|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On December 11 2012 01:54 TS-Rupbar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 01:50 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:49 TS-Rupbar wrote:On December 11 2012 01:45 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:41 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 01:33 xDaunt wrote:
More than any other profession, lawyers are better suited to being the type of jack-of-all-trades person that you want to be a politician. (citation needed) Name me one other profession that has the same potential for getting extensive experience in numerous disciplines and industries. Sociology researcher? Development workers? Not even close. To be honest, I would rather have someone who knows a lot about inequalities in society than a lawyer. I don't think that being a jack of all trades kind of person is anything especially sought after for politicians.
That's fine, but let's not pretend that a social workers and academics are going to have the base of knowledge that some lawyers have.
Let me use myself as an example. I'm on my fifth year of practice, and I have had significant experience with the following industries/disciplines:
- oil and gas; upstream activities (leasing and drilling)
- online advertising and custom web development
- more medical issues than I can possibly list (some include neuropsychology, orthopedics, neurology, psychiatry, neurology)
- various types of engineering (hydraulic, civil engineering, metallurgy, other forensic applications)
- economics and forensic accounting
- medical marijuana (surprise)
- insurance (medical and liability)
- real estate
This is just the stuff that comes immediately to mind. If you were to mine the brain of a lawyer who has been practicing for 30 years, there's no telling all the shit that he knows.
|
On December 11 2012 01:45 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 01:41 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 01:33 xDaunt wrote:
More than any other profession, lawyers are better suited to being the type of jack-of-all-trades person that you want to be a politician. (citation needed) Name me one other profession that has the same potential for getting extensive experience in numerous disciplines and industries.
Software developers seem much closer to that. But both have only cursory understanding of multiple fields. That is the reason there are specialized lawyers and programmers that concentrate on one specific field. So either they have completely unsatisfactory knowledge of many fields or good knowledge of few. But ignoring that, I still fail to see how lawyers with their inferior math/hard sciences education are supposedly superior compared to well anyone else actually.
|
On December 11 2012 02:13 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 01:45 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:41 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 01:33 xDaunt wrote:
More than any other profession, lawyers are better suited to being the type of jack-of-all-trades person that you want to be a politician. (citation needed) Name me one other profession that has the same potential for getting extensive experience in numerous disciplines and industries. Software developers seem much closer to that. But both have only cursory understanding of multiple fields. That is the reason there are specialized lawyers and programmers that concentrate on one specific field. So either they have completely unsatisfactory knowledge of many fields or good knowledge of few. But ignoring that, I still fail to see how lawyers with their inferior math/hard sciences education are supposedly superior compared to well anyone else actually.
This presumption is wrong. There are a lot of lawyers who either have significant backgrounds in math/sciences in their educations or otherwise develop knowledge of those disciplines during their practice. Just take a look at my list of stuff.
|
On December 11 2012 02:07 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 01:54 TS-Rupbar wrote:On December 11 2012 01:50 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:49 TS-Rupbar wrote:On December 11 2012 01:45 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:41 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 01:33 xDaunt wrote:
More than any other profession, lawyers are better suited to being the type of jack-of-all-trades person that you want to be a politician. (citation needed) Name me one other profession that has the same potential for getting extensive experience in numerous disciplines and industries. Sociology researcher? Development workers? Not even close. To be honest, I would rather have someone who knows a lot about inequalities in society than a lawyer. I don't think that being a jack of all trades kind of person is anything especially sought after for politicians. That's fine, but let's not pretend that a social workers and academics are going to have the base of knowledge that some lawyers have. Let me use myself as an example. I'm on my fifth year of practice, and I have had significant experience with the following industries/disciplines: - oil and gas; upstream activities (leasing and drilling) - online advertising and custom web development - more medical issues than I can possibly list (some include neuropsychology, orthopedics, neurology, psychiatry, neurology) - various types of engineering (hydraulic, civil engineering, metallurgy, other forensic applications) - economics and forensic accounting - medical marijuana (surprise) - insurance (medical and liability) - real estate This is just the stuff that comes immediately to mind. If you were to mine the brain of a lawyer who has been practicing for 30 years, there's no telling all the shit that he knows.
