I'll post results next week.
Markets in everything the culture that is Sweden (England)
58 minutes ago
Apr 30, 2011
Apr 27, 2011
Dating Sites and Determinism
Dating sites, it could be said, are where nobody knows anybody and everything is bought and sold on the basis of attributes and illusions.
I imagine that's not far from what Hell would be like.
I don’t know who invented dating sites, but I suspect the inventors have a background in either business or economics because everything about dating sites says transaction. In fairness, relationships do exhibit all the signs of transactionship, but if a relationship is a transaction, then something feels horribly off about treating it as this kind of transaction, where you look through a lineup of profiles, all in the same cookie cutter format, with no profile really any different from any other, making judgments based on some photo she has posted of herself, likely the best one she has, meaning there will be disappointment later, and competing against a bunch of other faceless dudes who are pursuing the same illusion.
You can toss a private message to the abyss, spending a not insignificant amount of time picking your words so as to sound cool and composed and unneedy, trying not to be too long-winded, to make a few observations that show that this is not some generic message and that you are actually interested in her, or, more accurately, some attributes thereof, all while knowing that this message has about an 85% chance of being read and about a 35% chance of being returned. She’ll spend roughly 15 seconds reading the message you so carefully composed, maybe another 5 seconds browsing the highlights of your profile page, make a quick judgment, and then will proceed to never think about you again.
And yet people do this. And I can’t blame them, because every so often it works. They find a great girl or guy who is attributionally sufficient and whose smile brightens their day. Good for them.
But I ask, is this the best way to do it? Is this even a tolerable way to do it?
This is all bound to sound very pretentious and first-world-y and probably at least a touch over-romanticized, but I can’t worry about that, because that’s Me.
It seems to me that the problem might be an absence of the perception of determinism. I'll explain.
We can perceive life as being something we actively create, or we can perceive life as being something that happens to us. In my mind, it’s never one or the other. It’s always both. But, in certain contexts, it’s probably important to lean more toward the side of life being something that happens to us, and a romantic relationship is probably one of those contexts. The reason is because stories are important. Maybe they shouldn’t be – probably they shouldn’t be – but they are. Whether or not there is some god or Universal Force that pushes things in the direction of determinism, when you are choosing to commit, indefinitely, to one person whose attributes, personality, and life history, while technically unique, are indistinguishable from billions of other people at a 1,000 mile view, it’s helpful to think so. It’s helpful to think that this one particular soul was in some strange way meant for you, that the two of you met not because you willed it but because some grander thing or force or being willed it. And only then, once you have that sense of meant-to-be-ness, can you feel safe to explore, up close, what makes her unique and special.
And it’s hard to get that sense when you’re picking from an Internet lineup.
I imagine that's not far from what Hell would be like.
I don’t know who invented dating sites, but I suspect the inventors have a background in either business or economics because everything about dating sites says transaction. In fairness, relationships do exhibit all the signs of transactionship, but if a relationship is a transaction, then something feels horribly off about treating it as this kind of transaction, where you look through a lineup of profiles, all in the same cookie cutter format, with no profile really any different from any other, making judgments based on some photo she has posted of herself, likely the best one she has, meaning there will be disappointment later, and competing against a bunch of other faceless dudes who are pursuing the same illusion.
You can toss a private message to the abyss, spending a not insignificant amount of time picking your words so as to sound cool and composed and unneedy, trying not to be too long-winded, to make a few observations that show that this is not some generic message and that you are actually interested in her, or, more accurately, some attributes thereof, all while knowing that this message has about an 85% chance of being read and about a 35% chance of being returned. She’ll spend roughly 15 seconds reading the message you so carefully composed, maybe another 5 seconds browsing the highlights of your profile page, make a quick judgment, and then will proceed to never think about you again.
And yet people do this. And I can’t blame them, because every so often it works. They find a great girl or guy who is attributionally sufficient and whose smile brightens their day. Good for them.
But I ask, is this the best way to do it? Is this even a tolerable way to do it?
This is all bound to sound very pretentious and first-world-y and probably at least a touch over-romanticized, but I can’t worry about that, because that’s Me.
It seems to me that the problem might be an absence of the perception of determinism. I'll explain.
We can perceive life as being something we actively create, or we can perceive life as being something that happens to us. In my mind, it’s never one or the other. It’s always both. But, in certain contexts, it’s probably important to lean more toward the side of life being something that happens to us, and a romantic relationship is probably one of those contexts. The reason is because stories are important. Maybe they shouldn’t be – probably they shouldn’t be – but they are. Whether or not there is some god or Universal Force that pushes things in the direction of determinism, when you are choosing to commit, indefinitely, to one person whose attributes, personality, and life history, while technically unique, are indistinguishable from billions of other people at a 1,000 mile view, it’s helpful to think so. It’s helpful to think that this one particular soul was in some strange way meant for you, that the two of you met not because you willed it but because some grander thing or force or being willed it. And only then, once you have that sense of meant-to-be-ness, can you feel safe to explore, up close, what makes her unique and special.
And it’s hard to get that sense when you’re picking from an Internet lineup.
Apr 26, 2011
Asking the obvious
Bryan Caplan wrote a post that a lot of people seem to have liked called 40 things I learned in my first 40 years. There were two under the “philosophy” section that gave me pause:
He expands on this a little in a post called The Common Sense of Bayesianism. I think the core of the argument is this:
I do not have a good response to this, but the idea makes me fidgety. I just don't like it. I want the obvious to be questioned.
But then Mark Kingwell came to the philosophical rescue, as has become a kind of theme lately. These few sentences probably are not enough to make the point, but they come from a longer passage in his book Better Living that made the point beautifully. You'll just have to trust me (or read the book yourself).
1. The greatest philosophical mistake is to demand proof for the obvious. See Hume.
2. The second greatest philosophical mistake is to try to prove the obvious. See Descartes.
He expands on this a little in a post called The Common Sense of Bayesianism. I think the core of the argument is this:
How do we unseat a common sense claim? Only by using even stronger common sense claims against weaker ones.
I do not have a good response to this, but the idea makes me fidgety. I just don't like it. I want the obvious to be questioned.
But then Mark Kingwell came to the philosophical rescue, as has become a kind of theme lately. These few sentences probably are not enough to make the point, but they come from a longer passage in his book Better Living that made the point beautifully. You'll just have to trust me (or read the book yourself).
Appearing ridiculous means asking questions that seem so silly as to be beyond doubt: Is that a chair I see before me? How do I know anything at all? Can I prove that there is not an elephant in the room? When I sleep, where does my consciousness go?
Voltaire once said, “As for the obvious, leave it to the philosophers.” His comment was meant to capture the common prejudice that philosophers only tell us what we already know or attack questions so clear as to be beyond sane inquiry. It was intended as an insult. It should be, instead, a rallying cry—a challenge to all of us to explore what we are, and perhaps succeed in becoming who we are. Even at the risk of appearing ridiculous.
Apr 24, 2011
More on rambling
There were some thought-provoking comments in response to yesterday's post. I think they can mostly be filed under three questions, which I am responding to here:
---
1. Is passively listening to someone ramble the best way to understand their thoughts?
Almost certainly not. I think Bob said it well:
I can’t think of a case where passive listening is better than active listening when you are trying to understand someone’s POV. Understanding someone’s thoughts, which is at best asymptotically approachable – even for our own thoughts – requires testing your interpretations by, for example, asking for clarification, or summarizing or re-stating what they said and seeing how they respond.
You might be wondering, if Justin believes that, then what’s with this theory about rambling being the best way to get “inside someone’s mind”? Actually if you go back and read the post you’ll notice that I deliberately omitted the word “understand” and any synonyms thereof. Originally, I actually began with the question “if you were trying to understand someone’s thoughts...” but then as I wrote about my rambling theory I realized it wasn’t right, and so I pulled the trick move of re-wording the question to “if you were trying to gain access to someone’s thoughts...”
The best way to understand someone’s thoughts, that I know, is active listening in a relaxed setting, like Bob said. But if you just want to get their thoughts raw, listening to them ramble is the best approach I know.
