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Essays on America: Wednesday

18 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, creativity, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 66 Comments

Tags

advertising, bait and switch, economics, fairness, Feedback, flimflam, learning, politics, problem solving, truth, wealth

How you see where you are depends on how you got there.

It’s Wednesday. And that means, at least for most of us, that yesterday was Tuesday. Mundane, right? Obvious, right? 

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But suppose that it’s Wednesday for you but that yesterday was Thursday! 

Oh, my! You would be in quite a different “Wednesday” than the rest of us would. How could this happen? 

Many ways. You could be a character in a Sci-Fi movie. Maybe you were in a coma for six days. Or, you could have retrograde amnesia from a blow to the head. Or, maybe you have some weird form of temporal lobe epilepsy. No matter how you got from Thursday to Wednesday, you will treat the day quite differently from those of use who experienced yesterday as Tuesday. 

And this is generally true of human beings. 

How you experience your current reality depends a lot on how you got there. 

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It so happens that my dissertation studied human problem solving. I used a problem called the “Hobbits and Orcs problem.” You may have heard of it.

There are three Hobbits and three Orcs on one side of a river and you have to get them all over to the other side. The only way to cross the river is by use of a small boat. (No flying, swimming, catapulting, disapparating, etc. allowed). For the boat to operate and not simply float off downstream, it must have at least one creature in it. But the boat can only hold one or two creatures. It cannot hold more. Orcs, as you probably already know, are suspected of eating Hobbits. You cannot ever let more Orcs than Hobbits on either side of the river, even briefly. You can try the problem for yourself.  Remember though…you cannot let there be more Orcs than Hobbits on either side of the river — not even briefly. 

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I compared how people solved this problem to an early AI system modestly called, “The General Problem Solver.” As you might expect, even though both humans and the AI system (GPS) can solve the problem, they behave quite differently. For instance, the places where humans have trouble (take more time; make more mistakes) are quite different from the places where GPS slows down. 

Start – HHHOOO (boat) {river}

Goal –                             {river} (boat) HHHOOO

Spoiler alert — now, I have to talk about the solution.

At one point, you will feel as though you’ve been making good progress and you have two hobbits and two orcs on the far side of the river along with the boat. Now, comes the sticking point (for humans). If an Orc brings back the boat, you’ll have two Orcs and one Hobbit on the near side. The two Orcs will gang up on the Hobbit and eat it. Fail! But if the Hobbit brings back the boat, the far side of the river will have two Orcs and one Hobbit so that Hobbit will get eaten. 

Here is the situation: 

HO {river} (boat) HHOO 

The “trick” is to use one Hobbit and one Orc to bring the boat back. Now, you use two Hobbits to take the boat to the far side, and it’s pretty easy to solve from there. The “trick” is only “tricky” because it feels as though you are undoing the progress you’ve already made! You took two over and you need to bring two back. In fact, many subjects wanted to “give up” rather than bring two creatures back over. They claimed it was “insoluble.” 

But wait. 

It gets even stranger. 

Half of my subjects began with a “half problem.” They started in this position. 

Start: HO {river} (boat) HHOO 

Goal:        {river} (boat) HHHOOO

These subjects had very little trouble solving the problem. They began by taking the boat to the left side by using one Hobbit and one Orc. They quickly solved the rest of the problem. 

Then I gave those same people, the entire problem again, but starting here: 

Start – HHHOOO (boat) {river}

Goal –                             {river} (boat) HHHOOO

They had little problem at the beginning. 

But when they got to the position shown below, many wanted to quit. Many said the problem was “impossible” once they got to this position: 

Now: HO {river} (boat) HHOO 

Goal:        {river} (boat) HHHOOO

Does that pattern look familiar to you? It should! 

This is exactly the problem that they themselves had just solved a few minutes earlier! When they started there, it was easy. But when they got there by arriving at it through their own effort, that same position was now daunting. They didn’t even recognize or realize that they had just been there. (None of this behavior was like that of the General Problem Solver, by the way). 

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A number of economists were interested in this result. Why? Because “classic” economics operates like GPS. It looks at the Starting Point. It looks at the Goal. It looks at various possible moves. It doesn’t “care” how it got there. According to classical economics, if you buy IBM stock at $50 and I buy it at $150 and now it’s at $100, if we have the same knowledge, then we should make the same decision about whether to buy or sell. In reality, people do not. If you bought it at $50, you’ve made a huge profit and are happy to sell it. If I bought it at $150, I’m going to suffer a loss. How people view a situation is heavily dependent on how they got there. 

Now, let’s play another little “what if” game. 

What if you were an extremely rich person who also happened to be extremely selfish. In America, for instance, worker productivity has increased decade after decade. This meant that the wealthiest people in the country kept getting wealthier and wealthier. But the workers, who made a lot less than the owners, also benefited by getting wealthier. 

Until around 1974. Then, a strange thing happened. The productivity of American workers continued to grow. However, the increased wealth that accrued from all those people learning new technology, learning new methods, using the suggestion box, etc. — none of that increased wealth went to the workers. All of it went to the richest people in the country.  

https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/15558/productivity-vs-real-earnings-in-the-us-what-happened-ca-1974

There had been a kind of partnership between owners and workers. The owners of large companies said, in effect: “if you keep being more productive by working harder, smarter, and faster, we will all benefit. We’ll have more profits and you’ll have higher wages.”

Then, the owners stopped living up to that implicit agreement. They took all the increased profits for themselves. Basically, that’s what happened in 1974. And it also happened in 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. It varied, of course, somewhat from industry to industry, and month to month, and company to company but that is the big picture. 

People who had organized their lives and the lives of their families around their jobs found that they had no job. Their jobs were shipped overseas or given over to automation. They were pissed off. As they should have been. Notice that this trend continued unabated under both Republican administrations and under Democratic administrations. It’s hard to even see a difference in the divergence that occurred between the ever-increasing wealth that workers contributed through their increased productivity and the stagnation in their real wages. 

Then, we come to 2016 and someone said, “You can’t trust these politicians. They’re all the same. They are in cahoots with their rich donors. You know who you can trust? ME!” 

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The very worst fear of many of the wealthiest .001% of the country is that all workers will get together and demand their fair share! The workers are at least as responsible for the increased overall wealth as the owners. But while real wages for workers has been basically unchanged for decades, the compensation for owners has skyrocketed. Of course, they know it’s unfair! They don’t care if it is unfair. But they do care greatly that the yacht party of caviar and champagne continues unabated. 

