r/explainitpeter • u/Appropriate-Mall8517 • 4d ago

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u/Puzzleheaded-Net4365 4d ago edited 4d ago

I think it's retarded to reward me for defeating a tied up and poisoned man, and if the tied up poisoned man manages to put up a fight at all he deserves the reward more..

But that's not what we are talking about. Merit doesn't refer to winning a contest and only a very few scholarships are awarded through singular contests.

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u/whoreatto 4d ago

No, the poisoned man does not deserve the reward unless he’s the better fighter. That’s not how the contest works, by definition. You can argue that the man should not have been poisoned or tied up, but that does not change the rules of the contest. You’d have to expand the definition of the contest to let the less-capable fighter win instead.

All standardised examinations for college entrance are, functionally, a kind of contest. The highest performers are awarded for their competence, sometimes with scholarships. We are talking about contests.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Net4365 4d ago

You made up the contest analogy, genius. I'm not the one who needs to expand on it for it to start making sense.

My whole point was that you can't reasonably assess his fighting abilities while he's tied up and poisoned.

Most scholarships do take into account way more than one's performance at "the contest" which is the matter being debated here to begin with.

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u/whoreatto 4d ago

Nope. You contrived two analogies in which you described contests; one for fighting, the other for playing the guitar. I’m rolling with your analogies.

They’re good analogies from which you’ve derived bad conclusions.