There is a quote from my masculine booklet that says something to the effect of “thought is deeper than all speech, and feeling is deeper than all thought.” I interpret that to mean that speech is at best a decent approximation of thought, and thought is at best a decent approximation of feeling. So listening to someone ramble is certainly an imperfect way to get at someone’s thoughts (and especially feelings), but until we invent a machine that accurately reads and interprets neurons, then I think it might be our best option.
As a small aside, I think speech rambling beats written rambling (i.e. free-writing) simply because nearly everyone speaks faster than they write, so writing allows relatively more time to do the mental changes of direction internally, where we can’t observe them. So probably the best way to get at someone’s thoughts is to tell them to speak FAST.
2. Is listening to someone ramble interesting? Or is it insightful?
To the first part, the only answer that can fairly be given is “to each his own,” or some variation thereof. Xan did a really cool thing and sent me a couple of audio recordings of him rambling, one in direct response to the post. Did I find them interesting? Yes, definitely. In one of the recordings, Xan suggested that the reason we might find rambling interesting is simply because it’s novel—it’s something we rarely have access to. Like Harriet said, we don’t even get to see first drafts, so seeing the raw thoughts that led to the first drafts is even rarer. For me, hearing Xan’s recordings was interesting if only because I had never heard his voice before. But I suspect that even if I was familiar with the way Xan speaks it still would have been interesting, just to hear kind of the “structure” of his “thoughts” (or more accurately, speech), and the things he found salient, and his transitions between them.
Xan, though, happens to be a supremely interesting fellow, and a total smarty pants. He was included in my list of people I would pay to hear ramble. On the other hand, I tried my own little experiment and rambled to my webcam, and I found it terrifically boring. I would hate for anyone to have to listen to it. I’ll admit that talking through some ideas led me to some places I didn’t anticipate, but it was mostly blather about “hmm, what should I talk about next” or repeating the same point in a different and equally as bad way—things writing solves. My point is, as Bob said, we need a mute button for certain kinds of people.
Xan also made a good point that rambling should not be considered a substitute to polished, edited communication (e.g., writing), but that it could be a good complement to it. Maybe it would be interesting if writers included with their writings videos of them talking through their ideas for the first time, before they had written anything. That could potentially add a lot of insight into understanding the raw thought process that ultimately led to their polished conclusions.
3. Is there anything to this idea of assembling a video collection of interesting people rambling?
At the end of the last post I said that I wished there were some TED-like site that collected videos (or audio recordings) of interesting people rambling at length. Randy agreed that it would be interesting, but suggested it might be hard to do because, after all, people want to present their best selves. True rambling would be too uncomfortable for most people, especially people in the public eye who worry a lot about their reputation (with a couple of exceptions like Sarah Silverman, who seems willing to say whatever comes to her mind).
I have no doubt he’s right that it would be uncomfortable for people, but I don’t think that would prevent a lot of people from doing it. Celebrities are artists who are pros at working through, rather than fighting, discomfort. You don’t get a celebrity to do something by saying “this will be really comfortable” ; rather, you get a celebrity to do something by saying “a lot of people will watch this.”
So, would a lot of people watch this? It’s hard to say. I think for certain, more enigmatic figures like Steve Jobs, people would eat up a video of him rambling. But it’s hard to know what kind of market there would be for more ordinary, but still interesting, ramblers.
I think the important thing would be the rules. The No Storytelling rule is important, but I don’t think it’s enough. I think there would also need to be rules about how long they can stay on the same topic, and maybe there needs to be a rule that they have to drink a couple of beers before commencing rambleage—something to drop their guard a bit.
---
1. Is passively listening to someone ramble the best way to understand their thoughts?
Almost certainly not. I think Bob said it well:
I think we just agree to sit down, relax, have a couple of beers, and chat. There ought to be some interactivity and dialogue about it. Rambling can easily become babbling and leave too much to a Rorschachian interpretation. And we need a mute button, just in case.
I can’t think of a case where passive listening is better than active listening when you are trying to understand someone’s POV. Understanding someone’s thoughts, which is at best asymptotically approachable – even for our own thoughts – requires testing your interpretations by, for example, asking for clarification, or summarizing or re-stating what they said and seeing how they respond.
You might be wondering, if Justin believes that, then what’s with this theory about rambling being the best way to get “inside someone’s mind”? Actually if you go back and read the post you’ll notice that I deliberately omitted the word “understand” and any synonyms thereof. Originally, I actually began with the question “if you were trying to understand someone’s thoughts...” but then as I wrote about my rambling theory I realized it wasn’t right, and so I pulled the trick move of re-wording the question to “if you were trying to gain access to someone’s thoughts...”
The best way to understand someone’s thoughts, that I know, is active listening in a relaxed setting, like Bob said. But if you just want to get their thoughts raw, listening to them ramble is the best approach I know.
There is a quote from my masculine booklet that says something to the effect of “thought is deeper than all speech, and feeling is deeper than all thought.” I interpret that to mean that speech is at best a decent approximation of thought, and thought is at best a decent approximation of feeling. So listening to someone ramble is certainly an imperfect way to get at someone’s thoughts (and especially feelings), but until we invent a machine that accurately reads and interprets neurons, then I think it might be our best option.
As a small aside, I think speech rambling beats written rambling (i.e. free-writing) simply because nearly everyone speaks faster than they write, so writing allows relatively more time to do the mental changes of direction internally, where we can’t observe them. So probably the best way to get at someone’s thoughts is to tell them to speak FAST.
2. Is listening to someone ramble interesting? Or is it insightful?
To the first part, the only answer that can fairly be given is “to each his own,” or some variation thereof. Xan did a really cool thing and sent me a couple of audio recordings of him rambling, one in direct response to the post. Did I find them interesting? Yes, definitely. In one of the recordings, Xan suggested that the reason we might find rambling interesting is simply because it’s novel—it’s something we rarely have access to. Like Harriet said, we don’t even get to see first drafts, so seeing the raw thoughts that led to the first drafts is even rarer. For me, hearing Xan’s recordings was interesting if only because I had never heard his voice before. But I suspect that even if I was familiar with the way Xan speaks it still would have been interesting, just to hear kind of the “structure” of his “thoughts” (or more accurately, speech), and the things he found salient, and his transitions between them.
Xan, though, happens to be a supremely interesting fellow, and a total smarty pants. He was included in my list of people I would pay to hear ramble. On the other hand, I tried my own little experiment and rambled to my webcam, and I found it terrifically boring. I would hate for anyone to have to listen to it. I’ll admit that talking through some ideas led me to some places I didn’t anticipate, but it was mostly blather about “hmm, what should I talk about next” or repeating the same point in a different and equally as bad way—things writing solves. My point is, as Bob said, we need a mute button for certain kinds of people.
Xan also made a good point that rambling should not be considered a substitute to polished, edited communication (e.g., writing), but that it could be a good complement to it. Maybe it would be interesting if writers included with their writings videos of them talking through their ideas for the first time, before they had written anything. That could potentially add a lot of insight into understanding the raw thought process that ultimately led to their polished conclusions.
3. Is there anything to this idea of assembling a video collection of interesting people rambling?
At the end of the last post I said that I wished there were some TED-like site that collected videos (or audio recordings) of interesting people rambling at length. Randy agreed that it would be interesting, but suggested it might be hard to do because, after all, people want to present their best selves. True rambling would be too uncomfortable for most people, especially people in the public eye who worry a lot about their reputation (with a couple of exceptions like Sarah Silverman, who seems willing to say whatever comes to her mind).
I have no doubt he’s right that it would be uncomfortable for people, but I don’t think that would prevent a lot of people from doing it. Celebrities are artists who are pros at working through, rather than fighting, discomfort. You don’t get a celebrity to do something by saying “this will be really comfortable” ; rather, you get a celebrity to do something by saying “a lot of people will watch this.”
So, would a lot of people watch this? It’s hard to say. I think for certain, more enigmatic figures like Steve Jobs, people would eat up a video of him rambling. But it’s hard to know what kind of market there would be for more ordinary, but still interesting, ramblers.
I think the important thing would be the rules. The No Storytelling rule is important, but I don’t think it’s enough. I think there would also need to be rules about how long they can stay on the same topic, and maybe there needs to be a rule that they have to drink a couple of beers before commencing rambleage—something to drop their guard a bit.
Apr 23, 2011
Ramble on me
If you were trying to gain access to someone’s thoughts – to really get “inside their mind” – how would you do it? What questions would you ask?