How to deal with this? What can you do if you’re wealthy because of other people’s work and this becomes common knowledge? You divide and conquer. You shout long enough and hard enough in every possible medium of communication that it isn’t the greed of the wealthy that has kept your wages from going up. Oh, no, not at all. It’s the foreign competition. It’s the people of color. It’s the gays. It’s the Muslims. It’s the Jews. It’s the uppity women. It’s the video games. It’s violence on TV. It’s sunspots. It’s aliens from other planets hidden in area 51. It’s lack of ambition on your part. It’s because you haven’t taken responsibility. It’s because of liberals who want to take all your guns away and make you eat quiche or salad. 

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Those that want it all for themselves are terrified that you’ll catch on to their game. And, if you do catch on, you may just choose not to play any longer. So, they buy politicians. They buy air time for commercials. They indoctrinate you to hate workers that look different; that speak differently; that eat different foods; that wear different clothes; that worship in buildings with a different shape. They plant lies about all of these “other” people so that you will hate those “other” people — meanwhile trying to convince you that they are on your side; that they are just like you really. After all, you’re both “white” or “straight” or “Christian” or “Midwestern” or whatever. But the truth is — the lives they live are quite different. Despite being extremely wealthy, many of them pay far less tax than you do. If their kids goof off in high school or aren’t very bright — no problem! They’ll just bribe the way for their kids to get into a top university.  

So far, their little game has worked. By using the same methods that get you to buy skin products you don’t really need; the same methods that get you to buy sugared water at a high price; the same methods that get you hooked on sugar; the same methods that make you feel guilty about being overweight; the same methods that induce you to buy products and systems to help you lose weight; the same methods that fool you in a thousand ways — they get you to hate other people — people who are superficially different are “sold” as being fundamentally different. While the people whose lives really are fundamentally different from yours are being touted as living lives that are very similar to yours.  

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Once you begin voting for the folks who are paid for by these very wealthy people, you will tend to listen to them. You will tend to believe them. Not because you are stupid or gullible. You will do it because that’s what you’ve done in the past. The more you vote for them, the more you want to believe them. And, here’s the kicker: if they are outrageous  in behavior and speech, you will want to believe them even more. After a few years, it doesn’t matter how absurd or ridiculous what they say is. You’ll still believe them. It’s not your fault, really. But it does keep you, and all the rest of us, trapped in a vicious circle. 

You got to this Wednesday from yesterday. But your yesterday was Thursday. It’s comforting to know that there are millions of others who also got here from Thursday. 

You don’t have to keep choosing this way. But many of you will. And, that’s precisely the way that the wealthiest .001% like it. They don’t want to share with you the wealth that you created. They’d much rather keep things the way they are. They’d much rather keep that wealth for themselves. After all, caviar, champagne, yachts, and beautiful teen-agers are expensive. 

There is, of course, a much easier solution to the Hobbits and Orcs problem. Hobbits and Orcs could stop hating and mistrusting and killing each other. Then, crossing the river to the other side is easy. And that benefits everyone. 

Everyone, that is, except the .001%. 

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Author Page on Amazon. 

Abstract of article in Cognitive Psychology

 

 

       

Essays on America: Labelism

11 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

advertising, corporations, Democracy, essay, freedom, lying, media, politics

Essays on America: Labelism

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This is a post about racism. But, it’s also a post about misogyny. It’s a post about homophobia. But it’s also a post about Trumpism and the “base.” (BTW, if any of these terms makes you not want to read the article, then you definitely should read it). 

Because all of the ideas associated with these terms are in some way linked to one particular term: labelism. What is labelism? It is treating the label of a thing as if that label equaled the thing labeled. Let’s take an example. Call me Ishmael. (My real name’s “John” but you can call me “Ishmael”). But I’m guessing that that really bothers some of you. Why? Because my name is “John.” Let’s come back to that. 

When I was a very young kid, I recall my mother telling me that we were going to visit one of her friends, Mrs. Fox. Immediately the image of a woman who was also a fox sprang into my imagination. She had a human hairdo popular back then with straight hair at the top and many curls below ear level. But her snout was distinctly vulpine. Her eyes were also fox-like, but it was made up and she was wearing lipstick! I must have had a wide-eyed and glazed look when I said back to my mom, “We’re going to see … Mrs…..FOX?!” 

fox on brown wooden plank

Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com

Mom giggled and said, “That’s just her name. She’s not a four-legged fox with a tail!” I think that my mother must have imagined something similar to my image because she then burst out laughing. I don’t think I was totally convinced by Mom’s reassurance, but I was at least willing to go see for myself what this “Mrs. Fox” really looked like. 

Now, in fairness to my younger self, there were many examples of cartoon animals and books that equated the name with animal. The Three Little Pigs. Donald Duck. Mickey Mouse. And they all exhibited the same hopes and fears that I did.

It seems to me that people differ quite a bit in terms of how much “reality” they attribute to a label. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve seen microwave popcorn on the shelves with the word “Butter” prominently displayed, but when you read the ingredients, there is no butter in it whatsoever. Similarly, some marketing genius came up the idea of naming a perfume “Unscented.” So, if I go to the store and buy cat litter that says, “Unscented” it is actually perfumed with a perfume whose name is “Unscented.” (Get “Fragrance Free” instead, although I suppose eventually that will also be a lie). 

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How did I discover that the popcorn had no butter? I read the fine print. I looked at the ingredients. Right now, we are lucky because Americans earlier put the pressure on until it was legally required to list ingredients. (For what it’s worth, the popcorn’s good; besides that, it probably wouldn’t work to put butter in microwave popcorn. But why lie?). 

As I argue elsewhere, listing every ingredient wasn’t necessary hundreds of years ago. People would buy their bread at a local baker and if they put crappy ingredients in it, everyone in town would know. But now? Most of us buy stuff from people we don’t know and are never going to meet. And, the trail of responsibility is very complex indeed. Today’s supply chains lower costs but make quality hard to pin down and very hard to pin down responsibility for bad behavior. 

How did I discover that “Unscented” is a scent? Initially, I think someone told me and I think it was my daughter-in-law or my daughter.  And then, I confirmed it with my own sense of smell. By the way, the manufacturers of cat litter are masters of perfumery because they make one brand that actually manages to smell much worse that cat poo or cat urine or both combined. It is vile. Now, that takes genius. 

