Comments on: “X doesn’t even know Y”

By: Dave Neary

Dave Neary — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:39:13 +0000

Re. Bush Doctrine.

“Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?” is the type of question where you have to wonder – what’s the answer the guy was looking for? Is he interested in knowing whether GoV. Palin is OK with pre-emptive war, or does he want to show her up as not knowing what the Bush Doctrine refers to?

An example from computer science: “Can you write an implementation of Euclid’s Algorithm for me in a language of your choice, please?”

I would guess that the response from many (most?) candidates would be “what’s Euclid’s algorithm?” and when you’ve explained it, the best ones will fire you out something very quickly indeed.

It all comes down to what you’re testing.

By: David Nusinow

David Nusinow — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:21:50 +0000

99% of our citizens aren’t running for Vice President of the United States of America. They don’t necessarily need to know the major aspects of our foreign policy any more than they need to know what SQL is. But if you’re in that 1% who is applying for the appropriate job, then you’d better damn well be qualified for it. Knowing about the Bush Doctrine is not a minor triviality, it’s a major policy shift for this country over the last several years and it’s the justification behind the Iraq invasion. Not only not being able to recite it, but apparently being unaware of its existence is the equivalent of not knowing SQL when applying for a DBA job.

By: Dave Neary

Dave Neary — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:20:29 +0000

@Emmanuele: I *absolutely* hold my elected officials to a higher standard than myself – I want my politicians to be great thinkers, to have unimpeachable morals (in the non-religious sense), I want them to have a sense of what is right and just and I want them, above all, to choose wisely among difficult choices, trusting in that judgement of what is right and just. I want them to be great diplomats, and negotiators, finding win-win resolutions to seemingly unsolvable problems. I want a quick learner, who can approach an unfamiliar situation and acquaint himself with the salient facts and history quickly, and see clearly in muddy waters.

Nowhere in all of those things do I rank a photographic memory or an insatiable thirst for trivia. That said, I know that there are certain things which are required learning. You won’t be able to understand the intricacies of the conflict in Northern Ireland if you see the world in black and white and don’t appreciate the history & feeling involved.

@Meneer: On that *specific* question, I want to know Palin’s opinion on the *content* of the Bush Doctrine (which, by the way, I didn’t know was called that until *after* I saw that interview), not what it’s bloody well called.

Her reply on that, by the way, was “if we’re in immediate danger of course we should defend ourselves”, which is actually the pre-”Bush doctrine” position. Bush modified this by saying that if he waited until the danger was imminent, he’d have waited too long.

By: LinkTiger

LinkTiger — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:07:30 +0000

I’m afraid I have to disagree. While the “just Google it” idea has had its day, I don’t buy it. In order to *learn,* one must already *know.* When a person learns a new piece of information, they must connect it to what they already know in order to file it correctly and make a good decision. When Ms. Palin is faced with a new, vital piece of information about Eastern European politics, instead of thinking about how this relates to the socioeconomic conditions left by Putin’s policies, she’ll be thinking of her backyard. That’s less than ideal.

By: Meneer R

Meneer R — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:56:04 +0000

Funny how you throw in useless trivia with something as GROUND FUCKING BREAKING as the Bush doctrine.

Have you been hit with a stick?

The BUSH doctrine means that nowadays the USA will start a war against somebody, just because they MIGHT be dangerous.

If WWIII happens, its because of the Bush doctrine.

It’s the worst and most dangerous decision Bush ever made. And it is even more dangerous that Europe, Russia and China haven’t bombed the crap out of America in return.

By not doing that, we made it clear that we are back in imperialistic times.

>I find it amusing that we hold our politicians to standards that 99% of our citizens could not meet

If 99% of the people would meet accept same criteria, what makes this person MORE qualified?

More importantly, what if 1% (3 million individuals in the USA) .. likely amoungst the highest educated folks .. wouldn’t they by default make better candidates?

Or do you think Al Bundy, Joe Sixpack .. would be capable of leading even a small country .. or even a company.. NO THEY WOULD NOT.

>“What is the difference between an inner join and an outer join?”

Better example: “What is the purpose of a DMBS?” .. or .. “In what context do you use SQL?”

And then idiot you would come up, and be like “Why would anyone in the field of IT need to know what a DBMS is or what SQL is.. ”

Not to mention that these people are not just going to do some silly IT job. To compare: they are designing the architecture of a new operating system. They need to know what the internet is, they need to know what ACPI is .. they need to know what a kernel is, and what the difference between userland and kernelland, etc.

In what line of work do you have any experience, where any idiot can and should be made CEO?

I’m just shocked. I don’t even live in the USA. I know what the fuck the bush doctrine is.

All i can think is that you are trying to find some dumbass rethoric excuse to vote for the guy you want to vote for, eventhough the last remaining 3 braincells that are still functioning are telling you it might not be smart to fuck the rest of the world over AGAIN by voting another retart president.

By: Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay

Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:44:29 +0000

I would not want to comment on the politics part of the post, however, the interview question seems intriguing. I haven’t seen or heard of companies attempting to have a set of ‘big picture’ problems which demand that the candidate piece together fundamental aspects (or, even first principle aspects) to arrive at a reasonably ’safe’ solution. The idea would be to figure out what guess work goes into estimating the win situation.

Not many do. And, I daresay that is because the companies are getting lazier.

By: Emmanuel

Emmanuel — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:42:51 +0000

“Who is the prime minister of Spain?”

J.L. Zapatero

“How many soldiers in an army brigade, and an army battalion?”,

Too many.

“What is the Bush Doctrine?”

Bush doctrine ? There isn’t any Bush doctrine…

“How many chucks would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?”

Many, none could stop it.

By: John Stowers

John Stowers — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:54:21 +0000

I disagree, I’m with Jon Stewart — I want an (American) president who is embarrassingly superior to me. Seriously.

Comparing the Bush doctrine to the number of soldiers in an army brigade is hardly sensible either.

By: .fosk.

.fosk. — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:33:04 +0000

Well, i think knowing how’s the prime minister of Spain is a “must” for a future President of the USA…

And also knowing that Spain is in Europe!!

Am i asking so much?

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:22:43 +0000

Knowing facts is not a measure for intelligence – and I hate these TV shows where people are considered intelligent if they know how many legs some bug have.
But, and this is a big but – there should be balance between inner knowledge, which gives the person a better understanding of the problem and the facts, which can be stored externally – wikipedia, google, notepad ot whatever. So in your logic there is no point of knowing the the Earth is round or even better example – I can check for 10 seconds what variable mean – why should I botter to know it when I am going to write a program code. Just think about knowing syntax of program language – you have helps and dev documents for every function and keyowrd, but you still need to have some of these facts in your mind to be able to write adequate programs in reasonable amount of time. But of course the main reason you wrote this is because someone told you something negative about Palin’s lack of knoledge about Bush doctrine and because obviosly you are McCain supporter you felt you have to protect your candidate of choice. So to answer your unasked question – if you are candidate for vice president, you HAVE to know what the main political idealogy of your party is – and preemptive war is really something major, not minor knowledge.