Having touched upon a field from a legal point-of-view has literally nothing to do with actually knowing and understanding what you'd expect experts from said field to know and understand. Since I remember you defending the position that what you did was equivalent to peer review because you had to evaluate the opinions of expert witnesses, though, I don't suppose we can expect much objectivity about lawyers from your part.
|
In the case of the house at least, I don't see why someone would need to have a general understanding of everything that is going on. Usually people will develop specialties in one area and others will listen to their expertise on those issues if they are not partisan issues. If you go as a software engineer, you can specialize in that area and help other reps understand the issues that you see from that perspective. For other complex issues, you would seek out people who specialized in those fields to help you understand those issues.
|
I'm kind of biased, but I want to say scientists might be the best. They have the best training and background for learning new things and analyzing them objectively.
|
|
|
On December 11 2012 02:22 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 02:07 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:54 TS-Rupbar wrote:On December 11 2012 01:50 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:49 TS-Rupbar wrote:On December 11 2012 01:45 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:41 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 01:33 xDaunt wrote:
More than any other profession, lawyers are better suited to being the type of jack-of-all-trades person that you want to be a politician. (citation needed) Name me one other profession that has the same potential for getting extensive experience in numerous disciplines and industries. Sociology researcher? Development workers? Not even close. To be honest, I would rather have someone who knows a lot about inequalities in society than a lawyer. I don't think that being a jack of all trades kind of person is anything especially sought after for politicians. That's fine, but let's not pretend that a social workers and academics are going to have the base of knowledge that some lawyers have. Let me use myself as an example. I'm on my fifth year of practice, and I have had significant experience with the following industries/disciplines: - oil and gas; upstream activities (leasing and drilling) - online advertising and custom web development - more medical issues than I can possibly list (some include neuropsychology, orthopedics, neurology, psychiatry, neurology) - various types of engineering (hydraulic, civil engineering, metallurgy, other forensic applications) - economics and forensic accounting - medical marijuana (surprise) - insurance (medical and liability) - real estate This is just the stuff that comes immediately to mind. If you were to mine the brain of a lawyer who has been practicing for 30 years, there's no telling all the shit that he knows. Having touched upon a field from a legal point-of-view has literally nothing to do with actually knowing what you'd expect experts from said field to know. Since I remember you defending the position that what you did was equivalent to peer research because you had to choose what to take from the depositions of expert witnesses, though, I don't suppose we can expect much objectivity about lawyers from your part.
A lawyer obviously isn't going to have the same depth of knowledge as the experts in their given fields. That's why they're experts. However, the lawyer is going to know quite a bit about the field as a necessity to understand what the expert is talking about and (if necessary) be able to cross-examine the expert. Minimally, this requires a detailed understanding of methodology and standards. In short, it's more than just "touching" upon the field.
|
On December 11 2012 02:14 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 02:13 mcc wrote:On December 11 2012 01:45 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:41 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 01:33 xDaunt wrote:
More than any other profession, lawyers are better suited to being the type of jack-of-all-trades person that you want to be a politician. (citation needed) Name me one other profession that has the same potential for getting extensive experience in numerous disciplines and industries. Software developers seem much closer to that. But both have only cursory understanding of multiple fields. That is the reason there are specialized lawyers and programmers that concentrate on one specific field. So either they have completely unsatisfactory knowledge of many fields or good knowledge of few. But ignoring that, I still fail to see how lawyers with their inferior math/hard sciences education are supposedly superior compared to well anyone else actually. This presumption is wrong. There are a lot of lawyers who either have significant backgrounds in math/sciences in their educations or otherwise develop knowledge of those disciplines during their practice. Just take a look at my list of stuff.