I’ve been thinking about it, and I have a new theory. My theory is that the best way to do this is not to ask a question or set of questions, but to instruct them to do something: Tell them to please talk without interruption for 20 minutes about whatever comes to their mind. In other words, tell them to ramble.
Rambling is too often treated as something to be avoided, and is dismissed as boring or incoherent or random. I’ll grant the last two, but not the first. Rambling is so not boring if you just realize that you are getting access to someone’s mind as purely as they can give it to you.
A lot of people whose minds I respect the most, who write the greatest stuff, I would actually prefer to hear them ramble than to read the words that they have so carefully pieced together in writing.
Here are some people I would pay to hear ramble, just off the top of my head. Some of these people you might know, others you will definitely know, others you will only know if you read the comments on this blog, and some you just aren't gonna know. Sorry.
Scott Adams
Werner Herzog
Tyler Cowen
Bill Geist
Zach Galifianakis
Bobby Knight
Charlie Rose
Conan O’Brien
David Letterman
Warren Buffett
Steve Martin
Garrison Keillor
Bill Murray
Jonah Lehrer
Oliver Sacks
Robin Hanson
Seth Roberts
Mark Hurst
Jason Kottke
Dan Ariely
Ben Casnocha
Colin Marshall
Oliver Burkeman
Marty Nemko
Bob Grabhorn
Xan Vongsathorn
Mark Larson
Anna Pougas
Robert Johnson
Hugh Hollowell
Mark Granville
Stephen Margolis
Merlin Mann
Michael Lewis
Brian Eno
Steve Jobs
Sarah Silverman
Mark Kingwell
Daniel Tammet
Alain de Botton
Steven Levitt
Chris Berman
Bill Simmons
Paul Graham
Kevin Kelly
Steven Berlin Johnson
Robert Krulwich
We need at least one ground rule if this is going to work. And that rule is this: No Storytelling. Storytelling is for show. This isn’t The Moth. At least my mind doesn’t make up stories when nobody’s looking.
It seems that a good way of measuring how interesting someone’s mind is – or more accurately, how interesting we perceive someone’s mind to be – would be to see how much people would be willing to pay to hear them ramble.
I wish there were a TED, or a Big Think, or a The Moth, or at least a frickin’ YouTube channel for unedited, unprompted rambling by interesting people.
Am I alone in this?
If others buy this, then I think it adds weight to my contention that we expend far too much energy pursuing coherence and eloquence.
I’ve been thinking about it, and I have a new theory. My theory is that the best way to do this is not to ask a question or set of questions, but to instruct them to do something: Tell them to please talk without interruption for 20 minutes about whatever comes to their mind. In other words, tell them to ramble.
Rambling is too often treated as something to be avoided, and is dismissed as boring or incoherent or random. I’ll grant the last two, but not the first. Rambling is so not boring if you just realize that you are getting access to someone’s mind as purely as they can give it to you.
A lot of people whose minds I respect the most, who write the greatest stuff, I would actually prefer to hear them ramble than to read the words that they have so carefully pieced together in writing.
Here are some people I would pay to hear ramble, just off the top of my head. Some of these people you might know, others you will definitely know, others you will only know if you read the comments on this blog, and some you just aren't gonna know. Sorry.
Scott Adams
Werner Herzog
Tyler Cowen
Bill Geist
Zach Galifianakis
Bobby Knight
Charlie Rose
Conan O’Brien
David Letterman
Warren Buffett
Steve Martin
Garrison Keillor
Bill Murray
Jonah Lehrer
Oliver Sacks
Robin Hanson
Seth Roberts
Mark Hurst
Jason Kottke
Dan Ariely
Ben Casnocha
Colin Marshall
Oliver Burkeman
Marty Nemko
Bob Grabhorn
Xan Vongsathorn
Mark Larson
Anna Pougas
Robert Johnson
Hugh Hollowell
Mark Granville
Stephen Margolis
Merlin Mann
Michael Lewis
Brian Eno
Steve Jobs
Sarah Silverman
Mark Kingwell
Daniel Tammet
Alain de Botton
Steven Levitt
Chris Berman
Bill Simmons
Paul Graham
Kevin Kelly
Steven Berlin Johnson
Robert Krulwich
We need at least one ground rule if this is going to work. And that rule is this: No Storytelling. Storytelling is for show. This isn’t The Moth. At least my mind doesn’t make up stories when nobody’s looking.
It seems that a good way of measuring how interesting someone’s mind is – or more accurately, how interesting we perceive someone’s mind to be – would be to see how much people would be willing to pay to hear them ramble.
I wish there were a TED, or a Big Think, or a The Moth, or at least a frickin’ YouTube channel for unedited, unprompted rambling by interesting people.
Am I alone in this?
If others buy this, then I think it adds weight to my contention that we expend far too much energy pursuing coherence and eloquence.
Apr 20, 2011
How should one’s audience affect what one does?
There seem to be two competing schools of thought with this question:
1. Audience/customer is king. Who cares what you want.
2. Just make what you like. Audience/customers will follow.
I admit to holding conflicting views on this subject, and this post is an attempt at reconciliation.
First, my critiques of the two views:
Customer Is King
-- By appealing to as many “kings” as possible, I appeal to the lowest common denominator, and make nothing interesting.
-- By appealing to the “average” person, I appeal to no one in particular.
-- What’s so great about people? Or what’s so great about money? Why should I strive to win broad swaths of either?
Pleasing Self
-- How much value can there be in my creation if I am the only one to value it?
-- What’s so great about “me”? Why should I strive to please myself?
-- I want to make things that others will value.
So, neither approach is nuanced enough to satisfy me. But I’m not sure I could come up with a coherent approach that would satisfy me. My actual aim(s) go something like this:
I want to make things that people will value – a lot of people, but not so many people that it becomes lowest-common-denominator, and not so many people that it becomes impersonal – and I want the things to be interesting, and I want to like them myself.
Not exactly inspirational poster material.
The problem is, to use an MBA term, “alignment”. It’s a problem of priorities. I want these different things, but there are implicit trade-offs. A productivity consultant would probably tell me to focus on one of these aims and ignore the rest. But fuck that, I say. These aims are mostly unconscious anyway, and my unconscious mind can certainly do a better job of estimating these relative weights than my conscious mind can. Even writing this is probably wasted energy because when it comes to actually deciding what to do, I defer to the unconscious relative weights by asking what feels right. And that is that best way I know to make these decisions.
But then there is a problem with relying solely on the unconscious (= feelings), because what feels right is often what feels comfortable. By continuing to do what feels right I may end up spending my nights watching re-runs of That’s So Raven. My point is that unconscious desires must be measured against a conscious recognition of biases and impulses.
And for that, I refer you to the 10 heuristics collected by Colin Marshall. Go read the whole post, but here they are, in brief:
"Would I respect me?"
"What benefits my future self?"
"Find the thin end of the wedge."
"Barf it out, then clean it up."
"Can I fail at this?"
"Always produce."
"What's the deadline?"
"What are the rules?"
"What am I doing now?"
"What's the hardest thing I can do?"
The only one I take issue with is the last one, because, in short, it sounds exhausting. I get that it’s a defense against laziness, but I think “always produce” already covers that. I see no need to kill myself trying to make stuff. If the two approaches to life are to (1) fight and struggle against it in all its misery, or to (2) do the most useful thing that comes easiest, then I’m opting for the latter.
This has been, at best, an incomplete answer to the question, but it's a start.
1. Audience/customer is king. Who cares what you want.
2. Just make what you like. Audience/customers will follow.
I admit to holding conflicting views on this subject, and this post is an attempt at reconciliation.
First, my critiques of the two views:
Customer Is King
-- By appealing to as many “kings” as possible, I appeal to the lowest common denominator, and make nothing interesting.
-- By appealing to the “average” person, I appeal to no one in particular.
-- What’s so great about people? Or what’s so great about money? Why should I strive to win broad swaths of either?
Pleasing Self
-- How much value can there be in my creation if I am the only one to value it?
-- What’s so great about “me”? Why should I strive to please myself?
-- I want to make things that others will value.
