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<title><![CDATA[Comments for entry "The Power of Ridiculous Reasons" at Dilbert.com Blog]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/262]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Regular thoughts and updates from Dilbert.com]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from gargamel9]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26855]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;Now we are free and we're much better&quot;...classic line there..Im sure everyone is much better now after thousands of guys quit putting bombs and killing civilians and resume their buying and sports tv viewing existence while new local leaders replace the old leaders and all stays at home...or we could blame the &quot;bad times&quot; on the &quot;ruthless opressors&quot;...]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from kanon]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26840]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[This is the book Scott is talking about:
http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Business-Essentials/dp/006124189X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
He recommended this book in his blog a year or two ago. I bought it and it was a fascinated read.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Carpe Geekem]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26575]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I'd like to join the chorus asking for which book called &quot;Influence&quot; you recommend.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from joester]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26570]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I disagree with your reasoning because it is antithetical to the grand tradition of Western Civilization, threatens the existing social order, and is fattening.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Aardwizz]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26408]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Scott:

The problem with adding your BECAUSE rule is that it goes head-to-head with the opposition's &quot;Because&quot; rule:

&quot;We want that land.....
  .... BECAUSE it's our ancestral homeland&quot;  (nevermind the ancestors of the current occupants)
   ... BECAUSE the occupiies are evil&quot; (nevermind that we blow up their women and children every chance we get)
   ... BECAUSE God is on our side (nevermind about their god, or that God hasn't spoken directly to anyone in an obvious way for centuries)

The magic of BECAUSE is that allows people to do what they already want to do.  Your 50 year rule assumes that the group already wants to cede the land, but is stuck in a &quot;...BECAUSE it's what we do&quot; mindset.  I think that assumption is flawed.  If the leaders want something, they'll figure out a culture-specific BECAUSE that thier people will follow.

Nice try.  No dice.
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Charlemagne920]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26326]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Your arbitrary 50-year plan is just silly.  It should be 47 years because 47 is a Prime number and therefore more mathematically significant.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Zuluwarrior]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26318]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Rambis,

I want some of your yummy french fries!!!]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMPDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from wkwillis]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26314]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[SNARK ON

I favor the one hundred and fifty year rule because that's how longer than we've had California and shorter than we've had Alaska.

SNARK OFF

Why not one hundred? It moves the Israeli thing off the table and (with America bankrupt and the Arabs/ Palestinian remittances about to go into negative cash flow, Israel is going to lose it's financial base next year anyway and reform) covers most other situations. Might start up trouble over the next few years over things like southern Armenia, etc, but presumably the Armenians either have nukes, or they won't by 2015.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from loki16]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26283]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;Realistically, if a country is controlled for 50 years, it's probably going to stay controlled.&quot;

The Moors occupied Spain (and a big part of France as far north as Poitiers, not so far from Paris) for some 700 years before they were turfed out. They say there are Moroccan families who still hold front door keys to palaces in southern Spain, thinking that sooner or later or much later they'll get them back again.

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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from odson]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26274]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Excellent uncle Scott. It's been a while since you made the monkeys practice their steps like this.
What's funny is that even when they KNOW they're getting their strings pulled, they still go off, as in...

Unfortunately for this latest Monkey Dance routine, your simple solution ignores several realities......

]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from rambis]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26272]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I'd be very curious to see results from these 'because'  studies done on children or teens. I wonder when this effect kicks in.  After reading this yesterday, I decided to experiment at home with my 6 year old son. When he asked why he couldn't stay up another ten minutes, I said, &quot;Because french fries are yummy.&quot;  It didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from iloveyouscott]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26268]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Scott,
This is the most absurd offensive thing you have ever come out with. I am Irish. We were ruled by the British for 800 years from the middle of the twelfth centuary to 1937 when we were finally declared a free state. We fought for 800 years. We didnt give up after 50. We fought for the right to have our own culture and our own autonomy. We fought wars and we fought politically in the Bristish Parliment.

Today we are free and Ireland is much better for it.

