THE HORSE: How many colours does a rainbow have?
A:3
B:4
C:7
D:10
THE LION: The correct answer is that that is a stupid question. The rainbow colour varies so smoothly that you cannot tell where one color end and another one begins.
In schools, students were tacitly taught that a 'smart' student is the one whose answer tallies with that of the 'teacher'. Later, the 'teacher' is replaced by the 'expert'! Many later spends much of their adult life trying to unlearn this terribly erroneous mindset!
As in numerous cases, we see here that the 'smart' student knows that the correct answer is not even amongst the given choices! But he has to choose one, anyway. He knows that his own 'correct' answer is not relevant. What the teacher thinks is the correct answer is. Take note of this fact carefully. I will latter come back to it.
Before we move to the proper topic, let's do another warm up.
THE HORSE:Which one of the following is the best way of cleaning a house?
A:w
B:x
C:y
D:z
Again we learnt that to find out 'the best', we need someone first to give us a list to choose from! You cannot just go brainstorming for 'the best' from your own list. You must shuffle and check the list prepared. This erroneous lesson remains somewhere at the back of people's minds and is latter employed in electing 'the best leaders' in the so called 'reprsentatory democracy'.
The basic fallacy in the 'representatory democracy' is that if a leader is elected by the majority, then his opinion will reflect the opinions of the majority. Then they go ahead and deny the antecedent: therefore if a leader is not elected by the majority, then his opinion does not reflect the opinion of the majority. The 'representatory democracy' is particularly disastrous in countries where corruption is the norm. The leader's fundamental motive is not to 'represent the electorate' but to find a well paying job and/or other entirely selfish motives. If he needs a 're-election', it can only be because the glutton has not yet 'eaten enough'. If this is the case, then someone figured out that all he needs is to promise the leader the amount of money worth the entire tenure, or even more. Welcome to the world of lobbying! Why bother to struggle for the uncertain 're-election' quest when you can get the same or even more amount of money from a lobbyist with 100% certainty?
Now let us again close examine how the student answers the questions. It is clear that asking questions is not a good way of testing how 'smart' students are! Why? Because at the back of the mind, they know that what is 'correct' from their point of view is not what it counts. Rather, it is what is 'correct' from the point of view of the teacher that which will be rewarded marks! Such is how elected leaders get into a quagmire where trying to choose what is 'the right thing' to do. Worse is that they know that it is realy not the decisions they make that matter. Rather, it is the end results that will matter! So if a politician had promised to increase tariffs from a certain country, he knows very well that at the end of his period, what will count will be how good the economy got, not realy what he did! If he 'fulfilled' his promise, but nevertheless got the country into a mess, he will still be blamed for misleading the electorate and so will get duely punnished by the very electorate! This shows that the claim that 'if a leader is elected, he will do as demanded by the electorate' is fallacious! Then the corresponding denial of the antecedent is fallacious squared!
MARATHON PACE MAKER
If marathon were a race between only two to three people, it would be a mess! They can easily colude not to run to their best! They can wink wink or nudge nudge each other about how it is not necessary to run that fast. Why tire ourselves when only the better between us is all what counts, and not 'the best'? So they will sluggishly run aiming at the least and then only compete seriously in the final sprint! Such is how politicians do when there are only two serious parties in the country! They cooperate throughout their term and only make a serious competition in their final year during the campaign period!
In marathon, the solution is to introduce another marathon runner called 'pace maker'. This marathon runner is seemingly not serious. He runs at a pace that he knows very well that he cannot sustain it. When he sees that the supposedly 'serious' runners are following closely enough, and keeps doing so until he gets too tired, he withdraw from the race altogether. But if he sees that the 'serious' runners are too far behind, then he begins to reduce the pace, thereby resting in the process. He now runs at as a sustainable pace as his fellows, but kilometres away! He goes ahead and finishes the race, taking the gold! This is how the 'serious' colluding runners are punished by the 'non serious' pace maker!
Now I am not sure how to introduce a 'pace maker' political party in the politics such as those of U.S..It has been too certain that either democrat or a republican must win up to the point that they can just agree to rule in turns, perfoming a meanigless, outward show of 'competition' mainly apparent during campaign periods! There should be this seemingly unserious party that seems to make unrealistically fantastic promises, but which can be made realistic mutasis mutandis. It should be campaigning throughout the tenure but tend to widhraw from the 'race'. However when the two seemingly 'serious' political parties gives 'choices' that has no 'correct' answer like in that case of 'rainbow colors', the third party should never waste time but offer the 'correct' answer, getting to be serious and make conversations with their fantastic manifesto mitosis mutandis done during the campaign period!
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