[extropy-chat] Professor Being Sued Over Anti-Aging Comments

[Brett Paatsch]

Brent Neal writes:

> (6/21/05 10:24) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>It is only the lack of legal knowledge here that expresses stupidity.
>>As previously stated, class action lawsuits abound in the present day,
>>and 99.999% of class members never set foot inside a court room, so
>>your claim that you'd be spending time in court is ludicrous and is
>>itself a scam...
> 
> 
> So now, instead of spending my time in a courtroom, I suffer for years
> waiting for the lawyers to work out their fees so I can get pennies on
> the dollar in recompensation.
> 
> That's SO much better. Gosh, I've seen the light now! </sarcasm>
> 
> B
> -- 
> Brent Neal
> Geek of all Trades
> http://brentn.freeshell.org
> 
> "Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein

Sorry to interject, well I mean rudeness isn't my object but I'm
willing to risk it, but I think the solution is a practical one. 

You personally don't have to extend you repertoire of generalist
skills to actually become a lawyer but its worth adding the knowledge
that class actions might be a means of getting things done to your 
personal empowerment kit.  If you know a lawyer that you can trust
to give you value then perhaps you can rely on them. But you'd have
to know one that you trust or else you haven't actually empowered
yourself at all and you either have to know the law for yourself or go
forth into life with a massive exposure in your armamentarium. 

Ultimately I think all intelligent people to be successful in a competitive
world do need to know the law reasonably well. Even scientists 
and technologists are well advised to go slum it in the humanities 
occassionally because the humanities or inhumanities will cause them
untold or told amounts of grief if they do not. 

When too many of us are too ignorant of the law there is not enough
substantial public opinion left to uphold it. And civilization regresses
or at best goes sideways perhaps without some of us with it. 

Case in point. The US invasion of Iraq. It was illegal. Public opinion
didn't know enough to care. They left the lawyering to the lawyers and
the politicing to the politicians and they went on about their business
perhaps barracking for whichever side appealed to them without 
checking out the underlying facts. The body count in Iraq of innocent
civilians is probably around 20,000 or so based on a UN estimate
I read about in the Australian. Thats about five times the amount
of 'innocent' bystanders that were killed on September 11. 

>From the standpoint of an observer that is neither Iraqi nor a US
citizen that is not a result that I can think is clear progress. 

But I've digressed way off.

Brett Paatsch