"Hindsight is not an argument."
GW
One of the most tiresome things you encounter on the FPL forums (and there are a lot...) is people who gloat about the results of ONE GAMEWEEK and purport that they disprove a point you've made in favour of or against a certain player or team. Of course, one result never proves anything: most of the time, we're attempting to make general predictions about the likeliest outcomes over a long run of games, or even over the whole of the remainder of the season... not just for the coming weekend.
But even if we are making a prediction for the short-term, one that might be interpreted as applying solely or mainly to the upcoming gameweek,.... being 'wrong' still indicates nothing about the validity of the point made.
Everybody is going to be 'wrong' in their predictions most of the time; it's impossible to foresee future outcomes - particularly in a sport with so many 'moving parts', and so much sheer randomness, as football.
What matters is having the courage to attempt a prediction, and the insight to produce a persuasive rationale for it. What susbequently happens is in the hands of Fate - it really has no bearing on whether you made a good point or not.
Attempts to predict outcomes before they happen can be valuable to consider, even when they don't turn out to be correct. Crowing arguments that "I knew that was going to happen...." are worthless. [a) You didn't know in advance, you couldn't possibly have done. b) Even if that was your - as it happens, lucky - guess, you gave no reason for it.]
Jackasses like this undermine my faith in Humanity sometimes....
No comments:
Post a Comment
All viewpoints are welcome. But please have something useful and relevant to say, give clear reasons for your opinion, and try to use reasonably full and correct sentence structure. [Anything else will be deleted!]