So, neither approach is nuanced enough to satisfy me. But I’m not sure I could come up with a coherent approach that would satisfy me. My actual aim(s) go something like this:
I want to make things that people will value – a lot of people, but not so many people that it becomes lowest-common-denominator, and not so many people that it becomes impersonal – and I want the things to be interesting, and I want to like them myself.
Not exactly inspirational poster material.
The problem is, to use an MBA term, “alignment”. It’s a problem of priorities. I want these different things, but there are implicit trade-offs. A productivity consultant would probably tell me to focus on one of these aims and ignore the rest. But fuck that, I say. These aims are mostly unconscious anyway, and my unconscious mind can certainly do a better job of estimating these relative weights than my conscious mind can. Even writing this is probably wasted energy because when it comes to actually deciding what to do, I defer to the unconscious relative weights by asking what feels right. And that is that best way I know to make these decisions.
But then there is a problem with relying solely on the unconscious (= feelings), because what feels right is often what feels comfortable. By continuing to do what feels right I may end up spending my nights watching re-runs of That’s So Raven. My point is that unconscious desires must be measured against a conscious recognition of biases and impulses.
And for that, I refer you to the 10 heuristics collected by Colin Marshall. Go read the whole post, but here they are, in brief:
"Would I respect me?"
"What benefits my future self?"
"Find the thin end of the wedge."
"Barf it out, then clean it up."
"Can I fail at this?"
"Always produce."
"What's the deadline?"
"What are the rules?"
"What am I doing now?"
"What's the hardest thing I can do?"
The only one I take issue with is the last one, because, in short, it sounds exhausting. I get that it’s a defense against laziness, but I think “always produce” already covers that. I see no need to kill myself trying to make stuff. If the two approaches to life are to (1) fight and struggle against it in all its misery, or to (2) do the most useful thing that comes easiest, then I’m opting for the latter.
This has been, at best, an incomplete answer to the question, but it's a start.
Apr 18, 2011
Male vs. Female Empathy
In The Age of Empathy, Frans de Waal answers some questions about male vs. female empathy that I had been wondering about.
People everywhere perceive a considerable difference between male and female empathy:
Frans de Waal responds this way:
So there do appear to be significant differences between boys and girls. And of course there is a cultural aspect, too:
There are questions about whether the differences observed between boys and girls persist with age:
But it might just be the way psychologists study empathy:
So the primary difference in empathy between males and females is that male empathy seems to have an off switch when it comes to rivals. De Waal emphasizes the point using the example of baboons:
De Waal speculates that this understanding of empathy could help explain men's relative unwillingness to visit the doctor:
The conclusion, then, is that male empathy is probably not much less intense than female empathy (on average), but that it is just applied more selectively:
###
This is probably exactly the kind of psychological test that Frans would criticize because it doesn't adequately distinguish between rivals and non-rivals, but here are 60 questions to test your "Empathy Quotient" (hat tip: Harrison). (I scored a 58, but might get a considerably different score if I took it again. I didn't feel confident with a lot of my responses.)
People everywhere perceive a considerable difference between male and female empathy:
Cross-cultural studies confirm that women everywhere are considered more empathetic than men, so much so that the claim has been made the the female (but not male) brain is hardwired for empathy.
Frans de Waal responds this way:
I doubt the difference is that absolute, but it's true that at birth girl babies look longer at faces than boy babies. Growing up, girls are more prosocial than boys, better readers of emotional expressions, more attuned to voices, more remorseful after having hurt someone, and better at taking another's perspective. Boys are less attentive to the feelings of others, more action- and object-oriented, rougher in their play, and less inclined to social fantasy games.
So there do appear to be significant differences between boys and girls. And of course there is a cultural aspect, too:
Men can be quite dismissive of empathy. It's not particularly manly to admit it, and one reason why it has taken so long for research in this area to take off is undoubtedly that academics saw empathy as a bleeding-heart topic associated with the weaker sex.
There are questions about whether the differences observed between boys and girls persist with age:
Despite the association of empathy with women rather than men, some studies paint a more complex picture. They call gender differences in this regard "exaggerated," even "nonexistent." These claims are puzzling given the well-documented differences between boys and girls.
But it might just be the way psychologists study empathy:
Are we to believe that the sexes converge with age? My guess is that they don't, and that the confusion stems from the way men and women have been tested by psychologists. Asked about loved ones, such as their parents, wife, children, and close friends, most men are plenty empathetic. The same applies in relation to unfamiliar, neutral parties. Men are perfectly willing to empathize under such circumstances, the way they often can't keep their eyes dry in romantic or tragic movies.
But things change radically when men enter a competitive mode, such as when they're advancing their interests or career. Suddenly, there's little room for softer feelings. Men can be brutal toward potential rivals: Anyone who stands in the way has to be taken down.
So the primary difference in empathy between males and females is that male empathy seems to have an off switch when it comes to rivals. De Waal emphasizes the point using the example of baboons:
Robert Sapolsky, who occasionally tranquilizes wild baboons, learned the hard way how dangerous it is to dart a male in front of his rivals. As soon as the darted male's walk becomes unsteady, others close in, seeing a perfect opportunity to get him. There is no problem with females, but male baboons are always ready to take advantage of another's weakness.
De Waal speculates that this understanding of empathy could help explain men's relative unwillingness to visit the doctor:
In modern society, it's often said that men don't go to the doctor as easily as women because they have been socialized to act tough, but what if there's a much deeper reason? Perhaps males always feel surrounded by others hoping for them to stumble.
The conclusion, then, is that male empathy is probably not much less intense than female empathy (on average), but that it is just applied more selectively:
The opposite occurs when men are in the company of trusted parties. Often this will be a wife or girlfriend, but it extends to their best male buddies. Men value nothing more than loyalty, and in these situations they do show vulnerability, which elicits sympathy.
It's possible, then, that male sensitivity to others is conditional, aroused mostly by family and friends. For those who don't belong to the inner circle, and especially those who act like rivals, the empathy switch remains turned off.
###
This is probably exactly the kind of psychological test that Frans would criticize because it doesn't adequately distinguish between rivals and non-rivals, but here are 60 questions to test your "Empathy Quotient" (hat tip: Harrison). (I scored a 58, but might get a considerably different score if I took it again. I didn't feel confident with a lot of my responses.)
Apr 12, 2011
Questions
Here are some questions that have crossed my mind this week. I may start doing posts like these semi-regularly. Let me know if you find it mildly amusing. (Yes, mild amusement is the ambitious goal of this blog.)
***
What's a good way to define "routine"? How do you know when something has become a routine?
Do local TV news reporters feel embarrassed about their past "performances"(i.e., reading from the teleprompter) in the way a writer would? I am trying to figure out the extent to which TV news reporting is a skill. Do they actively work on improving their inflection or other voice skills? And if news reporting is a skill in the traditional sense -- one that can be constantly improved and refined -- then what's the peak age?
Is pretension just a taste for subtlety? (Okay, that's more of a theory than a question.)
Why don't employers actively discriminate on the basis of religion as they would education, skills, or employment history? If the Protestant Work Ethic, or something like it, exists, then why don't we see employers favoring certain religions or denominations?
Why don't dogs bite their tongues more often? (This question has actually been really bothering me.)
Why is the stall to urinal ratio in men's bathrooms so inconsistent? Who is the responsible person for making these decisions, and do they or have they run studies? And if so, how?
In response to Harriet's theory that female magnetism is all about confidence: What is there to be confident about in this life? Isn’t confidence just a form of delusion? And why not value sensitivity over confidence? Why not value guys who cry to Bob Dylan songs? Just cause they’re pussies? Pussies make good dads.
What are the merits of having a realistic understanding of facts vs. the merits of just being delusional the way we naturally are? How can we know when to emphasize realistic understanding in what contexts?
###
Thanks to Pavs for helping inspire some of these.
***
What's a good way to define "routine"? How do you know when something has become a routine?
Do local TV news reporters feel embarrassed about their past "performances"(i.e., reading from the teleprompter) in the way a writer would? I am trying to figure out the extent to which TV news reporting is a skill. Do they actively work on improving their inflection or other voice skills? And if news reporting is a skill in the traditional sense -- one that can be constantly improved and refined -- then what's the peak age?
Is pretension just a taste for subtlety? (Okay, that's more of a theory than a question.)