Your rule may prevent a few deaths but it would give victory to those who abuse power. That is unacceptable in a modern society.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from gargamel9]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26267]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Hi there scott...
Its important to point out that any people that live in any country are today settled there because their ancestral tribe were more powerful than the other tribe that was previously living there and thus either they expelled those guys, killed them or assimilated them in their culture. 

It is widely accepted that Nations were born during the peace of westfalia and nation borders then were established according to frontiers won by blood and fire. But calling a place a nation doesnt make it so. Many countries in Africa today are called nations but in reality there is no nation state there to be found. So they are still engaged in tribal fights as we were in Europe prior to the creation of nations. 

After WWI, the idea came from president Wilson that it was legitimate for any group based on ethnic idiomatic and or religious reasons to demand its independence from their â€œoppressorsâ€ being that usually the nation state in which they lived. A revolutionary idea then that we today take for granted, and that opened a lot of doors that IMHO shouldnt have been opened, and that has been producing all those so called  ethnic conflicts, which in reality is the inability of different peoples to leave in the same place, with the usual result that either the minority is displaced to places with poorer agricultural production capacity, or systematically exterminated. Dead people dont cause no problems. 

WWII was a direct cause of that policy of recognizing those rights to minorities (with the demands from Germany to incorporate regions based on German minorities that lived there).Originally this was applied only to the defeated after WWI while the victors could retain their former empires and even expand them, but the policy would backfire soon as more and more people demanded independence from their European oppressors, and that derived in a lot of failed nation states emerging from colonial domination allowed to do so by demoralised and morally broke Europeans, with the complacency (and sometimes even help) of the two powerful blocks who were bidding to create their own empires. 

Today when the importance of technology fails as wars have long ago ceased to be about pitched battles, the new critical factor is birth rate. Being a majority gives you recognition, as we see time and time again with terrorist groups(so called when they are a minority) becoming national armies or even political parties when they succeed and represent a majority of people. 
Its what will happen in shri lanka with all those ethnic Indian guys having babies at one of the worlds highest rates, they will win in the end as long as their enemies dont resort to the usual traditional measure that its called ethnic cleansing on tv, but having the support of India when they are on elections I wouldnt go very far or at least not on tv. 

Union between peoples of different race, religion, language etc..in failed nation states that are poor is just wishful thinking, worth only for UN burocrats to put some 1 week long peace agreement accord signed on their Cv..

Just my two cents..
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from god save England]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26266]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[TJF, just to clarify your point, &quot;the british &quot; were not opresses of Hong Kong, it was on loan to us for 99 years, and actually falls neatly into Scotts, theory, as we controled it for x time, it was considered ours and we dutifully handed it back to the chinese. There was no war and no bloodshed... there are more arguments about toys in a playground... 

Adorita, I have to say that you are fantasticaly correct, as im a father to be (9 weeks to go) my better half does little but say &quot;because im pregnant&quot; when reasoning for anything. Alot of it is fair, but the &quot;can i have 10% off because im pregnant&quot; (it worked) was my favourite abuse of a &quot;because&quot; 

to add my own thoughts, people where i work now are organising meetings &quot;because&quot; yada yada yada. I have now been to a meeting to organise a commitee to organise meetings.... erm... because we are idiots i think... We appear to be pre programed to here &quot;because&quot; and say &quot;yes&quot;!!]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Dalebert7]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26265]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Scott,

I hate to point out the obvious, but both of your examples involved people accepting silly reasons to do what they really wanted to do in the first place (i.e. - Let you pay the check or just start eating. Even the people without food were probably just as uncomfortable making the others wait.)

The problem is that people will give or accept any reason to do what they really want to do anyway. Remember, we (the U.S.) had to take the whole country because it was our &quot;Manifest Destiny&quot;. I still don't know what that means, but it sounded like a good reason at the time.

Of course, some of the examples people give here work because of people's own experience. For example, people will accept the excuse that your company has ridiculous rules because they know their own company has ridiculous rules.