If you think facebook gets a bit nasty on occasion, you should really try twitter. Anyway, I ran across a tweet today that got me thinking along these lines of labelism. The tweeter basically said that she “wasn’t a racist but” (a phrase highly correlated with the very next thing being a racist comment). She wasn’t a racist, so she claimed, but it didn’t make sense to pick a black actor for Ariel because they don’t look anything alike.  

Okay, then. Let’s first just get one thing out of the way. Ariel is a cartoon character. The Actor is a real person. People are quite different from cartoon characters. And, they look noticeably different, regardless of color. But much more importantly, the person would not be anything like Ariel either. The person would have lungs, a heart, a brain, 720 different muscles, have weight, be real, could move on her own, etc. 

On the other hand, characters in novels, plays, movies and cartoons — if they are well done — are like real people in terms of their internal lives. It is all a fiction, of course, as well as magic. (It’s no accident that Disney called his extravaganza theme park “The Magic Kingdom.”) Fiction is magic in that it allows you to vicariously experience another person’s choices, actions, sensory inputs, relationships, self-talk, and even internal conflicts. The words are used as cues or clues and you yourself imagine the actions, sights, sounds, and smells. You generate the feelings with your brain. The book doesn’t have a brain. The movie doesn’t have a brain. 

photography of disneyland

Photo by Makenzie Kublin on Pexels.com

When you watch a movie, you see a person and hear a voice. The most important thing is what is going on in the actor and whether they can hint at what is happening internally through their motions, expressions, and voice. That is what is important about good fiction: what goes on inside. 

What could possibly be more racist than to think a POC could not feel inside what a white person was thinking? Or, what could be more racist than to think a POC could not show that set of feelings through their actions and voice in a highly competent, artistic, & inspired fashion? 

Now, let us set aside the really important part of the story process and just focus on the external factors. Two complete human forms typically share a myriad of surface characteristics. Most people have bilateral symmetry, ten toes, ten fingers, one head, the same set of 720 muscles and so on. Our fingers share the same joints, fingernails, etc. And yet — out of that sea of similarity, the “I’m not a racist but” tweeter claims that because the actor is black, she “doesn’t look anything like [emphasis added]” the form of the cartoon character. So, the “I’m not a racist but” tweeter thinks skin color counts — but none of the other 1000 physical characteristics that nearly all of us share count at all. Hmmm. So, for the “I’m not a racist, but” tweeter, skin color is the only marker of a person’s physique that makes any difference. 

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Human beings are vastly complex. Our life — the very life we feel right now — goes back in unbroken lineage 4.5 billion years. Our bodies contain 70 trillion cells. By contrast, the (already considerable) population of earth is only 7 billion. To pick out one characteristic as being the only one that counts? 

The tendency to confuse label with substance persists into adulthood for all of us. For instance, in Dan Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational, he cites studies in which adults, e.g., prefer dentists, whose name starts with “D” and will give preference to someone with the same name they have, even though the name sharing is coincidence.  We also have the option to be on the look out for labelism. Watching out for it and then looking into things more deeply is the first step to minimizing it in your thinking. 

Because there are others who are well aware of this tendency to confuse the thing with the label and all too happy to use that confusion to make a profit at your expense. In the examples above, consumer products companies are following the letter of the law (all the while lobbying to rescind even those protections) but at the same time, spending millions to mislabel their products and mislead you. “All Natural Juice Drink”! Doesn’t that sound wonderful? The one I looked at had less than 5% juice. There’s nothing about it that’s “natural.” It’s basically water and corn syrup. And, indeed, at this point, the actual ingredients are listed. So, if and only if, you take the time to look at that government-mandated information, you will see what’s really going on. Large corporations are not satisfied with only misleading the people who won’t bother to read the ingredients. They want to right to fool everyone. 

actor adult business cards

Photo by Nikolay Ivanov on Pexels.com

Sadly, this manipulation of labels to confuse the unwary to do things in the interests of the very rich rather than their own interests is not limited to their consumer products. The very wealthy who essentially own and/or run the corporations want to be able to control elections. So, they brought a law-suit under the label “Citizens United” all the way to the Supreme Court. (This was hardly “citizens united”!! It was brought on behalf of some of the richest and most powerful people in American). 

Applying nice-sound labels to things that are “bad” is just one type of trick. Another common trick is to label something negatively in order to get you to dislike it. Why do people want to manipulate you into disliking somebody? Basically, they do it to get you to put your anger on them for your troubles rather than the people truly responsible. 

The word “label” implies a word. But let’s look more deeply (or at least more pragmatically) at the basic concept of playing on your labelism so that you act against your interest. Corporations use music and pictures to impact your psyche in the same way. When they tell you (as currently required) about the deadly side-effects of a drug, they play calm, idyllic music. Nice music. Music that makes you feel there is nothing to worry about. And sweet pictures. Pictures of flowers, and rainbows, and family fun, and romance. How could anything possibly go wrong? But those pictures do not logically flow from taking the drug. Nor does joyful music start playing in your life. 

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You may or may not experience this after taking that new drug. After all, it’s just a picture, not a promise. But your brain treats it as a promise. And they know that.

We just accept it now. After all, it’s just “business as usual.” But why is it “business as usual”? Who benefits from the rules that now exist? And what if, someday in the future, Americans become so accepting of this manipulation of feeling through labels, images, & sounds that they did not even notice that this was going on in politics? What if we were not just being manipulated by big moneyed interests into buying cat litter, popcorn, and drugs? What if corporations were also spending their billions to buy elections in order to make the rules of the game even more favorable to them? 

We can only imagine. 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/how-supreme-court-turned-corporations-people-200-year-saga/

Author Page on Amazon

Anti-Pattern: Kill the Messenger

28 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

advertising, Anti-Pattern, bully, Business, collaboration, cooperation, learning, marketing, media, Pattern Langauge, politics

This may be the last in the series of socio-technical Anti-Patterns (that is, things you want to avoid doing). Although I do think there is value in the Anti-Patterns (or I wouldn’t have bothered), I think the emphasis should be on the Patterns. It’s also personally depressing to write about Anti-Patterns right now because every time I write about how a particular type of behavior is to be avoided, it happens in real life! In abundance! Without apology! 