Why don't employers actively discriminate on the basis of religion as they would education, skills, or employment history? If the Protestant Work Ethic, or something like it, exists, then why don't we see employers favoring certain religions or denominations?
Why don't dogs bite their tongues more often? (This question has actually been really bothering me.)
Why is the stall to urinal ratio in men's bathrooms so inconsistent? Who is the responsible person for making these decisions, and do they or have they run studies? And if so, how?
In response to Harriet's theory that female magnetism is all about confidence: What is there to be confident about in this life? Isn’t confidence just a form of delusion? And why not value sensitivity over confidence? Why not value guys who cry to Bob Dylan songs? Just cause they’re pussies? Pussies make good dads.
What are the merits of having a realistic understanding of facts vs. the merits of just being delusional the way we naturally are? How can we know when to emphasize realistic understanding in what contexts?
###
Thanks to Pavs for helping inspire some of these.
Apr 11, 2011
More on men who understand women
There were some comments on yesterday’s post that I want to highlight and some others that I want to respond to.
Jonathan Vaudreuil notices what he thinks is a contradiction from a previous post:
“Wehr’s my booty call?” Ha. I’m gonna have to try that as an Internet pick-up line.
But in response to your observation of my incongruity, I have this to say: There are at least two ways in which men and women are significantly different from one another, typically. Those differences are (1) who they are attracted to and why, and (2) “goodies”. I hope neither needs explaining. Any other differences are less clear to me. I have lots of theories, and maybe I’ll share them someday, but there’s not any one major psychological difference that I would feel comfortable declaring an absolute fact, except the ability to throw overhand. But I’m open to other possibilities – just bring your evidence.
Ian Dickinson seems to have given this lady magnetism topic some good thought, and while he’s convinced that there is some magical invisible signal that the Lars’s of the world are emanating, he’s not sure we average males can find it... and even if we can, whether we can do anything about it.
This is sadness. Let’s not be so defeatist. Hope will get us average fellas through the day.
Harriet May (so far, the only female to respond) may know the answer:
Very interesting. That describes Lars pretty well. But somehow I doubt that if I started Hugo Bossin’ it up and playing field hockey with gelled hair that I would all of the sudden have females swarming, so this is not helpful.
Jonathan Vaudreuil suggests that maybe our problem is over-thinking:
Fair enough. But before I give up on being too strategic about this, there’s one thing I’d like to try: A utility belt of freezepops. The thinking is that maybe if I just advertise the freezepops conspicuously enough, it will be like flies to flypaper.
I’ll let you know how it goes...
***
Finally, on a slightly more serious note, I responded to a comment from Bob this way:
Sometimes I like the things I write, even if it makes me sound like a noble dick.
Jonathan Vaudreuil notices what he thinks is a contradiction from a previous post:
I love how you were just talking about the lack of differences you believed there are between men and women, and now it's all about Wehr's my booty call? Nice.
“Wehr’s my booty call?” Ha. I’m gonna have to try that as an Internet pick-up line.
But in response to your observation of my incongruity, I have this to say: There are at least two ways in which men and women are significantly different from one another, typically. Those differences are (1) who they are attracted to and why, and (2) “goodies”. I hope neither needs explaining. Any other differences are less clear to me. I have lots of theories, and maybe I’ll share them someday, but there’s not any one major psychological difference that I would feel comfortable declaring an absolute fact, except the ability to throw overhand. But I’m open to other possibilities – just bring your evidence.
Ian Dickinson seems to have given this lady magnetism topic some good thought, and while he’s convinced that there is some magical invisible signal that the Lars’s of the world are emanating, he’s not sure we average males can find it... and even if we can, whether we can do anything about it.
There's some sort of invisible signal Lars is putting out -- his body language -- that tells girls they can and SHOULD be attracted to him. … I think there is an answer, but it might not be one we like. I've worked with actors for a long time, and sadly in that world you either have "it" or you don't. And there's almost nothing you can do if you don't.
This is sadness. Let’s not be so defeatist. Hope will get us average fellas through the day.
Harriet May (so far, the only female to respond) may know the answer:
This is so easy. It's the German-ness. It has to be because no one understands women, not even women, but I've known many a German male (I did go to an English boarding school after all--we were overrun with them) and with the few rare exceptions they all got a larger than average amount of female attention. They all dress the same: lots of Hugo Boss and Ralph Lauren and Lacoste, popped collars and chinos, and gelled hair. And they all have that ease that you mentioned and love of sports, especially field hockey. So maybe there's something in the water. The question is really: does the German male have the same effect on the German female? That I don't know, I've never seen one on his home turf.
Very interesting. That describes Lars pretty well. But somehow I doubt that if I started Hugo Bossin’ it up and playing field hockey with gelled hair that I would all of the sudden have females swarming, so this is not helpful.
Jonathan Vaudreuil suggests that maybe our problem is over-thinking:
You're being too technical though. Seriously, go have fun with ladies, like real fun, and see what happens. Thinking about it just gets in the way.
Fair enough. But before I give up on being too strategic about this, there’s one thing I’d like to try: A utility belt of freezepops. The thinking is that maybe if I just advertise the freezepops conspicuously enough, it will be like flies to flypaper.
I’ll let you know how it goes...
***
Finally, on a slightly more serious note, I responded to a comment from Bob this way:
I hope people get that this post was mostly intended to be amusing. I don’t actually believe freezepops are likely to be successful and I’m not actually that interested in trying to get a bunch of women attracted to me. Well, okay, t’would be nice, but I think it’d be a far greater privilege to have one woman love me for the bundle of faults that I am than to have a crowd of horny chicks swarm me every time I go to buy groceries.
I think the average person doesn’t appreciate the differences between love and attraction enough. It’s like they see love as a strong version of attraction. With my operating definition, attraction is one necessary ingredient of love, with the other two being intimacy and commitment. Far greater to have the latter two, I’d say.
That probably makes me sound like a noble dick, but I don’t think anyone in its throes would disagree.
Sometimes I like the things I write, even if it makes me sound like a noble dick.
Apr 10, 2011
Men who understand women
I learned one very important lesson from this 6 minute instructional video (NSFW; hat tip: Anna). I will paraphrase it this way: To get a woman [mother] to drop her vaginapanties, give her little ones [children] a muthafuckin freezepop.
Concrete. Simple. Measurable. I like it.
But, after much internal deliberation, I think I’ve identified the hole in the argument: How do you convince the woman to come to your manpalace in the first place? A freezepop is not gonna do it. I’ve tried that.
It should come as no surprise that I am puzzled by the female half of the species. For instance, just tonight I ran into a dilemma at the Bojangles drive-thru window. (For you non-North Carolina peeps, Bojangles is the crack cocaine of fast food joints.) The dilemma will be familiar to the average fellas in the audience: Was that girl flirting with me, or mocking me?
It’s so hard to tell. She seemed really happy when she handed me my Supreme Dinner, but just as it’s really hard for a casual observer to figure out whether two animals are fighting or mating, it’s really hard for the average guy to figure out whether a woman is flirting with him or mocking him. I couldn’t tell whether Miss Bojangles thought I was cute or whether she was laughing at the fact that I am in bad need of a haircut and that I haven’t shaved for 4 days. Or, more likely, her giddyness had nothing to do with me. Damn it.
But I am equally as puzzled by the subset of males that seem to understand the female half of the species.
Last year my parents provided food and shelter to a German high school student named Lars. Lars gets women. Every time you leave the kid unattended for 5 minutes, you look back and you think for a moment that he has disappeared. Then you realize that he is just somewhere in the middle of that cluster of lustful young women. It’s at this point that we start making plans to either helicopter him out of there or get a baseball bat.
The best way I know how to describe Lars is that he is like Justin Bieber without Usher as a crutch. He doesn’t necessarily look or act like the Biebster, but he has that kind of effect on young women. When we shipped him back to Germany, there were girls at the airport weeping like their life had just been taken from them. I’m exaggerating less than you think.
I wish I could tell you his secrets (or do I?), but I haven’t been able to figure them out. He’s not particularly tall – he’s actually pretty short – and he has no discernible characteristics that, to my eye, exude wealth or power. I am trying to think of some traits that might separate him from the average male. Here are some ideas:
-- Thinks watching sports is lame, but loves to play them.
-- Will try anything once.
-- Very approachable. Has an easy smile.