And the same goes for countless other occupations. Plus of course your education in math and hard sciences is still inferior compared to people in those fields. But that is beside the point. I would still love to know why should this shallow knowledge of multiple fields actually matter in politics. And I actually showed you occupation that has even better potential for that as they are required to often know the filed much more in-depth. But I would not claim they are in any way better suited to be politicians. The whole hypothesis is nonsense even from empirical viewpoint as I see no increase in quality of politicians-lawyers.
As a personal experience as far as lawyers go they are the most shallow and callous group of university educated people I ever met. But it might be just statistical anomaly, but considering how many people actually share the similar experience I am inclined to see something more at work here.
|
On December 11 2012 02:26 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 02:22 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 02:07 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:54 TS-Rupbar wrote:On December 11 2012 01:50 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:49 TS-Rupbar wrote:On December 11 2012 01:45 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:41 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 01:33 xDaunt wrote:
More than any other profession, lawyers are better suited to being the type of jack-of-all-trades person that you want to be a politician. (citation needed) Name me one other profession that has the same potential for getting extensive experience in numerous disciplines and industries. Sociology researcher? Development workers? Not even close. To be honest, I would rather have someone who knows a lot about inequalities in society than a lawyer. I don't think that being a jack of all trades kind of person is anything especially sought after for politicians. That's fine, but let's not pretend that a social workers and academics are going to have the base of knowledge that some lawyers have. Let me use myself as an example. I'm on my fifth year of practice, and I have had significant experience with the following industries/disciplines: - oil and gas; upstream activities (leasing and drilling) - online advertising and custom web development - more medical issues than I can possibly list (some include neuropsychology, orthopedics, neurology, psychiatry, neurology) - various types of engineering (hydraulic, civil engineering, metallurgy, other forensic applications) - economics and forensic accounting - medical marijuana (surprise) - insurance (medical and liability) - real estate This is just the stuff that comes immediately to mind. If you were to mine the brain of a lawyer who has been practicing for 30 years, there's no telling all the shit that he knows. Having touched upon a field from a legal point-of-view has literally nothing to do with actually knowing what you'd expect experts from said field to know. Since I remember you defending the position that what you did was equivalent to peer research because you had to choose what to take from the depositions of expert witnesses, though, I don't suppose we can expect much objectivity about lawyers from your part. A lawyer obviously isn't going to have the same depth of knowledge as the experts in their given fields. That's why they're experts. However, the lawyer is going to know quite a bit about the field as a necessity to understand what the expert is talking about and (if necessary) be able to cross-examine the expert. Minimally, this requires a detailed understanding of methodology and standards. In short, it's more than just "touching" upon the field.
It is touching upon. It's a brief glimpse into the view of an expert and his position regarding a particular matter relevant to a vast discipline. It completely different from the kind of knowledge that you'd expect to be helpful to a decisionmaker who has to deal both with specific matters that will be completely unrelated to the first one and with long-term objectives and plans which will be completely beyond the scope of the said particular legal matter.
I don't even believe lawyers are less qualified than anyone else to be decisionmakers, but to put them on a pedestal like you do is ridiculous.
|
On December 11 2012 02:30 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 02:14 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 02:13 mcc wrote:On December 11 2012 01:45 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2012 01:41 kwizach wrote:On December 11 2012 01:33 xDaunt wrote:
More than any other profession, lawyers are better suited to being the type of jack-of-all-trades person that you want to be a politician. (citation needed) Name me one other profession that has the same potential for getting extensive experience in numerous disciplines and industries. Software developers seem much closer to that. But both have only cursory understanding of multiple fields. That is the reason there are specialized lawyers and programmers that concentrate on one specific field. So either they have completely unsatisfactory knowledge of many fields or good knowledge of few. But ignoring that, I still fail to see how lawyers with their inferior math/hard sciences education are supposedly superior compared to well anyone else actually. This presumption is wrong. There are a lot of lawyers who either have significant backgrounds in math/sciences in their educations or otherwise develop knowledge of those disciplines during their practice. Just take a look at my list of stuff. And the same goes for countless other occupations. Plus of course your education in math and hard sciences is still inferior compared to people in those fields.
I said that lawyers are more likely be to jacks-of-all-trades -- not aces-of-all trades.
