Domain Specific Knowledge in the Land of the Blind

Not to seem like I am picking on blind people, but consider this more of belaboring a point - a point made in the previous post (or next depending on the order in which you are reading these). Let's add another quote to the mix "If you are so smart, why aren't you rich?!" The point of this quote is the same as that of the other, if you have something that others lack, you should be able to use that ability to rise above your fellow man. I bet you thought that those quotes were talking about different things, didn't you? Go on, admit it, no one else will hear you. I'll wait for you... There, don't you feel better now...

Let's look at a doctor in the land of the blind. He would have tools that allowed surgery based on sounds. They would be fine and dandy tools, highly optimized for the senses of the people of that world. Yet, we throw a sighted person into the mix - what would that do? He could see things that the doctor might miss, due to the limited scope of the world. Could this sighted person perform the surgery? No, he wouldn't have the specific knowledge of the surgeon, but he could know things that were beyond what the doctor could ever know. Would the doctor stop what he was doing because of this madman's ravings that something isn't right, something that the doctor can not sense? Probably not.

What am I saying? Even being sighted in the land of the blind, unless he learns knowledge specific to tasks, he would be limited to knowing that things are not right, but not be able to fix them. One has to have the knowledge in order to make changes. He could see the problems, he just couldn't fix them, therefore people probably wouldn't listen to him. He would seem like an endless whiner "Why did you do it that way? It was obviously going to fail because of this thing here? I can't tell you how I know there is something there that you can not hear, but trust me, it failed because of that. I can not tell you how to do it right so as to avoid that thing there - you have to trust me and use your knowledge to avoid the obstacles that I am pointing out to you. Yes, you are the expert in the this field, and yes no one else in this world knows why this always fails, but I am telling you I know why." Sad, isn't it.... my ability to write convincing dialog sounds more like ramblings, but I hope you get the point. What was the point again...

Ah yes, the point. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man would be king. And in a land of idiots, the smart people would be rich. And in the land of blogs, this post is finished.

The Edward