This is why I also included the “what if” story about tennis. I really think people do not quite see how utterly dependent the vast majority of us are on complex, globe-spanning interactions which are, at bottom, based on mutual trust.

achievement adult agreement arms

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Once we erode that trust, literally millions will die even if war is avoided – which itself seems a remote possibility. It is a bit, I suppose, like the proverbial story about fish not “realizing” they are in water because it’s all they’ve ever known. People exist and thrive because of this network of trust. But they have no realization that it’s even there, let alone that it’s crucial. Once these networks are destroyed, they will be most likely be replaced by much simpler, less flexible ones based on power. There is a limit to how large these can grow because when possible, everyone will realize that such a network only really benefits the person at the top. So, they escape if they are able. Such power-based networks are also far less capable of innovation than ones based on trust, expertise and experience, fair incentives, the free flow of information. And, one of the main deficiencies in power-based networks is illustrated by the following Anti-Pattern.  

abstract art blur bright

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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Kill the Messenger

In the context of a crucial issue or task, important information is provided to the Person in Power: information that is critical in making the right decision or designing the proper course of action. When this information is delivered to the Person in Power (here abbreviated “PP”), they hear something they don’t like. So, they literally or figuratively, kill the messenger. 

At first blush, this Anti-Pattern seems insane. Of course, it is unfair and unethical to kill the messenger, but how does it benefit the PP who does the killing? Here’s the surprising answer: It doesn’t! Not in the least! He or she is encouraging people to avoid providing him with crucial information. It doesn’t benefit PP, but it does benefits his or her Id-Baby. Some people would say it benefits his or her ego, but that is not really in keeping with Freud’s original meaning of the words Ego, Id, and Superego. Or, to say it another way, killing the messenger is not good for the PP’s body or the PP’s long-term prospects; in other words, not for the adult PP (if there is one). Killing the messenger is an infantile reaction of the inner child who believes everything must be the way they want it to be. 

doll wearing eyeglasses

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

There is, however, another reason – an also insane reason – for the PP to kill the messenger. He is now free to discredit the messenger. This in turn, if carried out as a policy against the Message  Sent by Messenger (here abbreviated “MSM”), people will begin to doubt the MSM and rely only on the PP for the “truth.” This reason shows a somewhat longer time-span of attention. After all, if people have a lot of experience with MSM that turns out to be quite useful information, it will take some time for the PP to destroy credibility of the MSM. But, it is still quite limited thinking; perhaps not a 2 year old, but more like a spoiled 13-year old from one of the more prestigious Prep Schools. Plans must change and we must be open to it. So, for the PP to destroy sources of potentially useful information to the PP, is still insane. 

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(Editorial Aside:  And, I must confess, I am totally bewildered that we while we shouldn’t and wouldn’t let an insane person drive a school bus, we would have one armed with nuclear weapons. Well, more than one.)

In various organizations and contexts, the specifics of Killing the Messenger vary as well as the degree to which it happens. “Killing the messenger” figuratively can be partial. For example, a company will likely fill its website with positive news about the company. They probably take a similar tack with employees. If they are required by law to tell you about a drug’s side-effects, they will do it while a beautiful woman in a white dress dances carelessly and weightlessly through a field of daisies and while somewhere magic elves are playing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Who wouldn’t want those side effects?! And, yet, that same company might be quite scrupulous about the accuracy of some of the data it depends on for its operational efficiency. So, it can be a mixed bag. At least, it can be a mixed bag for a normal organization or a normal person. 

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At one extreme, we might have some sort of highly enlightened guru who would immediately take in each new moment without judgement. Most people may initially have a negative reaction to bad news. They may not believe the messenger. They might say, “What? What did you say? No! You must be joking!” 

In some cases, even a normal person might lash out at a messenger. I can see that if a member of the Armed Services came to your door to tell you that your spouse had been killed, you might scream at the messenger. But, if you’re more than a very small child, you realize it wasn’t their fault. 

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But no sane adult would block out potentially crucial information that should inform their critical decisions. A sane adult would seek out additional sources of information; cross-check them against each other; surround himself with smart, competent people honest enough to tell the truth, even when it “hurts.” Without the truth to work with, a PP is just a Powerless Puppet to their own Id — or, likely, someone else’s.

Perhaps you have been the recipient of some variant of “Kill the Messenger”? Or observer?

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 I will post another Pattern Language Overview that includes the newer Patterns and Anti-Patterns – with clickable links. After that, I plan to move in a quite different direction. 


Author Page on Amazon

Context-Setting Entrance

13 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by petersironwood in management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

advertising, Business, collaboration, Design, marketing, pattern language, teamwork, Web design

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Context Setting Entrance

Prolog/Acknowledgement/History: 

It occurs to me that some readers would like to know more about Pattern Languages; the pros and cons; pointers to the research; perhaps, how to write (or find) Patterns. I will do that soon on the basis of my current understanding. I’d like to put out a few more examples first though. I find that concepts such as “Pattern” and “Pattern Language” are much better defined by example than by rule. In the meantime, here below are some pointers to give a better flavor of what this odd creature, A Pattern Language, actually looks like and whether it can be housebroken or used for hunting. As you can tell by the list below, I have tried this creature in many different circumstances. To me, it seems quite happy and affectionate. I think that when it comes to trying to work with Pattern Languages, it is necessary to treat it something like a puppy. Your attitude will be an even more important a predictor of your success than your cleverness or knowledge of the Patterns.

Let every Pattern be “frisky” and let each Pattern explore and check out odd corners of the domain (and each other). There are cases where a Pattern doesn’t apply and there are cases where no Pattern applies just as your puppy can’t do anything they want. And, there are a few places where Pattern Languages are not at all appropriate just as there are places where no pets are allowed. For example, some situations are well enough understood that they can be characterized by a mathematical formula. No need for a Pattern (or a puppy) there, though it could still be fun.

https://www.slideshare.net/John_C_Thomas/toward-a-sociotechnical-pattern-language

https://www.slideshare.net/John_C_Thomas/ppdd-copy?qid=2852eb5e-9639-44e0-b648-eb46defc0721&v=&b=&from_search=1

Meta design and social creativity from John Thomas

https://www.slideshare.net/John_C_Thomas/chi2006-workshop-paper-on-trust

https://www.slideshare.net/John_C_Thomas/chi2006-workshop-paper-on-trust

https://www.slideshare.net/John_C_Thomas/sigchi-extended-abstractsjct

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~yangwan1/cscw2011/papers/cscw2011extendedabstractW7positionpaper-JCT.pdf

https://www.slideshare.net/John_C_Thomas/handover-jct

There are several “sources” of inspiration for this Pattern. First, I was struck by one of Christopher Alexander’s architectural Patterns because it resonated with one of my own pet peeves — modern buildings often give no clue as to where the blasted entrance is! Part of Pattern 110 – Main Entrance says the following:

“The entrance must be placed in such a way that people who approach the building see the entrance or some hint of where the entrance is, as soon as they see the building itself.” 