But that is beside the point. I would still love to know why should this shallow knowledge of multiple fields actually matter in politics. And I actually showed you occupation that has even better potential for that as they are required to often know the filed much more in-depth. But I would not claim they are in any way better suited to be politicians. The whole hypothesis is nonsense even from empirical viewpoint as I see no increase in quality of politicians-lawyers.
The broad base of knowledge matters because politicians necessarily are going to be dealing with a broad base of issues. Obviously, you want someone who has at least a little bit of experience in each of these areas making decisions. Failing that, you want someone who is capable of learning on the fly and digesting information from multiple experts. All that I am saying is that lawyers are good at this because this is what they do.
As a personal experience as far as lawyers go they are the most shallow and callous group of university educated people I ever met. But it might be just statistical anomaly, but considering how many people actually share the similar experience I am inclined to see something more at work here.
I actually agree that lawyers tend to be defective people. In fact, female attorneys tend to be the worst.
User was temp banned for this post.
|
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the standards of justification and reasoning in law are inchoate, still pretty infantile in all honesty. all the reasonable person etc appeals and the tendency to look for persuasive instead of truth searching discourse
|
On December 11 2012 02:51 oneofthem wrote:
the standards of justification and reasoning in law are inchoate, still pretty infantile in all honesty. all the reasonable person etc appeals and the tendency to look for persuasive instead of truth searching discourse
So I take it from these comments that you are 1) in favor of the state enacting an infinite number of laws, rules, and regulations to govern behavior (this is the alternative to the reasonable person standard), and 2) against the right to an appeal?
I don't really understand what you're getting at with the last comment. Legal advocacy is a combination of truth finding and persuasion. There are mechanisms in advocacy whose express purpose is to facilitate finding the truth.
|
I've updated the OP with this Monday's worth of important news, mostly in regards to the ongoing "Fiscal Cliff" negotiations. As of this post, the lines of communication between Boehner and Obama are still alive and well, according to a close Boehner aide, and talks will continue throughout the week.
It's crunch time for avoiding the fiscal cliff, with President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner and their aides holding private talks on issues that will impact every American.
Three weeks remain to cut a deal before the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts of the fiscal cliff go into effect on January 1.
Obama and Boehner met face-to-face on Sunday for the first time since November 16. It also was their first one-on-one meeting in more than a year, when talks broke down on a comprehensive agreement to reduce the nation's chronic federal deficits and debt.
In a rare display of bipartisan concurrence, both sides issued identical statements after the meeting that said no details would be forthcoming.
Separate statements on Monday indicated core tax and spending issues remained unresolved, with both sides saying they awaited specifics from the other.
Staff on both sides also have been talking, but few details were available.
Before his talks with Boehner on Sunday, Obama met Friday with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and spoke to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, according to a Democratic source familiar with the talks.
Obama, Boehner try to talk their way down from fiscal cliff
|
Lawyers
Are they callous, shallow, defective humans who lack any expertise or skill in math? Or are they truth-seeking, borderline genius, jacks-of-all-trades who should rule over us as philosopher kings?
The US Politics Megathread reports; you decide.
|
I have to go with the first answer.
Am not sure how it is in the usa but in the netherlands the law study is the easiest study by far at university level.
That does not mean there are no smart lawyers,its just that a law study alone is not sufficient to qualify someone as a philosopher king.
My expectations for the cliff are no solution and no fall off the cliff.
They will find an intermediate solution, postponing most of the automatic budget cuts and they will come with a solution when they are about to hit the debt ceiling (wich i believe is expected to be in february/march?)
|
On December 11 2012 02:26 bonifaceviii wrote:Yeah, but lawyers are all Borderline geniuses you know
I lol'd so hard, then was aghast that someone could have a stick so far up their ass that it defied the laws of nature. It's great when someone whips out their e-peen then the community castrates them.
EDIT: I don't know, but Business is borderline joke for me.
