Tulsi Gabbard: I’m leaving the Democratic Party

[Dill]

(10-19-2022, 12:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: And yet you still have nothing but your subjective opinion on her intelligence.  I'll reiterate, if you listen to her speak on any subject and then listen to Harris and come to the conclusion that Harris is more intelligent then you're outing your own lack of intelligence and nothing more.  Sure, it's subjective, but sometimes subjectivity becomes obvious.  If I ask who is the more beautiful woman, Margot Robbie or Rhea Perlman, I'm asking for your opinion on a subjective criteria.  But if you pick Perlman I'm going to think you're either trolling, insane, an idiot or some mix of those three. 

Actually that's a claim I'd love to test. As Gabbard slips away from accountability to Dem voters,
I think we'll hear many surprising things from her. Perhaps she'll revisit her opposition to gay marriage, or even
support the big lie, now she is stumping for supporters thereof. At least one reporter has speculated she
might be running mate for the liar in chief, if he avoids jail and declares.

But a Harris/Gabbard comparison won't work without some kind of independent standard.

Right now you seem to think that assessing intelligence is a judgement of taste rather than fact;
and you think (mistakenly) that such judgments can't be demonstrated one way or another--just 
asserted--and that if there is any element of subjectivity then the whole is tainted and useless: just 
"opinion" if deployed by me against Gabbard, but something more concrete and definitive if deployed 
by you against Harris and myself. 

But throughout human evolution, our survival has depended on our ability to distinguish real danger from apparent. 
I don't see anything especially subjective about that criterion as a measure of intelligence. If it's just my opinion
these mushrooms are poisonous, and yours that they are not, that can get sorted quickly.

If Harris condemns Russia for handing out 10 year prison sentences to people who call the Ukraine war a "war,"
and Gabbard sees an approaching parity of censorship in the U.S. because Trump lost a Twitter account  
for violating community standards against threats, that would suggest Gabbard is less able to discern real danger.* 
That's not like picking Robbie over Perlman on aesthetic criteria you think are merely "subjective."

If you are right about the role of subjectivity in judgment and the assessment of intelligence,
then it's hard to see how most institutions could work--schools, the military, businesses, professional
sports--any field in which people have to make accountable judgments assessing others' ability.
SATs, GREs, LSATs--none could do better than a coin flip in assessing ability and predicting success.

Unfortunately, though I am traveling now and will only be online intermittently over the next week. I'll try my best to work up some
comparisons, though, over then next few days. And think of a way to control for political bias.

*Granting it's not merely my "opinion" that Russians are jailed for calling a war a "war."