To this, I say, “Amen!”

Being able to know where the entrance is, of course, is somewhat different from saying the entrance should give a clue as to what sort of behavior is appropriate once inside. In terms of my own experience however, this Pattern of Alexander’s set me to thinking about the importance of entrances.

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At about the time I became aware of that Pattern, I was working at IBM Research and used a system that my wife and other friends at IBM developed called “Babble.” This was a mixed synchronous/asynchronous messaging system with wonderful functionality but a rather “unprofessional” look to it. Later, when she managed the group, she hired an extremely talented architect/designer and Babble was replaced with a much more beautiful system called Loops (as in “keeping people in the loop”). The functionality was quite similar but the second design was much more beautiful. Oddly, it never got quite so much use as the first system. I began to wonder whether it was so beautiful that people felt as though what they needed to be more formal, respectful, and serious when they wrote there.

At about the same time, I built a website with some nice graphics. This was a wiki meant for everyone in a community to use. Instead, what I got was email from people suggesting things I could add to the website. “No, it’s a wiki, I explained. You don’t need my permission. Just add what you want!” Very few takers. Later, I made it more “rough-looking” and people began adding material to it.

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While traditions in a culture condition us to expect certain kinds of behavior when we go to a dry cleaners, a pub, or a cathedral, it seems that when it came to electronic media, cues were often missing or misleading. In a later project to improve search on www.ibm.com, I noted and then explained to management that although IBM was trying to be the high price, high quality provider, their website looked, at that time (@2000) a lot more like K-Mart’s website than it did that of Harrods or Neiman Marcus. All of these specific situations led me to believe that context-setting entrances (e.g., splash screens and portals) were not being sufficiently accounted for in the design of electronic media.

Author, reviewer and revision dates: 

Created by John C. Thomas on February 13, 2018

Synonyms: 

Set Appropriate Expectations

Abstract: 

Human societies have widely different customs about what is appropriate behavior in different contexts. As people grow up in a culture, they learn when and where various actions and styles of behaving and talking are appropriate. When someone enters an unfamiliar setting, it is generally to everyone’s advantage that the new person has some idea about what is appropriate. Therefore, before the person even enters it is nice to provide the right emotional tone and mood appropriate to the current situation. In some cases, this can be done architecturally or musically. In other cases, people may be given a “program” which through typography, word choice, or images may set the tone for a gathering. By setting the context at the entrance, people understand better what is expected of them; it prevents their embarrassment and enhances the ritualistic aspects of the event as well as making the practical outcomes achieved more effectively.

Problem:

Groups function better when the people in the group behave within a set of norms. For example, at a golf match, there are specific roles for contestants, caddies, audience members, officials, vendors, and the press. Each of them is expected to play a particular role with respect to the tournament. In addition to that however, there are expectations about the appropriate style. In golf, as in tennis, it is expected that the audience be quiet during actual play. Baseball and football players as well as professional fighters talk trash to each other but tennis players and golfers typically do not. If people use the “wrong” norms for the occasion, they may be embarrassed as well as upsetting the rest of the group. In some cases, such as a church service, prom, funeral, wedding, or legal proceedings, failing to follow the norms may even tend to thwart the social binding purpose of the event. For example, many things that would be “appropriate” at the bachelor or bachelorette party right before a wedding would not be appropriate as part of the post-wedding toasts. Because there are “rules” even if just one person follows those rules, it diminishes the feeling of group cohesion for everyone. In some cases, violating the norms could also have considerable practical consequences. For example, if a small town has a barn-raising event and there are assigned roles and responsibilities, someone simply “winging it” or following some completely different process of home building could be frustrating, counter-productive, or dangerous.

Context: 

Cultures developed separately in many places around the world. Partly to adapt to specific conditions and partly by accident, these cultures developed different cultural practices. There are many cultures around the entire world who celebrate e.g., successes, conceptions, births, deaths, marriages, divorces, graduations, birthdays, coming of age, etc. Aside from rituals and special events, there are also particular places where one is expected to behave in a certain way or certain people such as royalty who are supposed to be addressed in certain ways. There are also particular holidays that precipitate particular behaviors, moods, rituals, etc.

To insure that everyone in the group or community knows what is expected of them, more experienced members of the group or community might conduct training, provide written materials,  to the less experience or perhaps even put some information on a “cheat sheet” of some kind.

Yet, there may always be the possibility of those without the training or instructions to become involved in a social situation with demanding rules. In such cases, it helps to set the context by the words, shapes, colors, music, architecture and thereby let people know what the proper tone should be for the occasion .

People find it very difficult to operate in a sea of ambiguity and therefore seek to find explanations and clarity very quickly. Unfortunately, people therefore tend to jump to a conclusion about someone else and that conclusion can then blind them to further information about that person, particularly when the new information is at odds with the initial impression. So, when someone behaves “badly” — too informally or too formally, for instance, many immediately think badly of them. And, they, in turn, through being embarrassed, think less of the group, event, ritual, etc. than they would have if they had simply been “clued in” as to what was expected.

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Forces:

  • Everyone comes to expect certain forms of behavior from others in a specific context.
  • The expectations of any one person are primarily based on their own past experiences.
  • The behavior of any other person is largely based on that person’s past experiences. 
  • People are particularly influenced in their perception of something new by their first experience.
  • Because modern cultures are often quite fluid, it often happens in the real world that people enter a Holiday, special event, ritual, building, or website that they are unfamiliar with.
  • When a person seems to be too uptight or too loose for the situation, we tend to make (and stick with) negative attributions about them.
  • When someone attempts to “fit in” to a new group or situation and fails because they couldn’t tell how they were supposed to act, they will tend to reject the group, event, or medium.
  • There are numerous clues that can be used to set a mood or predispose people to behave in certain ways.

Solution:

When designing a website, application, building, party, or basically anything at all, use cues at your disposal to let people know what sorts of behavior and what styles of behavior are appropriate.

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Examples: 

1. Motion picture use both imagery and music at the beginning to let the audience know what this movie is about and even presage how it will turn out. Consider for a moment the difference between the beginning of The Sound of Music and Jaws. In both cases, the imagery and the music are quite appropriate to the overall dramatic arc.

2. You enter a restaurant. Even before you are seated or look at a menu, based on the noise level, background music, architecture, how crowded it is, and how the people are dressed, you generally have a fairly good idea of what is appropriate and inappropriate conversation and behavior as well as what the price range is likely to be.

