I think knowledge is a double-edged sword, but not a curse- at least if it is it is worth it.
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Oh come on...we both know you don't think "boring"...you think "blood-boilingly offensive" and lament the loss of the former glory and torture power of the Holy See.
knowledge = power. I don't know where we lost that....
__________________ He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
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It hurts to think...lol..now if it was like the matrix just jak in and instantly gain knowledge that would be kewl...although guess you lose the wisdom that goes with experience that way?..lol
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Athens vs Sparta
PhD Candidate vs Man with Club
Rome vs Germanic Tribes
Fundamentalist Christianity vs Science
Extremist Islam vs Stock Brokers
Abraham Lincoln vs John Wilkes Booth
It's fairly stupid to claim that knowledge is power in anything but a very small number of circumstances. Technology is power. Influence is power. Knowledge is exploited by those who want actual power and then cast aside.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
Don't get what Athens and Sparta have to do with it.
PhD candidates aren't necessarily knowledgeable, and it's ridiculous to make that argument since that's not what inimalist is saying. Think of it more as Kung Fu expert vs man with club.
Again, I'm not seeing the point made here. The Holy Roman Empire took control of the germanic tribes because they knew how to fight better. They had more knowledge in the art of fighting.
Science has won everytime against fundamentalist christianity. The only places where creationism is taught are where there is little to no scientists.
Not seeing the connection.
John Wilkes Booth had the knowledge to shoot him in the back of the head. Lincoln had the knowledge that anyone who shot him would be severly punished.
Knowledge is power.
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Last edited by lord xyz on Jan 1st 2000 at 00:00 AM
__________________ He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Gender: Male Location: al-Jumhuuriyya al-Yamaniyya
Rome destroyed by barbarians. The well educated Lincoln murdered by Boothe. All credit for Penicillin going to Fleming rather than the people how made it a viable drug. Fundamentalist Christians that formed their beliefs with limited knowledge having far more influence that brilliant intellectuals. A kung-fu master being shot dead by a rookie cop.
Knowledge is much too broad and abstract to make the statement that "knowledge is power" without falling back onto constant demands that knowledge be regarded as something different in each circumstance in order to make it true. You could reasonably say that "superiority is power" but that ends up being somewhat circular.
__________________
Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
I don't see how those are examples of knowledge not being power. It seems you have chosen situations where knowledge is moot. If you want, I can go over them individually, but I think you are reading too much into the statement.
I don't think inherent in that statement is knowledge = invincibility...
knowledge opens up options. The more you know, the more you are able to do or articulate, and thus, the more individual power you have. Violence is also a form of power, and largely much more capable of killing people than knowledge. I think using knowledge to have the most violent technology is probably good, but this is extremely tangential from what I was saying. I was speaking of individual emancipation, not about universal guiding princiapls of society and human behaviour....
__________________ He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Gender: Male Location: al-Jumhuuriyya al-Yamaniyya
If it can be rendered useless again and again it's a fairly poor source of power, IMO.
No, but the idea that knowledge is power would certainly seem to translate into knowledge gives the ability for success. That seems terribly abstract to me.
I'll use the Flemming example:
His total contribution to Penicillin was finding it making a note and eventually deciding he couldn't use it. Florey and Chain made it into a useful drug that altered the landscape of medicine and war. Flemming, Florey and Chain shared the Nobel Prize but Flemming's particular charisma is why we credit him with giving the world penicillin.
This covers knowledge of how to observe, knowledge of chemistry and knowledge of self-promotion. Any level of power gained by Florey and Chain was completely lost in the face of self-promotion. Knowledge simply covers too many things, IMO, to say that knowledge, in a general sense, gives one power.
I completely missed that. Yes, I would agree that control, power and improvement in one's own life is dependent almost entirely on knowledge.
__________________
Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
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Aug 30th, 2008 11:39 AM
