much much scarier.
• For those unfamiliar, this is riffing on Pascal's Wager, his classic argument for theism (which, when you boil it down, is essentially that risking damnation is a sucker's bet). The difference here of course is that in this example, betting that the crisis is real carries a far heavier possible cost if you're wrong than does Pascal's example of betting that God exists, but nevertheless it's still a much more favorable alternative to the worst case scenario if you bet against the crisis and are wrong. A good idea, one of those oh-yeah-duh things I hadn't previously thought of applying, but in retrospect see to be an obvious tactic. Having said that (and this isn't to criticize your post, VOL, but the video itself), putting OH NOES titles on your YewTewb videos like "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See" always, always, always has the exact opposite effect intended. Advocates, please can the hyperbole if you want people to listen. I clicked the link expecting something exciting or dramatic or shocking (or even just professionally done) like the video of the horribly burned chef, and instead thought, "Oh yeah, philosophy freshman year. Ah well, where's my coffee?" Call it middleclasstool's Law of Diminished Awesomeness: for any given piece of web-hosted content, that content's quality and viewer impact is inversely proportional to the number and intensity of superlatives applied to its description. The denominator of this ratio increases by an order of magnitude if the word "ever" is used unironically, two orders of magnitude if the phrase "I have ever seen" is used, and ten if the phrase is "you will ever see." On preview, must learn pithiness from Argh.
• I'm sure he's probably right and proves his point at some stage, but you know what? Once he started white boarding, he lost my interest. I'm not going to be there at the end. For goodness sake, state your outcome in a statement and explain later. Sound bites are where it's at. Thanks for bringing this particular take to my attention, but this is painful to watch for any amount of time.
• Well, the decision matrix is sort of a helpful tool, and is how the wager is usually presented and explained -- simple way to keep your options right in front of you for quick comparison. If you stick it out for a few minutes, you'll see where he's going long before he gets there.
• I've just forwarded to the end. Dirty Environment Harry asks, "How lucky do you feel".
• Lucky enough to have been able to consume freely my entire life.
• MCT, thanks, I spent that entire video trying to figure out what this reminded me of. I did day terrifying only if you were a oil or gas lobby. =P
• The guy does very well in front of the camera to the extent that I was wondering whether he had an autocue set up.
• Too bad the idjuts that OUGHT to watch this and think about this issue will click off before they hear anything. Reasoned argument? Logic? Doh!