3. You see a book at the bookstore or on-line. Before buying the book, or indeed, even reading a few pages, you already have an impression based on the cover, the size and age of the book, the blurb, and the author’s profile what type of book this is to be. For example, and hopefully, the cover art of Turing’s Nightmares says: “This is science fiction” and “The world is going to be quite different.” The tone will be somewhat surprising and unpredictable On the other hand, the cover of The Winning Weekend Warrior” is going to be about victory and is set in the real world. The tone will be fun and happy. The dust jacket of Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, looks to me quite formal and serious. It seems rather tome-like because of the sparseness of cover imagery, the typography and the presence of so many authors on the cover.

4. When it comes to social media, of course, a large part of what people “see” in the “entrance” are the posts, blogs, tweets, comments of other participants. If one wanted, for instance, to increase the chances that users were respectful, polite, or rude, one could alter the first few posts, blogs, tweets or comments that a new user saw and that could serve as a model for what was deemed most appropriate.

Resulting Context:

Generally speaking, a context setting entrance will help people behave more appropriately. This will result in less friction, fewer outcasts, greater group cohesion, and greater social capital. It may also help people choose more appropriately among various possible churches, movies, restaurants, movies and on-line venues.

Rationale:

Most people most of the time wish to act appropriately. Letting them know what that is increases the chances that they will be able to.

Related Patterns: 

Special Events. Greater Gathering.

Known Uses:

Metaphors: 

The strongest metaphor that leaps to mind are various “warnings” in the plant and animal kingdom; e.g., brightly colored poisonous snakes and tree frogs as well as “attractors” such as flowers use to attract bees and birds and fish use to attract potential mates.

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References: 

Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., Silverstein, M., Jacobsen, M., Fiksdahl-King, I. and Angel, S. (1977), A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Thomas, J. (2015). The Winning Weekend Warrior: How to succeed at golf, tennis, baseball, football, basketball, hockey, volleyball, business, life, etc.  CreateSpace/Amazon.

Thomas, J. (2016). Turing’s Nightmares: Scenarios and Speculations about “The Singularity.” CreateSpace/Amazon.

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“Reality Check”

16 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, management, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

advertising, Business, creativity, Design, epistomology, innovation, learning, life, pattern language, politics

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This is the second in a series of blogs that present Patterns in a Socio-technical Pattern Language of best practices for collaboration and coordination in complex societies. I intend to organize these in multiple ways (e.g., type of goal; where in a typical development process the pattern is most applicable; how large a collection of people the pattern is most applicable to, etc.).  I am entering them in this blog in an order that reflects current events. For example, there seems to be a movement to deny reality outright and insist everyone simply believe what the leaders promulgate. This, to me, is outright evil. But even when people are acting with the best of intentions, it is natural to take short cuts. Those short cuts can make life seem more efficient in the short run, but it can also lead to serious issues in the longer term.

Reality Check

Author, reviewer and revision dates:

Created by John C. Thomas on 4 September, 2001

Revised, JCT, 17 December, 2001

Revised, JCT, 15 January, 2018

Synonyms: 

Abstract:

In developing complex systems, it is often expedient to develop feedback loops based on ersatz measures of what we are really interested in assessing and controlling. While this seems expedient in the short term, it often leads to serious problems and distortions, particularly in times of crisis or transition when the correlation between ersatz measures and actuality substantially drifts or even suddenly disconnects. Actions can be based on these measures or models of reality rather than on reality(or more complete measures) and result in negative consequences. The solution is to perform regular “reality checks” to insure that measures or indicators of reality continue to reflect that reality.

Problem:

In developing complex systems, it is often expedient to develop feedback loops based on ersatz measures of what we are really interested in assessing and controlling. While this may seem expedient in the short term, it often leads to serious problems and distortions, particularly in times of crisis or transition when the correlation between ersatz measures and actuality substantially drifts or even suddenly disconnects. Actions can be based on these measures or models of reality rather than on reality. This can result in negative, even deadly, consequences.

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Context:

Many problems were partly responsible for the disaster at the Three Mile Island. One crucial problem, in particular, arose from the design of a feedback loop. A switch was supposed to close a valve. Beside the switch was a light that was supposed to show that the valve was closed. In fact, rather than having the light go on as the result of actual feedback from the valve closure itself, the signal light was merely a collateral circuit to the switch. All it actually showed was that the switch had moved position (Wickens, 1984). Under normal operation; that is, when the valve was operating properly, these two events were perfectly correlated. At a critical point in the meltdown, however, the valve was not operating properly. Yet, the human operator believed that the valve was closed even though it had failed to close in reality. His resulting actions, taken on the basis of the assumption that the valve was closed, exacerbated the subsequent problems. My colleague, Scott Robertson, has recently posted an analysis of the recent error that resulted in the nuclear missile scare in Hawaii. (See link).

View at Medium.com

In running an application program several years ago, I was given a feedback message that a file was posted. In fact, it wasn’t. The programming team of the application, rather than checking to see whether the file was actually posted, merely relied on the completion of an internal loop.

In advertising campaigns, it is difficult to measure the impact on sales. Instead, companies typically measure the “recall” and “recognition” rates of ads. This may often be correlated with sales changes, but in some cases, the ad may be very memorable but give the customer a very negative impression of the company and decrease the chances of actually selling a product.

Historically, monarchs and dictators (and even would-be dictators) often surrounded themselves only with people who gave them good reports and support no matter how their decisions impacted the reality of their realm. Eventually, the performance of such people tends to deteriorate severely because their behavior is shaped by this ersatz feedback rather than by reality.

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During the “oil crisis” in the seventies, oil companies relied on mathematical models of continually increasing demand. Year after year, for seven years, they relied on these models to predict demand despite the fact that, for all seven years, demand actually went down. The results are purported to have cost them tens of billions of dollars (Van der Heijden, 1996).

In some cases, the known existence of ersatz measures directly contributes to the destruction of the utility of these very measures. For example, if management decides the “easy way” to measure programmer productivity is “Lines Of Code,” once programmers discover this, the code base may grow quickly in terms of that measure, but not in terms of actual functionality.

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In America @2018, many people view money as the only legitimate value of interest for countries, companies, or individuals. Measures such as the GDP and the stock market index are taken as adequate and complete measures of the economic well-being of the society. There is a sense that, since we spend the most on weapons and health care, we must perforce be the “safest” and “healthiest” nation on the planet. This is clearly not the case. Similarly, ads talk about a person’s “net worth” when what they are really talking about is merely a person’s net financial worth. “Worth” is not the same as “financial worth.”