-- Incredible (ridiculous) attention to detail with his clothing.
-- Does gymnastics.
At this point you’re probably thinking you’ve got it figured out: He’s gay. That’s what I thought when I read his bio for the first time. But you need only see him with women for a few minutes to realize that these were not platonic relationships.
Lars certainly makes me jealous, but there’s another guy I don’t even know that makes me even jealous-er. My sister Meg was just in Brazil taking some students there, as she does. As part of the trip, they spent a weekend in the rainforest. This section of the rainforest covers 1,235 acres and there is exactly one person who lives there. Let’s call him Steve. Steve grew up in the rainforest, the son of an indigenous mother and a German immigrant, but at some point – I don’t know when – he was the only person left living there. Let me make this perfectly clear: Other than some occasional tourists, Steve is the ONLY person in the rainforest. There are no women to be courted.
And yet, Steve has been married. NINE times.
I may not so much as touch nine women in my life. This is humiliating.
I asked Meg if she knows his secrets. She's not even sure where he got his women from. There’s only one tiny little fishing village anywhere near the place.
I have no conclusions or insights to leave you with. But if I learn the secrets, I’ll be sure not to tell you.
Concrete. Simple. Measurable. I like it.
But, after much internal deliberation, I think I’ve identified the hole in the argument: How do you convince the woman to come to your manpalace in the first place? A freezepop is not gonna do it. I’ve tried that.
It should come as no surprise that I am puzzled by the female half of the species. For instance, just tonight I ran into a dilemma at the Bojangles drive-thru window. (For you non-North Carolina peeps, Bojangles is the crack cocaine of fast food joints.) The dilemma will be familiar to the average fellas in the audience: Was that girl flirting with me, or mocking me?
It’s so hard to tell. She seemed really happy when she handed me my Supreme Dinner, but just as it’s really hard for a casual observer to figure out whether two animals are fighting or mating, it’s really hard for the average guy to figure out whether a woman is flirting with him or mocking him. I couldn’t tell whether Miss Bojangles thought I was cute or whether she was laughing at the fact that I am in bad need of a haircut and that I haven’t shaved for 4 days. Or, more likely, her giddyness had nothing to do with me. Damn it.
But I am equally as puzzled by the subset of males that seem to understand the female half of the species.
Last year my parents provided food and shelter to a German high school student named Lars. Lars gets women. Every time you leave the kid unattended for 5 minutes, you look back and you think for a moment that he has disappeared. Then you realize that he is just somewhere in the middle of that cluster of lustful young women. It’s at this point that we start making plans to either helicopter him out of there or get a baseball bat.
The best way I know how to describe Lars is that he is like Justin Bieber without Usher as a crutch. He doesn’t necessarily look or act like the Biebster, but he has that kind of effect on young women. When we shipped him back to Germany, there were girls at the airport weeping like their life had just been taken from them. I’m exaggerating less than you think.
I wish I could tell you his secrets (or do I?), but I haven’t been able to figure them out. He’s not particularly tall – he’s actually pretty short – and he has no discernible characteristics that, to my eye, exude wealth or power. I am trying to think of some traits that might separate him from the average male. Here are some ideas:
-- Thinks watching sports is lame, but loves to play them.
-- Will try anything once.
-- Very approachable. Has an easy smile.
-- Incredible (ridiculous) attention to detail with his clothing.
-- Does gymnastics.
At this point you’re probably thinking you’ve got it figured out: He’s gay. That’s what I thought when I read his bio for the first time. But you need only see him with women for a few minutes to realize that these were not platonic relationships.
Lars certainly makes me jealous, but there’s another guy I don’t even know that makes me even jealous-er. My sister Meg was just in Brazil taking some students there, as she does. As part of the trip, they spent a weekend in the rainforest. This section of the rainforest covers 1,235 acres and there is exactly one person who lives there. Let’s call him Steve. Steve grew up in the rainforest, the son of an indigenous mother and a German immigrant, but at some point – I don’t know when – he was the only person left living there. Let me make this perfectly clear: Other than some occasional tourists, Steve is the ONLY person in the rainforest. There are no women to be courted.
And yet, Steve has been married. NINE times.
I may not so much as touch nine women in my life. This is humiliating.
I asked Meg if she knows his secrets. She's not even sure where he got his women from. There’s only one tiny little fishing village anywhere near the place.
I have no conclusions or insights to leave you with. But if I learn the secrets, I’ll be sure not to tell you.
Apr 9, 2011
Behind the scenes: The making of a masculine booklet
The first round of masculine booklets has shipped. (I’ve been deliberately avoiding the word “booklet” and using “book-thingy” instead because I’m too manly for booklets, but Anna pointed out that if I just add the adjective “masculine,” it’s not so bad. I think she’s right.) Most people who ordered one should have received it by now. If not, holler if it doesn’t arrive in the next few days.
For those who have read it, I want to hear your reactions! There’s a discussion page here. Hopefully Bob will not be the only one to make use of it.
I didn’t and don’t really have a clear reason for doing this. It just felt like something I should try. Isn’t that enough?
It’s not a far stretch from what I do anyway. I write all the interesting or insightful ideas I encounter in my notebook, and I type them up later. The added effort for this project came from choosing the best of the bunch, re-wording them in a way that people can hopefully understand, organizing them into sections, and organizing them within sections.
The organization part I found to be remarkably rewarding, because “organizing” is really just an ugly way of saying “drawing connections.” Lots of ideas that were previously disconnected became connected in my mind, and those connections build a framework that “new” ideas can disrupt or build upon. In the end, it feels like I have a marginally stronger foundation for conscious thought.
One of the ideas from the masculine booklet comes to mind:
And because I knew that people I deeply respect may read it, that provided a healthy dose of pressure to carefully consider the ideas and whether they truly say anything interesting or insightful. This is all to say that the personal mental benefits from doing this have been Large.
Has it benefited others? Hard to say. The people I’ve heard from seem to like it. A few people have sent me gobs of cash, which was both exciting and kind of embarrassing. I don’t feel comfortable accepting it, but since it’s going to a better cause than my bank account, I do.
I will probably do a survey later to get more systematic feedback. One of my biggest concerns was whether people would be able to understand these ideas given such little context or supporting evidence. Hopefully the survey will tell me something about that.
---
Here are some scenes from the production:
(Side note: don't you love it when the camera should flash, but doesn't? Those are my favorites.)
The production room. (Annotated.)
Khan making sure everything smells okay.
Batch 1 of envelopes.
Yes, there are different colors, both for the envelopes and the masculine booklets. The reason was more indecision than anything. Can't decide which color I want? Fine, I'll take 'em all. Which combination you got depends on how much I like you, pretty much.
I have 8 masculine booklets left, and unless a huge new wave of orders comes in, that'll be all I print. Stragglers can put their address here.
For those who have read it, I want to hear your reactions! There’s a discussion page here. Hopefully Bob will not be the only one to make use of it.
I didn’t and don’t really have a clear reason for doing this. It just felt like something I should try. Isn’t that enough?
It’s not a far stretch from what I do anyway. I write all the interesting or insightful ideas I encounter in my notebook, and I type them up later. The added effort for this project came from choosing the best of the bunch, re-wording them in a way that people can hopefully understand, organizing them into sections, and organizing them within sections.
The organization part I found to be remarkably rewarding, because “organizing” is really just an ugly way of saying “drawing connections.” Lots of ideas that were previously disconnected became connected in my mind, and those connections build a framework that “new” ideas can disrupt or build upon. In the end, it feels like I have a marginally stronger foundation for conscious thought.
One of the ideas from the masculine booklet comes to mind:
The importance of a personal worldview is that it helps us put information back into perspective, giving it an intuitive place in our minds like the books in the library.
And because I knew that people I deeply respect may read it, that provided a healthy dose of pressure to carefully consider the ideas and whether they truly say anything interesting or insightful. This is all to say that the personal mental benefits from doing this have been Large.
Has it benefited others? Hard to say. The people I’ve heard from seem to like it. A few people have sent me gobs of cash, which was both exciting and kind of embarrassing. I don’t feel comfortable accepting it, but since it’s going to a better cause than my bank account, I do.
I will probably do a survey later to get more systematic feedback. One of my biggest concerns was whether people would be able to understand these ideas given such little context or supporting evidence. Hopefully the survey will tell me something about that.
