25 September 2017
Generalizing is profitable for bookies, but it can lead individuals astray. Still, it often has merit.
The Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness is a list of ten exemplars from Talc to Diamond.
The Ali Scale of Testostitude has only six exemplars, taken from around the armed services. These are averages, your mileage may vary.
Second from the bottom is (two) the Air Force, my own Cowards’ Corps, with the shortest (at six weeks, and probably easiest) Basic Training program. Enlistees could take comfort from the knowledge that they served in the branch where the OFFICERS did the fighting. No marchin’ in the mud for us, and no gettin’ shot down neither.
Moving up the ranks, so to speak, we have (three) the Navy (eight weeks Basic), (four) the Army (nine weeks), and (five) the Marines (with twelve demanding weeks of grueling slogging miserable Basic drill drill drill).
For the seriously majorly ballsy, we have our Diamond Echelon (six), draft dodgers. I signed up, and I’m still glad I did, but I respect draft dodgers more than any other group in society. The Marines only have to face the enemy. Draft dodgers are up against their own government, their colleagues, their families, sometimes their whole country.
And that’s why Ali is The Greatest.
(no disrespect intended to Alice Kramden)
Oh! And (one) the Bottom of the Scale? That delicate tender Talc of Testostitude? The generally least ballsy members of society? NonVets and nonGIs who wear camo-print leisurewear or put bumper stickers on their cars virtue signaling their “support for the troops.” It shows all the conviction and ethical fortitude as coming out against cancer or chickenpox.
update 200911: Peculiar metrics appear and raise questions. What are our natural tolerances? Things can be “too clever by half,” or so I’ve heard. But is it okeh if it’s just a little too clever, by, say, a third? Can they be insufficiently clever by a third, or is that acceptable? The apparent social range seems to run from insufficiently clever by a quarter to about too clever by a third. This would embrace the mid-range norms, mainstream “midwits,” and the trainably slow, but still exclude the most egregious deviants: the annoyingly uber snarky, and hopeless retards like myself.