Your 50-year rule won't cancel out all the other ridiculous reasons people have for doing the things they want to do. The opposition will just counter it with another ridiculous rule (after 50 years, we get the right to revolt again - or something like that).]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Toe_Jam_Football]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26259]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I can think of a few exceptions:

1. The American Indians and us. (We considered the land &quot;ours&quot; for more than 50 years before we started on a widespread campaign of death and destruction, and vice versa.)

2. The American colonies (not to mention any other colony in the world [India, Hong Kong, etc.]) and the oppressors, the British.

3. Israel v. Palestine.  5,000 years ago Israelites moved into Palestine and said that God told them to kill everyone so they could have it.  I think that is something like 100 times the time period you gave for continued resistance.

I can't believe no one else offered these really, really, really obvious exceptions (I only say they're obvious because I was able to think of them quickly without doing any research, and I'm an idiot.).

TJF]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from goosemonster]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26250]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[So if the US just hanges on in Afganistan / Iraq for another 44 or so years then the Taliban / Al Qieda (sp) will just have to give up?
Sounds like a plan.
Why not revert to the old British way of simply planting a flag. If you manage to keep your flag flying over a country it belongs to you. If the locals can pull it down you have to leave. But rather than going about it in the normal bombs and guns way everything goes on-line is a big Call Of Duty type game, but the teams would be biased to reflect the firepower of the competing sides.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from KevinKunreuther]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26241]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[A ridiculously honorable and a ridiculously naive solution. Ridiculous rules are made to be ridiculously broken by ridiculous humans. You're operating on the reasoning of someone steeped in Western/European culture. 99% of Western nations would grumble and oblige. People in Middle East, Africa and Asia would laugh contemptuously at such a solution. And in Argentina, the government there are once again trying to make a play for a slice of Antarctica (and the Falkland Islands) by using reasoning of the continental shelf.

The power of ridiculous reasons does work in social situations, and sometimes even between corporations but between governments over land, water, resources? Please ...
Treaties, pacts, armistices, etc., are filled with silly and ridiculous stipulations that are soon ignored, countermanded and overturned. At best, the killing of innocents would have been staved off for a short time.

There must an all encompassing solution that resonates and transcends the boundaries of all human cultures. 

I have a great solution for the problem of Israel. People have been slaughtering themselves over a piece of real estate the size of New Jersey for twelve thousand years, the last eight thousand have been particularly violent and bloody. Since no one can agree who has right to live there, kick everyone out and kill anyone who tries to enter and settle there. Give the land back to God and Nature. Resettle former inhabitants elsewhere in territories far far far away from each other so they can't antagonize each other. Large swaths of Alaska, Texas, Montana, British Columbia, Yukon, Saskatchewan and the Dakotas would be ideal for carving out reservations for this new diaspora. Nobody wants 'em in Europe, Africa, Australia or Asia.

Ridiculous and brilliant.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from drazen]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26240]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Your theory doesn't work for me, Scott. I tend to treat people who invoke ridiculous rules as ridiculous people. For a bill, the rule to offer to pay is ridiculous, except maybe in the context of dating early on (if you invited someone out in a romantic sense, it's only polite to pick up the tab). For serving food, it's ridiculous to have to wait in the first place (doubly so if you intend to pay, I sure would not want to pay for a cold, inferior meal). 

As for countries, centralization under something like the 50-year rule is a horrible idea, and the notion that a few powerful cabals of elites should control all the land, resources, and lifestyles on earth is what is  truly ridiculous and antiquated. I propose my own arbitrary rule, any three or more people owning at least 1 acre of land are allowed to secede and form their own country, and may NOT be stopped by any government entity. 

Just think of all the jobs we'd create for the cartographers alone! 


&gt; Scott replied to one poster: &quot;I would argue that people want to be seen as the person paying.&quot; 

Depends on the situation. Maybe if you're taking someone out for their birthday. In a group, I'd always advocate for each person paying for their part of the meal. Although, if you really feel so strongly that you want to be seen as subsidizing my prime rib, what are you doing for dinner this Friday? ;)
]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from jeszjesz]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/26237]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I have a better rule. Any leader who proposes invading another country will be killed by a UN hit squad. Problem solved, and no need for further rules, 50-year or otherwise.]]></description>
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