---
Here are some scenes from the production:
(Side note: don't you love it when the camera should flash, but doesn't? Those are my favorites.)
The production room. (Annotated.)
Khan making sure everything smells okay.
Batch 1 of envelopes.
Yes, there are different colors, both for the envelopes and the masculine booklets. The reason was more indecision than anything. Can't decide which color I want? Fine, I'll take 'em all. Which combination you got depends on how much I like you, pretty much.
I have 8 masculine booklets left, and unless a huge new wave of orders comes in, that'll be all I print. Stragglers can put their address here.
Apr 8, 2011
Relationships built on words
In an earlier post I used the phrase “strange but genuine connection” to describe the relationship with some of my Internet friends. Xan (one of the Internet friends) responded with these questions:
These are very interesting questions, and it’s something I wish I understood better. Here’s my attempt:
---
My Internet friends have better access to my thoughts and my interests. My “real life” friends have better access to my behavior and my physical expression. Which is more “me”? Who “knows” me better?
I have a theory that even for people who have been reading this blog for years, who have read many thousands of words that I have typed, they would probably feel they understand “me” better – my hopes, desires, fears, values – if they were in a room with me for 5 minutes. Not because I have a very different in-person persona than comes across in writing, but because I think people make all kinds of instant personality judgments on the basis of appearance, facial expressions, voice, etc. etc. At least I know I do. That’s not to say that the judgments are necessarily accurate, but that they feel more accurate than reading thousands of written words.
One benefit of written communication is that it provides the luxury of carefully choosing words. And when words are more carefully chosen, signal strength is higher and meaning is better expressed. I would hate to try to tell someone with the spoken word how I feel about them, at least without having written something first, because when trying to communicate something as complex as feelings, words are bound to be fumbled over, and if writing is useful for anything, it is for de-fumbling.
BUT I think the fact that it’s easier to say difficult things in writing says a lot about the status writing is given in our minds. It’s easier because it carries less weight. You can make profound and heartfelt statements in writing, but they will probably be received less heavily than fumbling over words in person. That’s because feelings are physical more than verbal expressions. People may ooh and aah over your verbal eloquence, but they will only trust your proclamations if they are backed with physical expression.
I'd suggest that a groom at the altar trying to express his feelings for his bride would do better not to read a prepared statement but to fumble over improvised words. He will strain over the limits of language and the inadequacy of his chosen words, but the physical signs of that strain may communicate more than any words ever could.
Which brings me back to my point. Writing is a horribly inefficient way to get to [feel that you] know someone. If all you have access to are words, it’s really hard to make any judgments about how they actually feel about the words they have written. And since relationships rely on a shared understanding of how you and the other person feel about one another, Internet relationships are inherently “strange,” and severely constrained.
By “strange” I don’t mean “not close”. I genuinely feel close to some of the people with whom my interactions are almost exclusively written, but the relationships are still “strange” because I feel less confident that I know/understand them or that they know/understand me. I have assembled a narrative of the person in my mind based on many bits of written evidence, but because I think people make judgments based on physical expression much more strongly than verbal expression, I fear that if I spent just a few minutes with them in a room, a lot of my assumptions would be blown and my perception of “them” would be seriously altered.
Again, that’s not to say that spending a few minutes in a room with them would push my perception in the direction of Truth, just that it would feel that way.
In conclusion, evolution has probably not built us for relationships that are primarily verbal. Whether or not we can understand someone through the words they use, we are unlikely to feel that we do, and so any relationship that lacks physical expression is probably necessarily “strange”.
Maybe that’s obvious. But it makes things a bit clearer in my mind.
***
For better-chosen words on the limits of words, see Colin Marshall’s post and Bob’s comment.
And what of the people you do really "know" who don't actually know what ideas are going around inside your head? What's stranger? Or, what's a stranger? The world is full of people who are strangers to some parts of us, and friends to others. Which parts make a "stranger"?
These are very interesting questions, and it’s something I wish I understood better. Here’s my attempt:
---
My Internet friends have better access to my thoughts and my interests. My “real life” friends have better access to my behavior and my physical expression. Which is more “me”? Who “knows” me better?
I have a theory that even for people who have been reading this blog for years, who have read many thousands of words that I have typed, they would probably feel they understand “me” better – my hopes, desires, fears, values – if they were in a room with me for 5 minutes. Not because I have a very different in-person persona than comes across in writing, but because I think people make all kinds of instant personality judgments on the basis of appearance, facial expressions, voice, etc. etc. At least I know I do. That’s not to say that the judgments are necessarily accurate, but that they feel more accurate than reading thousands of written words.
One benefit of written communication is that it provides the luxury of carefully choosing words. And when words are more carefully chosen, signal strength is higher and meaning is better expressed. I would hate to try to tell someone with the spoken word how I feel about them, at least without having written something first, because when trying to communicate something as complex as feelings, words are bound to be fumbled over, and if writing is useful for anything, it is for de-fumbling.
BUT I think the fact that it’s easier to say difficult things in writing says a lot about the status writing is given in our minds. It’s easier because it carries less weight. You can make profound and heartfelt statements in writing, but they will probably be received less heavily than fumbling over words in person. That’s because feelings are physical more than verbal expressions. People may ooh and aah over your verbal eloquence, but they will only trust your proclamations if they are backed with physical expression.
I'd suggest that a groom at the altar trying to express his feelings for his bride would do better not to read a prepared statement but to fumble over improvised words. He will strain over the limits of language and the inadequacy of his chosen words, but the physical signs of that strain may communicate more than any words ever could.
Which brings me back to my point. Writing is a horribly inefficient way to get to [feel that you] know someone. If all you have access to are words, it’s really hard to make any judgments about how they actually feel about the words they have written. And since relationships rely on a shared understanding of how you and the other person feel about one another, Internet relationships are inherently “strange,” and severely constrained.
By “strange” I don’t mean “not close”. I genuinely feel close to some of the people with whom my interactions are almost exclusively written, but the relationships are still “strange” because I feel less confident that I know/understand them or that they know/understand me. I have assembled a narrative of the person in my mind based on many bits of written evidence, but because I think people make judgments based on physical expression much more strongly than verbal expression, I fear that if I spent just a few minutes with them in a room, a lot of my assumptions would be blown and my perception of “them” would be seriously altered.
Again, that’s not to say that spending a few minutes in a room with them would push my perception in the direction of Truth, just that it would feel that way.
In conclusion, evolution has probably not built us for relationships that are primarily verbal. Whether or not we can understand someone through the words they use, we are unlikely to feel that we do, and so any relationship that lacks physical expression is probably necessarily “strange”.
Maybe that’s obvious. But it makes things a bit clearer in my mind.
***
For better-chosen words on the limits of words, see Colin Marshall’s post and Bob’s comment.
Apr 6, 2011
Coherent Worldviews
You have no standard of truth to measure your worldview against, and so no way of knowing whether any new idea has pushed you in the direction of Truth. That’s not to say that Truth doesn’t exist, just that it’s really hard to observe.
New ideas are forced to swirl around in our minds, trying with futility to find a comfortable arrangement where bargains can be made with competing ideas on the basis of contextual probabilities so that the new idea and its competitors may finally retreat to a quiet, conflict-free resting space.
This is why I believe the phrase “coherent worldview” a misnomer. A worldview is only coherent if your ideas make compromises with one another.
Sorry for getting all epistemological on your ass.
New ideas are forced to swirl around in our minds, trying with futility to find a comfortable arrangement where bargains can be made with competing ideas on the basis of contextual probabilities so that the new idea and its competitors may finally retreat to a quiet, conflict-free resting space.
This is why I believe the phrase “coherent worldview” a misnomer. A worldview is only coherent if your ideas make compromises with one another.
Sorry for getting all epistemological on your ass.
Apr 5, 2011
Blogging as self-promotion
Jessica Stillman writes an interesting piece suggesting that men blog more than women maybe because men have more time, ego, and/or confidence. (Hat tip: Harrison.) Blogging, from this view, is an act of self-promotion, or at least idea-promotion.
What? You mean promoting ideas is not all there is in this life? (kidding.)
Still, in what may be an act of cognitive dissonance, I have a rosier view of blogging.