A large research organization that I am familiar with used to have a large number of administrative assistants who helped arrange meetings, send in expense reports, and answer telephones. At some point, most of these administrative assistants were laid off and the tasks were now done by the researchers themselves who were typically not nearly so efficient at them. The researchers took at least as long to do them as had the administrative assistants. Accountants looked favorably at all the “money they had saved” because they could easily see that the line item for administrative assistants was far less costly than it had been. Not visible, of course, was the fact that the much more highly paid researchers were now doing the same work that had been done before by the administrative assistants, but they were doing it less efficiently and at a far higher cost.

Forces: 

* Organizations are often hierarchically decomposed and bureaucratic. Therefore, it is often simplest to communicate with those close to us in the hierarchy and to build systems that rely for their model of reality only on things within the immediate control span of our small part of the organization.

* While more comfortable to limit system design and development to those things within one’s own team or department, it is often precisely the work necessary to capture more reality-based measures that will reveal additional challenges and opportunities in business process coherence.

*A more direct measure of reality is often more time-consuming, more costly, or more difficult than the measure of something more proximal that is often highly correlated with those aspects of reality of real interest.

*It is likely to be exactly at times of crisis and transition that the correlation be-tween proximal ersatz measures and their referent in reality will be destroyed.

*It is likely to be exactly under times of crisis and transition that people will tend to simplify their cognitive models of the world and, among other things, forget that the proximal measure is only ersatz.

Solution: 

Therefore:

Whenever feasible, feedback should ideally be based on reality checks, not solely on ersatz measures. When this is too costly (as opposed to merely inconvenient or uncomfortable), then at least design systems so that the correlation between proximal measures and their referent in reality is double-checked periodically.

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Examples:

Rather than rely solely on a circle of politically minded advisors, Peter the Great disguised himself and checked out various situations in Russia in person.

As reported by Paula Underwood (who was the designated storyteller for her branch of the Iroquois), her ancestors at one point felled giant trees for long houses in the Pacific Northwest. Later, when the tribe lived in the “Great Plains”, there were no trees of that size. The tribe began to doubt the existence of trees as large as what their oral history portrayed. In order to check on this, one brave spent many years walking back to that area and seeing with his own eyes that there were indeed trees as tall as had been portrayed in the oral history and then returning to the tribe to report back.

Resulting Context:

Ideally, over time, people who actually double-check reality will come to better understand when and how these reality checks will be necessary. They may also invent methods of making a check-in closer to what is really of interest more convenient or cheaper.

Related Patterns:

System as a Whole

Convergent Measures

Drawing the Line

Who Speaks for Wolf

Known Uses:

Richard Feynman, during the Manhattan project, noticed that the bureaucracy was worried about the possibility of accidentally stockpiling a critical mass of uranium. To prevent this, each section chief was required to insure that their section did not have a critical mass. To insure this, each section chief instructed each sub-section chief to insure that their subsection didn’t have a critical mass and so on, down to the smallest level of the bureaucracy. Upon hearing this plan, Feynman observed that neutrons probably didn’t much care whose subsection they reported to!

In another incident reported by Feynman, various bureaucrats were each trying to prove that they had better security than their peers. In order to prove this, they escalated the buying of bigger and thicker safes. The bigger and thicker the safe, the more bureaucrats felt that they had made their secrets secure. Feynman discovered that more than half of the super-safe safes had been left with the factory installed combinations of 50-50-50 and were therefore trivially easy to break into!

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References: 

Wickens, C. (1983). Engineering psychology and human performance. Columbus: Merrill, (p.1).

Van der Heijden, K. (1996). Scenarios: The art of strategic conversation. Chichester: Wiley.

Hutchings, E., Leighton, R., Feynman, R., and Hibbs, A. (1997). Surely, you’re joking Mr. Feynman. New York: Norton.

Underwood, P. (1993). The Walking People: A Native American oral history. San Anselmo, CA: Tribe of Two Press.

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https://petersironwood.wordpress.com/2017/02/25/the-invisibility-cloak-of-habit/

https://www.amazon.com/author/truthtable

Happy New Year!

01 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

advertising, civility, cooperation, greed, innovation, life, media, religion, social media

PicturesfromiPhoneChinaParisPrinceton 174

It’s not really the champagne or the fireworks that make New Year’s special.

Many people around the world, in their own time zones, celebrate New Year’s. Precisely when depends on where you live and to a large extent, the major religion in your area. Some people tend to celebrate in the Spring; others in the Autumn; many around the winter solstice; and a few traditional cultures celebrate the new year in the summer. Some of the traditional calendars are based on 12 lunar cycles which does not make a full year so their “New Year’s Day” shifts over time relative to the Gregorian calendar.

It’s easy to get lost in the details of the differences among traditions, cultures, and religions. But what I find remarkable about New Year’s is not the fact that there are differences across the world. What I find both remarkable and heartening is that many different cultures in many different countries have some kind of “New Year” celebration; that people across the globe recognize that time has a cyclical as well as a linear aspect; that people everywhere recognize the importance of new beginning and that special events are “marked” in some way and that these celebrations are shared by scores, thousands or millions of people across the planet.

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What I find even more wonderful is that people across the globe are able to learn something about other people and cultures. Right now, at the beginning of 2018, there are some few extremely greedy people who want to play on your hate and fear of anyone and anything that is different. They want to enhance your ignorance and play on your negative emotions for one and only one reason — to cheat you out of your freedom and therefore your life. Make no mistake about it. There really are dangers in the world and for best results, you really do want protection from those dangers — protection for you and for your family. Some of those people who threaten you do speak different languages or do practice or profess different religions.  But some don’t. Some people who are threats may dress differently or eat different kinds of foods. But some don’t. Basically, all those people across the globe are very much like you. And, just like you, they too need to understand that some of their leaders are also trying to steal things away from them and in order to do that, they want to make their followers believe that you and your kind are the threats and dangers.

Chances are much greater than 50-50 that if you were suddenly set down in the middle of a completely different culture, you would eventually be accepted and even welcomed. Why? Because people are fundamentally similar. However, people “getting along” is not in everyone’s interest; it’s only in the interest of the vast majority of human beings on the planet. Those who have positions of power and no real leadership skills to help “grow the common pie” will instead try to arouse your feelings that other people are trying to steal your piece of pie. If you cede your freedom to such power brokers, they promise they will protect you from these “others” who are trying to steal your pie. Instead, it is these very people in power who are out to steal your pie and add it to their considerable stack of pies — more than they could ever possibly eat.

