The many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXI

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Does anyone know of an historic person famed for taking the credit for others work? Our new boss has a PhD and takes credit for all our work. I would like to respond to him using the historic example.
 
Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla had a long-running dispute and it is alleged that Alexander Graham Bell rushed to patent the telephone before someone who'd actually invented the first telephone.
 
Watson and Crick got a Nobel Prize for work on DNA that ignored the fact that Rosalind Franklin generated the data that they used.
 
Does anyone know of an historic person famed for taking the credit for others work? Our new boss has a PhD and takes credit for all our work. I would like to respond to him using the historic example.
Alkibiades.

"In the Peloponnesian War Thrasyboulos accomplished many victories without Alkibiades; the latter accomplished nothing without the former, yet he, by some gift of his nature, gained the credit for everything."
-Cornelius Nepos
 
Maybe it's just me, but a lot of politicians (at least the American ones) have law degrees. Any particular reason for this?
 
So they can more easily take advantage of it ;)
 
Maybe it's just me, but a lot of politicians (at least the American ones) have law degrees. Any particular reason for this?

What do you call a lawyer who has gone bad?

Mr. Senator.
 
Maybe it's just me, but a lot of politicians (at least the American ones) have law degrees. Any particular reason for this?


People who plan to later pursue a political career usually start with the law career because it is a good foot in the door move. They make the right contacts, understand how the legal process works, frequently have a background in political science or history, and tend to have a fair amount of contact with government officials.
 
Furthermore, most of the skills of winning a case in court translate easily to convincing people that you are a good candidate to hold office, as well as performing well in debates once elected. This is nothing new; Cicero made his name as a lawyer and became one of the - if not the - most influential politicians* of the Late Republic.

* I use the term cautiously, with the deliberate intent of excluding extremely powerful men who were fundamentally soldiers rather than politicians: Pompey, Caesar, Anthony and Augustus, chiefly.
 
Additionally, what else is there really to focus on in college? If you know you want to be a politician, law degree sounds much better than a medical or engineering degree. There's not exactly any option to major in manipulating people to do what you want besides a law degree.
 
People who plan to later pursue a political career usually start with the law career because it is a good foot in the door move. They make the right contacts, understand how the legal process works, frequently have a background in political science or history, and tend to have a fair amount of contact with government officials.

They're political science, history, English, liberal arts, drama, creative writing etc...majors who didn't know what else to do with their degree, and couldn't find a job so they want to law school and business school because that's where people with delusions of grandeur who don't take math or hard science go.

You can make contacts other ways. Law school isn't even a particularly effective way at making contacts, (go to business school for that), nor does it teach you anything particularly useful that you can use in your actual career (that's what legal internships are for).

They went because they didn't know what else to do with their lives. And they hated it. That's why they stopped being lawyers and became politicians.

But maybe I'm projecting.

Furthermore, most of the skills of winning a case in court translate easily to convincing people that you are a good candidate to hold office, as well as performing well in debates once elected. This is nothing new; Cicero made his name as a lawyer and became one of the - if not the - most influential politicians* of the Late Republic.

* I use the term cautiously, with the deliberate intent of excluding extremely powerful men who were fundamentally soldiers rather than politicians: Pompey, Caesar, Anthony and Augustus, chiefly.

Law school doesn't teach you how to win in court. It doesn't even teach you public speaking. I've spoken publicly once. I can't make an oral argument to save my life.
 
Law school doesn't teach you how to win in court. It doesn't even teach you public speaking. I've spoken publicly once. I can't make an oral argument to save my life.

It serves a useful purpose only inasfar as it advantages current lawyers by presenting an effective and costly hurdle to being able to take the bar exam. An exam for which law school does not effectively increase the rate at which people are able to pass it.
 
It serves a useful purpose only inasfar as it advantages current lawyers by presenting an effective and costly hurdle to being able to take the bar exam. An exam for which law school does not effectively increase the rate at which people are able to pass it.

The best part is that they don't even prepare you for the bar exam. You have to take course with BarBri or Kaplan which can cost upwards of a thousand dollars. Money making scam man. Money making scam. If the Bar Association had any scruples it would shut down over half the law schools in the country. By my reckoning at least 100-150 schools should be shut down. All tier 4, 3, without exception unless they're the state school and most tier 2s and several T1s. And stop graduating 40,000 lawyers every year or however many. Go back to the old Harvard ways and fail 1/3 of the class.

But that cuts into profit margins doesn't it.
 
What do you mean? You could put clear packing tape over it. Or some sort of a book cover.

I'm just trying to prevent the corners of my books from bending and fraying, I hadn't considered packing tape, but that should work.
 
How long-running does something need to be before it's no longer a fad?
 
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