If you've ever made use of Blogger's random blog function, you know that idea promotion is not what most people use blogging for. Rather, the overwhelming majority of blogs are family blogs. It's a way of updating people about their life without sending annoying mass emails. Here-is-what's-new, read-at-your-leisure sort of thing.
A much smaller percentage of blogs is about ideas. I have theories for why that is:
1. The reasons Stillman mentions in the article above: time, ego, and confidence. These are issues for men too, by the way.
2. Just as a lot of people don't care about the meaning of life, a lot of people don't care about ideas. I have puzzled over these creatures, and the best I can conclude is that they simply value something else, usually normality, over interestingness.
3. It's hard to blog about ideas. A disturbingly high proportion of people who start don't get very far. I think the reason why is because it takes a long time to get any semblance of a following, and it feels silly (and kind of depressing) to toss ideas to an empty abyss.
But what makes it hard is also what I find most valuable about blogging: With time, it connects you to people who care about the same ideas you do. I don't find many such people in real life, and it's comforting/relieving/thrilling to find others interested in the same topics as I am. I feel I've made a strange but genuine connection with a number of people through blogging -- people I don't really "know", but that I've come to deeply admire and respect through what I imperfectly perceive them to be.
I'll add that I think blogging would be worthwhile [for me] even if no one was reading. The reason is because writing is valuable -- it is the active thinking of the seated, to quote Mark Kingwell -- and it is made more valuable if you have the pressure of knowing that other people may read what you are thinking. The fact that nothing can be deleted from the Internet is a powerful incentive indeed. I take it as a rule of thumb that if I am not reflecting through writing regularly -- and 90% of the things I write never get blogged, by the way -- then I am living badly.
Colin Marshall twat:
To me that's all blogging is: One type of gateway that happens to be simple and free.
The alternative is to fall into the habit of passive consumption. And it's disturbingly easy to do. It's so easy to come home from work or school, pop some corn, and sink into a delightful stupor to whatever's on television tonight until it's time to go to bed and wake up and do it all again tomorrow.
And I think that is precisely why I am so fond of blogging: Because of its implicit contrast with other forms of time-spending.
What? You mean promoting ideas is not all there is in this life? (kidding.)
Still, in what may be an act of cognitive dissonance, I have a rosier view of blogging.
If you've ever made use of Blogger's random blog function, you know that idea promotion is not what most people use blogging for. Rather, the overwhelming majority of blogs are family blogs. It's a way of updating people about their life without sending annoying mass emails. Here-is-what's-new, read-at-your-leisure sort of thing.
A much smaller percentage of blogs is about ideas. I have theories for why that is:
1. The reasons Stillman mentions in the article above: time, ego, and confidence. These are issues for men too, by the way.
2. Just as a lot of people don't care about the meaning of life, a lot of people don't care about ideas. I have puzzled over these creatures, and the best I can conclude is that they simply value something else, usually normality, over interestingness.
3. It's hard to blog about ideas. A disturbingly high proportion of people who start don't get very far. I think the reason why is because it takes a long time to get any semblance of a following, and it feels silly (and kind of depressing) to toss ideas to an empty abyss.
But what makes it hard is also what I find most valuable about blogging: With time, it connects you to people who care about the same ideas you do. I don't find many such people in real life, and it's comforting/relieving/thrilling to find others interested in the same topics as I am. I feel I've made a strange but genuine connection with a number of people through blogging -- people I don't really "know", but that I've come to deeply admire and respect through what I imperfectly perceive them to be.
I'll add that I think blogging would be worthwhile [for me] even if no one was reading. The reason is because writing is valuable -- it is the active thinking of the seated, to quote Mark Kingwell -- and it is made more valuable if you have the pressure of knowing that other people may read what you are thinking. The fact that nothing can be deleted from the Internet is a powerful incentive indeed. I take it as a rule of thumb that if I am not reflecting through writing regularly -- and 90% of the things I write never get blogged, by the way -- then I am living badly.
Colin Marshall twat:
The two-step of creation: (1) make your mind as interesting as possible, (2) build a gateway for others to get into your mind. (And repeat.)
To me that's all blogging is: One type of gateway that happens to be simple and free.
The alternative is to fall into the habit of passive consumption. And it's disturbingly easy to do. It's so easy to come home from work or school, pop some corn, and sink into a delightful stupor to whatever's on television tonight until it's time to go to bed and wake up and do it all again tomorrow.
And I think that is precisely why I am so fond of blogging: Because of its implicit contrast with other forms of time-spending.
Apr 3, 2011
Life is meaningless. Who cares.
I have been following Oliver Burkeman's blog for a short time, but it has quickly become one of my favorites. The way to quickly win my heart, I think, is to combine snarkiness with cliché-beating. Oh, and it doesn't hurt to write interesting things. Burkeman does all of the above in abundance.
Here is about half of his latest post called The meaning of life? Whatever:
Here is about half of his latest post called The meaning of life? Whatever:
Garcin is having an existential crisis. (These days, he could just pick up a copy of The Purpose-Driven Life and be done with it.) He’s facing the Big Question: how to deal with life’s apparent meaninglessness? Of course, many other philosophers, not to mention self-help gurus, would argue that life isn’t meaningless – that meaning’s to be found in family, or work, or spirituality. But intriguing new research suggests that, for a sizeable chunk of the population, a different answer to the Big Question may be more pertinent: who cares?
Psychologists have tended to assume people can be located on a simple continuum: at one end, those who feel their lives are deeply meaningful, and are consequently happy; at the other, those who feel their lives lack meaning, and feel tortured or depressed. (Something like this is implicit in Abraham Maslow’s venerable “pyramid of needs”, with self-actualisation at the summit.) But a study by Tatjana Schnell, of the University of Innsbruck in Austria, based on a survey of 603 Germans, found 35% of them were “existentially indifferent”: they didn’t feel their lives had meaning, and frankly, it didn’t much bother them.
It’s entirely possible – not that you’d ever imagine it from the legions of self-help books promising to help you “discover your purpose”, “find your calling” or “live a life that counts” – that you simply don’t care.
We expect our friends to be discriminating
The problem with any cooperative system is that there are those who try to get more out of it than they put in. The whole system will collapse if we don’t put a halt to freeloading, which is why humans are naturally cautious when they deal with others.
That's from Frans De Waal's The Age of Empathy. The message is that a healthy bit of skepticism of others is necessary to punish freeloaders and keep society functioning. More interesting to me was his description of what happens when people are not discriminating of others. It turns out there is a rare condition that causes people to be extremely friendly, trusting, and likeable, but despite these characteristics, people with this condition are unattractive as friends because in-group loyalty requires out-group discrimination. At least that's my take. Here is Fran's version, slightly trimmed:
Strange things happen if this caution is lacking. A tiny proportion of humans is born with a genetic defect that makes them open and trusting to anyone. These are patients with Williams syndrome, a condition caused by the nonexpression of a relatively small number of genes on the seventh chromosome. Williams syndrome patients are infectiously friendly, highly gregarious, and incredibly verbose.
Even though it is hard to resist these charming children, they lack friends. The reason is that they trust everyone indiscriminately and love the whole world equally. We withdraw from such people since we don’t know whether we can count on them. Will they be grateful for received favors, will they support us if we get into a fight, will they help us achieve our goals? Probably none of the above, which means that they don’t have anything that we’re looking for in a friend.
Williams syndrome is an unfortunate experiment of nature that shows that just being friendly and trusting is not sufficient for lasting ties: We expect people to be discriminating. That a small number of genes can cause such a deficit tells us that the normal tendency to be circumspect is inborn. Our species carefully chooses between trust and distrust, as do many other species.
Apr 1, 2011
What's the point?, asked the philosopher
Mark Kingwell in Catch and Release:
When it comes to wondering why, philosophy is obviously a high-risk activity. Consider the possibilities. In many cases, philosophical subjects sail close to the limits of the sayable, attempting to articulate, for instance, the conditions of possibility of any form of knowledge or the final dynamic nature of reality. Philosophy is thus a form of activity on the verge of asking why any activity has a point! Even to accept the confines of propositions is, at this point, the act of someone gripped by either arrogance or folly. It was no joke when Wittgenstein, attempting to join logic and language, concluded his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with the claim (warning? injunction?) that what we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence.
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