idallen@watmath.UUCP (08/05/85)
> Is there anything so wrong with profiting from people's stupidity (if > indeed lottery playing is stupid) when the consequences have been clearly > pointed out to the victims? -- Martin Taylor Perhaps part of being "stupid" is that one does not understand "cause and effect" well. Thus, it is, by definition, impossible to "clearly explain" the consequences, since the "stupids" are incapable of understanding. It's sort of like showing a blind person a picture of a wolverine and saying "don't go near these things", then walking away feeling righteous that one has "explained" the danger of wolverines. As a communicator, I am responsible for making you understand me. If I present you with a communication that you don't understand, I can not feel righteous about it being your "fault". If I want to convey the information, it is my job to verify that you *do* understand. I can't justify my failure to make you understand simply by righteously saying "I tried -- I wrote down the mathematical formulae involved and she still walked out into the traffic". With "reasonable" human beings, one assumes a "reasonable" level of ability to understand. However, if you know ahead of time that someone is going to misunderstand your communication ("don't buy lottery tickets"), you haven't done your job 100 percent. Maybe getting 100 percent is too hard to do; but, failure to communicate doesn't justify self-righteousness for "having tried" and it certainly doesn't justify the induced misery caused in people your faulty message failed to reach. -- -IAN! (Ian! D. Allen) University of Waterloo