I'm doing Bio (on a premed/research-ish track) along with a BBA at my school, and Business is pretty easy for me-- this is supposed to be the 5th ranked BBA program in the US. I do my work for Financial Accounting (which is reputedly the hardest pre-req/ one of the harder courses in the B-school), then do maybe 5/5 hours the two days before the test and pull a 98 (avg = 73). Overall, I'm a mid range A when the class has been curved. I study my ass off for orgo for 3 weeks and I scraped a 67 (avg = 66) on my last test. I was fucking ecstatic when I found I got 18/18 on one page of that exam-- that is how hard the class and how much it means to me. Maybe I'm just bad at orgo, but geez this is a little ridiculous.
So yeah, ask a scientist to analyze some financial statements-- he can figure that shit out in a couple hours. Ask a businessman to learn a Gringnard Reaction? Not gonna happen.
|
On December 11 2012 04:10 Rassy wrote:
I have to go with the first answer.
Am not sure how it is in the usa but in the netherlands the law study is the easiest study by far at university level.
That does not mean there are no smart lawyers,its just that a law study alone is not sufficient to qualify someone as a philosopher king.
My expectations for the cliff are no solution and no fall off the cliff.
They will find an intermediate solution, postponing most of the automatic budget cuts and they will come with a solution when they are about to hit the debt ceiling (wich i believe is expected to be in february/march?)
I don't know what law school is like in Europe, but my understanding is that the European legal system is less competitive (it's not adversarial) than the US legal system. Law school is definitely hard in the US.
As for me, I used to be pretty good at math and economics. I was getting A's in graduate level economics classes as an undergrad -- the really math-intensive classes (econometrics, rational expectations, etc). I've just forgotten all of it because I haven't touched it for almost 10 years.
|
On December 11 2012 04:10 Rassy wrote:
I have to go with the first answer.
Am not sure how it is in the usa but in the netherlands the law study is the easiest study by far at university level.
That does not mean there are no smart lawyers,its just that a law study alone is not sufficient to qualify someone as a philosopher king.
I've been seeing a lot of posts similar to this one that really break the second rule of this forum (I don't mean to pick on you, it was the closest to the end). Many are breaking this second rule by automatically coming to an understanding that politicians are "philosopher kings", "leaders", "rulers" or whatever word you can use to describe someone placed above yourself in government. It would seem most of you aren't arguing that lawyers are good/bad for American government, but rather good/bad for the type of government you envision. If you believe in very powerful politicians whose decisions have staggering effects on personal lives/economy/etc., then yeah, I could see how you wouldn't want a lawyer being in that position. If you believe that government should have very little power, and/or be spread out and competing, then your choice for politicians should be lawyers because they are specialized in representing people, and their job would be to keep government, foreign countries, or any other influence from effecting their citizens rights. Its clear that the American Government was setup for the latter (if you don't think so just read the constitution), so in theory lawyers should be the preference for politicians, but de facto American Government has grown exponentially to a point where its original purpose has changed entirely. Whether thats a good or a bad thing is your opinion, but it did happen nonetheless.
I think its very interesting to see the differences as some people in european countries have posted in here as well. I find it very interesting to see different societies/cultures/social upbringings that contribute to our political identities. So please keep contributing!
|
On December 11 2012 04:10 Rassy wrote:
I have to go with the first answer.
Am not sure how it is in the usa but in the netherlands the law study is the easiest study by far at university level.
That does not mean there are no smart lawyers,its just that a law study alone is not sufficient to qualify someone as a philosopher king.
My expectations for the cliff are no solution and no fall off the cliff.
They will find an intermediate solution, postponing most of the automatic budget cuts and they will come with a solution when they are about to hit the debt ceiling (wich i believe is expected to be in february/march?)
In the US, Lawyer is a (professional) doctoral degree. It's three years, post-undergrad. It's also probably one of the hardest graduate schools to get into at more prestigious schools. The only program I'd compare it to in difficulty is medical school. It's not really the same as it is in Europe. Most lawyers also have a degree in something else as well. "Law" really isn't any sort of undergraduate degree in the USA.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
