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Thread: Reason TV: State Licensure for Training

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    Now when someone asks me why I squat below parallel I can tell them it's for dramatic effect.

    Licensure schemes are almost always about protecting someone's market. The issue of public safety is a cover. That's why it's industry groups pushing this and not public interest groups. Doctors lobbied to license doctors, Lawyers lobbied to license lawyers, etc.

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    Rip:

    Thanks so much for this. I have been an advocate of both Reason and Starting Strength for quite some time now, and it's nice to see them come together.

    As you might imagine, I agree with your stance on licensing for fitness professionals, and I think it's great you are speaking out against it. But what I think is even more valuable is Starting Strength's wealth of easily accessible and easily digestible information, combined with the organization's willingness to point out the flaws in government-recommended exercise and nutrition -- because anyone with any modicum of common sense, intelligence, and intellectual curiosity will be able to see pretty quickly how ridiculous and ineffectual the government's suggestions are. The next logical step from that is to realize that, if the government can be this wrong on one thing, surely it can be just as wrong on others, ergo the citizenry shouldn't just accept its guidelines as absolute, should make an effort to learn for themselves, etc, etc, and bringing more people to that realization is unequivocally a good thing, with positive ramifications well beyond the health and fitness industry.

    So, in short, thank you again for all you and your organization do.

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    Quote Originally Posted by dmgetz View Post
    Rip:

    Thanks so much for this. I have been an advocate of both Reason and Starting Strength for quite some time now, and it's nice to see them come together.
    Same.

    Quote Originally Posted by dmgetz
    because anyone with any modicum of common sense, intelligence, and intellectual curiosity will be able to see pretty quickly how ridiculous and ineffectual the government's suggestions are. The next logical step from that is to realize that, if the government can be this wrong on one thing, surely it can be just as wrong on others, ergo the citizenry shouldn't just accept its guidelines as absolute, should make an effort to learn for themselves, etc, etc, and bringing more people to that realization is unequivocally a good thing, with positive ramifications well beyond the health and fitness industry.
    This is so painfully obvious, but the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect is very strong.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Wolf View Post
    This is so painfully obvious, but the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect is very strong.
    The worst part in this is that you can't logically conclude that because someone/something was wrong once, they'll be wrong always. Yet this phenomenon suggests that they've been wrong at least once. So you're stuck in between the two modes of credulity, in constant doubt, really, and can never be sure what you're reading is either true or false. You miss both what is completely true as you now lack the basis to believe it and you miss the false if you have no basis to disbelieve it. And a doubtful person is hardly mobilised to act up when needed, so more than not being in the know, it's effectively a state of paralysis.

    And ain't no squats gon fix that mobility issue, no, siree

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    Yup, Scaldy. I think you got this, but I agreed so wholeheartedly with dmgetz because he wrote:

    Quote Originally Posted by dmgetz
    surely it can be just as wrong on others, ergo the citizenry shouldn't just accept its guidelines as absolute, should make an effort to learn for themselves
    as opposed to

    Quote Originally Posted by NOTdmgetz
    sure it is just as wrong on others, ergo the citizenry should discard its guidelines sight unseen.
    It's not an a priori type of truth that government recommendations are automatically wrong. Public Choice Theory tells us why they will tend to be wrong or to the advantage of a special interest group but the detriment of the larger public. "Tend to be" doesn't mean always and automatically, however.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Scaldrew View Post
    The worst part in this is that you can't logically conclude that because someone/something was wrong once, they'll be wrong always. Yet this phenomenon suggests that they've been wrong at least once. So you're stuck in between the two modes of credulity, in constant doubt, really, and can never be sure what you're reading is either true or false. You miss both what is completely true as you now lack the basis to believe it and you miss the false if you have no basis to disbelieve it. And a doubtful person is hardly mobilised to act up when needed, so more than not being in the know, it's effectively a state of paralysis.

    And ain't no squats gon fix that mobility issue, no, siree
    It's almost as if there's this crisis of competence that permeates every aspect of society and infects every field of endeavor...or something...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Wolf View Post
    It's not an a priori type of truth that government recommendations are automatically wrong. Public Choice Theory tells us why they will tend to be wrong or to the advantage of a special interest group but the detriment of the larger public. "Tend to be" doesn't mean always and automatically, however.
    Be wrong enough and you lose the status of even being worthy of consideration.

    And skepticism should be the default (the burden of proof is on the one making claims, especially when they are delivered as rules), especially when there is absolutely zero correlation between a bunch of peoples' ability to win what is nothing more than a popularity contest voted on by a largely ill informed group of people.

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    It is hard to disagree with a quote like that, and doing hard things is hard, so I agree.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pluripotent View Post
    It's almost as if there's this crisis of competence that permeates every aspect of society and infects every field of endeavor...or something...
    Your sarcasm almost makes it seem like you, yourself, don't seem to think there is such a crisis. Careful there, Doc. Someone on the Internet might just misinterpret what you have to say.

    As to a crisis of competence, I think it's more the case that incompetent people can just as easily rise to popularity and then those people are all you see. Competent people are working their asses off to stay competent and to do competent things, which takes up most of the hours in the day I presume. I wouldn't know, I'm horribly incompetent. But then incompetent people either care more about getting attention, or have more time to try and get attention, or even both. There's the odd exception to the rule, the competent person who is also privy to a lot of outside attention, but I doubt that every single field on planet E-Arth is corrupted and controlled by incompetent people. This hasn't been my experience, at least, so take that for whatever that might have been worth at one point in time.

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    starting strength coach development program
    Quote Originally Posted by Scaldrew View Post
    The worst part in this is that you can't logically conclude that because someone/something was wrong once, they'll be wrong always. Yet this phenomenon suggests that they've been wrong at least once. So you're stuck in between the two modes of credulity, in constant doubt, really, and can never be sure what you're reading is either true or false. You miss both what is completely true as you now lack the basis to believe it and you miss the false if you have no basis to disbelieve it. And a doubtful person is hardly mobilised to act up when needed, so more than not being in the know, it's effectively a state of paralysis.

    And ain't no squats gon fix that mobility issue, no, siree
    I think you're overthinking it. Them being wrong before shows you can't be sure they won't get it wrong again.

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