Friday, 26 March 2010

Fact or fiction?

You hear it all the time. That journo didn't stick to the facts; that blogger is untrustworthy, he's making up stories. The problem with cyberspace is it's full of interpretation not facts facts and more facts.

As if facts existed on a golden prairie of sweetness protected by the omnipotent Jolly Green Gradgrind. Our Man would just like to point out It's a facts world but it wouldn't be nothin without an opinion or a sirl*.

Any academic fuckwit can make some bollocks argument backed by citations, stats and snotty asides from dead authorities. Facts are not sacred, they are 10 a penny. It's the insight that counts.

And that's one reason why a well-written story is more truthful than a mountain of fact-checked pages of a factual book based on a bollocks premise. And here's Our Man's evidence. A fictional review of a factual book. It's up to you, but which is more truthful?

Secret handshake to Shinpuren for the link and Nassim whatsit whose book Black Swan has got Our Man thinking and all muddled up.

(* That doesn't work. Ed.)

6 comments:

sigma1 said...

Its the only book that got me thinking in 3 years as a bureaucrat - and made me realise the error of my technocratic ways :-). Actually I think it was the only book I read in that time.

D said...

Have not read The Black Swan, but did read his earlier book: Fooled by Randomness. Just another grain of sand in the desert of evidence that we are all full of it.

Our Man in Abiko said...

He's one smart cookie that Black Swan fella. And funny too. Planning to fictionalise his wit and wisdom in the form of a Shinto priest. Bet he'd love that.

Naughty Ferret said...

Every so often I discover something new (book, album, significant other), and I wonder at how bland life seemed before that discovery. That Amazon review of The Secret is one of those things. Thank you, Our Man.

Durf said...

IMO some of the finest writing to be obtained via the Amazon website comes in the form of Henry Raddick's reviews. Shame he's been so quiet for the last seven years.

Our Man in Abiko said...

It's links from folk like yourself @Durf that make Our Man so pleased the world of work is so turgid and mind numbing.
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