Fill In The Gap

It's perfectly normal for people to have information gaps in their lives. I firmly believe there are legitimate reasons for some people to not know about certain subject matters and that's just fine. Honestly, unless you are a history major or studying to be on a game show, why would you need to retain details concerning a battle from nearly one thousand years ago? The answer is that you wouldn't. People have enough on their minds without retaining useless facts. As long as you know about the things that come in to play in your everyday life than you will be just fine. Sure, it would be better for society as a whole if we all knew a lot of information about a lot of diverse subjects, but that is hardly realistic. I think we can do just fine with people only knowing about a specific topic, so long as they know it cold. That's why you are never going to see me complain about people not knowing about stuff only I care about. However, there are two kinds of people associated with information gaps that I can not stand.

The first are the people who want to make fun of other people for their gaps. "What do you mean you don't know who fought in the battle of Hastings?" they will say in that so-condescending-the-police-would-probably-not-arrest-you-for-assault-if-you-punched-them-and-the-cops-heard-it tone. Actually, I don't know much about it because it turns out that doesn't up too often in normal life. I think the reason this annoys me so much is because you know those condescending jerks have their gaps just like everyone else, but you don't see the rest of us being dicks about it to them. It's common courtesy. I would love to ask some of these people if they could do something outside their comfort zone, but for some reason no one ever calls them on it. I would probably wet myself laughing if I ever saw some history buff trying to belittle another person for not being able to name the Presidents and their Vice Presidents in order, only to be asked to build a cabinet from IKEA without ending up with spare parts. Let's see how useful your memorization skills are in that situation.

But, the people who annoy me even more are the people who are actually proud of their gaps when they really shouldn't be. "Oh, I don't know anything about that kind of stuff!" they tell you gleefully. Well, occasionally additional responsibilities are added to people's lives and it turns out it's suddenly your job to know about this kind of thing, so having that gap is actually really bad. In sports the two most famous examples of people who are proud of their lack of knowledge about certain subjects are Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan. When "Moneyball" first came out and was a best seller, people thought it was going to change the way baseball teams were put together. Well, old-schoolers like McCarver were having none of it, saying baseball was just fine the way it was and they didn't need Billy Beane's book. While he might not agree with what was in the book, McCarver should have at least known the book was written by Michael Lewis and not Billy Beane. Of course, he couldn't even bother to know that because he didn't need to read the book to know it was stupid. And when Bill James released his book about using modern statistics to redefine how baseball teams were managed, Joe Morgan slammed the book while proudly saying he would never read it. That's alright, Joe, it's just your job to be up on this kind of thing. Why should you be expected to do preparation work, especially when it involves reading, something only the nerds do? (There is a reason everyone was thrilled when Morgan was fired from Sunday Night Baseball by ESPN.)

I couldn't help but think about those two morons last night as I watched this clip from The Daily Show. In it Congressmen are discussing SOPA and laughing about how much they really don't know about technology. Yeah, well, you're the people in charge of passing stuff like this, so maybe it's time you sat down and read a book. Also, they keep saying how they need to hold a hearing to bring in the "nerds" to explain it to them. As Jon Stewart quickly points out, in this case the word these people should be using is "experts". You can't be ignorant of a topic and ask for help while simultaneously making fun of the very people you are calling to help you. Doesn't work like that. The fact that these are the people who were in charge of drawing up a bill like SOPA should be reason enough to kill it, but I doubt it. I'm left to wonder just how such people ended up on such an important position to begin with. If anyone could tell me I would appreciate it. I promise I won't call you a nerd for knowing the answer.