Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Thursday, September 13. 2007

Money for Morons

Remember that famous lady who sued Winnebago�after she put her�RV into cruise control on the highway, then walked to the back for a cup of coffee?

She claimed that Winnebago had not made it sufficiently�clear to her that cruise control couldn't drive the vehicle.

When some people do idiotic things that defy the most elementary common�sense resulting in�"accidents,"�they see dollar signs.�When most people do dumb things, however,�they just blame themselves and leave it at that. What is the difference between those two categories of people?

Read about Slate's�Emily Bazelon at Overlawyered.�How can any manufacturer anticipate every moronic thing a person might do with a product? They would need to hire teams of morons as product testers.

Are such cases really about personal responsibility, or are they just�about a class of greed-intoxicated people who are comfortable with ripping off businesses and their insurors?

Image: A Winnebago of the sort that cannot drive itself down the road. For that, you need the more expensive model.

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Our Essays, Politics, Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 12:09 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

"Are such cases really about personal responsibility, or are they just about a class of greed-intoxicated people who are comfortable with ripping off businesses and their insurors?"

I think they're also about the effects of the narcissistic "self-esteem" message pooped out by our schools and pop culture: "You're a special, wonderful, delightful, important person. So it can't have been your fault."

American teens score lowest on standardized math tests of any industrialized nation, but have the highest opinion of their math skills.

We're becoming a nation of proud fools.
#1 Jeff on 2007-09-13 12:55 (Reply)
A story. We were with some friends and their soon to graduate high school senior. A nice kid, bright, college bound. She was teasingly asked by her uncle, a carpenter who measures things all day long, what was 8 times 12. She fumbled for the answer. At which point her clearly uncomfortable mother smiled brightly and told us all - "She's taking calculus."

Then yesterday afternoon we were driving around looking for a restaurant and my wife called them for directions. She asked if a certain street was parallel to another. The girl on the other end didn't know what "parallel" meant. My wife said to me after the call "I guess they forgot to teach 'parallel' that day."
#2 Skookumchuk (Link) on 2007-09-13 13:12 (Reply)
And in any case, I need that self-driving Winnebago.
#3 Skookumchuk (Link) on 2007-09-13 14:39 (Reply)
Yeah, S: No more DUI's - unless maybe if there is ethanol in the tank.
#3.1 BD on 2007-09-13 15:03 (Reply)
Hmm. I wonder. Say I make me some corn squeezins. Do you not get taxed by the Feds if the customers promise not to drink it?
#3.1.1 Skookumchuk (Link) on 2007-09-13 16:34 (Reply)
Put an individual with eyes that cry in front of a jury, and, since that jury is likely to believe that value is really only a creation of printing presses, paper, and green ink, then of course the crying eyes get the big money. It's the "problem of the commons" skewed by poor business/economiuc education.

If I had the defense case, I'd consider having Winnebago defended not by some educated & accomplished team of lawyers, but by a couple of young assembly-line hands, in their work clothes. They'd say "We're busting our ass to make a living, and we don't appreciate our employer being harmed by some dingbat grifter".

That would be the entire defense, case goes to jury.
#4 buddy larsen on 2007-09-13 15:02 (Reply)
No need to go to law school, Buddy. When I get in a jam, I'll email you right quick.
#4.1 Skookumchuk (Link) on 2007-09-13 16:37 (Reply)
hey, i do slogans, too. my own slogan is "always have a slogan".
#4.1.1 buddy larsen on 2007-09-13 16:48 (Reply)
The Winnebago story never happened. It's an urban legend that apparent just will not die.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

In any event, these kinds of law suits do not happen nearly as often as the press makes us think they do. The number of "frivolous" suits filed compared to the number of total suits filed is an incredibly small number. But hey. people love to complain, and so they will, facts be damned.
#5 Richard on 2007-09-14 16:21 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.