Paul Krugman, New York Times:
One of the defining features of the last 8 years or so has been the way ideas go from crazy stuff that only DFHs believe to stuff everyone knows, without ever going through a stage in which the holders of conventional wisdom acknowledge that they were wrong. Oh, and the people who were right are still considered DFHs; you see, they were right too soon.It looks as if peak oil may be going that way:
Russian oil production has peaked and may never return to current levels, one of the country’s top energy executives has warned, fuelling concerns that the world’s biggest oil producers cannot keep up with rampant Asian demand.
The people who were right are still wrong because they were right too soon. Gosh: where have I heard that before?
Michael Ignatieff, 5 August 2007:
We might test judgment by asking, on the issue of Iraq, who best anticipated how events turned out. But many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the invasion because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong.
(Yes, there's a qualifying paragraph that follows, but it is so drenched in self-defensive imperialist snobbery that I won't torment us all with that further analysis today.)
Shorter Iggy: The fact that I was wrong and you were right proves that my judgement is superior to yours. This intellectualizing is far too complex for you simple folk to understand.
Is that the general idea?
I may be too inferior to confirm, pogge.
It's always a good idea to make Iggy shorter, though, in my view.
At least Iggy didn't call us all "bitter". He must be a regular guy.
I did come across some other good contenders for QOTD. What do you think of this, eg:
And there are lots more where that came from, at the History News Network. Among historians, Bush is rated a failure by 98.2 per cent; 61 per cent think he is the worst.
That's impressive unanimity on the "worst ever", since I've always had the impression historians were a contrary bunch who liked going for different interpretations.
And just think . . . he's not done yet!
Shorter Iggy: The fact that I was wrong and you were right proves that my judgement is superior to yours. This intellectualizing is far too complex for you simple folk to understand.
I think it's more like:
I was wrong for the right reasons and you were right for the wrong reasons, therefore my judgement is superior to yours and you're still a DFH.
Please excuse my ignorance, but what is a DFH?
I just read Krugman's post and clicked through the DFH link. I guess I'm a LAZY DFH ...
Heh. CC, I would have defined DFH for you, except this is a family show and we don't want Josée Verner to take our funding away from us, which she would surely do if Pierre Poilièvre caught us swearing in public.
Anyone else who's wondering, just google DFH.