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Here’s a secret though. The people who are inventing new pies; the people who are sowing wheat to make new flour for pies; the people growing the berries; the people actually baking pies — we are all very similar regardless of dress, language, religion, or customs. People in power are absolutely terrified that the rest of us will all discover the extent of the emperor’s nakedness and call it out for all to see. Those in power would hate to see a true meritocracy because they have very little skill when it comes to any aspect of actually making pies. By and large, their only skill is to make you fear that others are out to steal your pie. If everyone else becomes friends and colleagues across the globe, there is no more reason for the power-hungry to rule you.

Meanwhile, people across the planet collectively have a huge amount of power. In some places, there are still free elections and those can be one way to change the world and exercise your own power. But it is not the only way. Whatever wealth you have, you will have some choice about where to spend it. What if everyone rewarded companies that are ethical and punished companies that do unethical things by refusing to spend money on their product and services? What if people refuse to give up the hours of their lives for working for companies that act unethically? Would you be willing to take a 5% pay cut to pay for a company that believes “ethics” is not just a training exercise for underlings but also applies to the top executives of the company as well? How about 25%? Would you be willing to blow a whistle on corporate crime? Would you be willing to buy local product and support local services unless and until large multi-nationals behaved like good citizens? Are you willing to refuse further increases in productivity until there is a plan in place to share the gains in productivity between workers and those who own the companies? A world-wide or national strike would cause people to take notice and eventually change business practices.

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Last year, I wrote a long series of blogs about some of the root causes of divisiveness in America — though much of it applies equally to other countries in the world. There can be changes to social media, for instance, that could make it more of a force for unity and good and less a force for maximizing advertising dollars. Yet, none of the three social media companies I use most: LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter have asked me (or, so far as I know, any other user or citizens in general) what I would like to see different about their policies, procedures, and principles. We don’t have to wait for them to ask though. We are their users and their customers. Right now, they mainly care about their advertisers because advertisers are very vocal about policies if it affects their pocketbooks. But you and I can be just as vocal about policies that impact our society as are the advertisers. Ultimately, the advertising dollars depend on you and I using these social media.

For instance, check out the “Terms of Service” for these social media. It’s not always clear what constitutes a violation, but it does seem very clear that these social media are free to use the content you created for their own profit and that includes any clever things you say, photos, videos and music tracks. On the other hand, if you post something that you don’t have legal rights to, you and you alone are responsible. The terms of service are not “negotiated” with you; they are a “take it or leave it” affair and they are aimed at protecting the company, not at protected our democracy or humanity in general.

https://twitter.com/en/tos

https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms?_rdr=

https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement

But we can change that. We can collectively pressure social media to make changes that we feel are in the best interests of humanity. And this does not just apply to social media companies. It also applies to Walmart and Apple and Amazon and every other large multinational. We don’t have to be purely passive recipients of what others deem is the most profitable way for them to do business. We can change the commercial world so that products and services work better, are safer, and that the profits of productivity do not just accrue to owners but to workers as well. Yes, we can.

And that would indeed be a Happy New Year.

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Resolution: Create!

26 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by petersironwood in America, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

advertising, competition, creativity, innovation, issue resolution, negotiation, politics

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When most of us think of the word “Create” we tend to associate it with particular pursuits and professions; e.g., artist, writer, actor, scientist, engineer, photographer, choreographer or chef. However, every single human being — indeed, every living thing must be “creative.” To live is to create. It is not something relegated to particular human professions or past-times. In particular, when you and someone else disagree, instead of hunkering down into a straight-laced no-holds barred negotiation about who gets the biggest slice of a given pie, there is an alternative. That alternative is to dig into that natural creative streak that you have — and that the person you are disagreeing with has — and to create!

Let’s take a simple example. A good metaphor for life, as we know from Forrest Gump, is a box of chocolates. Let’s say there is only one box of chocolates. I want the chocolates. You want the chocolates. What to do? As you already know (but have not yet forgotten) if you are a kid, there are some simple standard ways to deal with such a situation.

You could use a game of luck or a game of skill to determine who gets the box of chocolates. We could split the box in two. If there are 64 chocolates, you get 32 and I get 32. Of course, since I am not a kid, but an adult who is “skilled” in zero-sum game negotiations, I might not settle for just 32. I’ll feel as though I’ve lost by only getting half. I’ll likely hire a lawyer. Which will tend to induce you to hire a lawyer as well. We may go to court and the judge will award 40 chocolates to me and only 24 to you. Victory for me! Of course, I will now have to pay my lawyer 20 chocolates so I only end up with 20 instead of 32, but I’m still better off that you! You have to pay your lawyer 20 chocolates and you end up with only 4! Loser! You won’t be very happy with this outcome so you may appeal to a higher court. In the end, I will be lucky to end up with ONE chocolate, but hey, if you have zero chocolates, I can still call myself a “winner.” Yeah. That’s the “adult” way. Remember those days when you were just a silly little kid and you would have ended up with a mere 32?

Instead of using our adult knowledge and intelligence to end up with less than a naive kid, we could use our adult knowledge and intelligence to end up with more. Here’s one simple way. Typically, all chocolates are not the same. I actually only like solid chocolates with nuts. I prefer dark chocolate, but milk chocolate with nuts is okay too. I don’t even really like the ones with caramel or creamy fillings. I would rather have all ten with nuts than five with nuts and 27 with fillings. If it turns out that you like the ones with fillings better than or equally to the nutty ones, we will both be better off by taking these preferences into account. Of course, it might turn out that both of us hate the creamy ones and love only the nut-filled chocolates. In this case, we have to find a way to split the nut ones and forget about the rest. Right?

Wrong! Of course not. Although it is really greed that makes you blind, in reality, the world does not begin and end with you, me, and a box of chocolates. We could find a third party who loves creamy chocolates; get them to pay us for those and go buy some chocolates with the money — the yummy crunchy chocolates with nuts that we both love. If we play our cards right, we could each end up with 32 nut-filled chocolates. We could each end up with even more if we find someone who really really loves the creamy ones.

Once you relinquish your greed-filtered view of the world, you will see that there is much more to the world than you, me, and chocolate. While it’s true that I really do love chocolate covered nuts, I am in the process of losing weight so even the chocolate covered ones that I love are a kind of double-edged sword. I might find some way to trade my share of the chocolates for something that I value even more. For instance, I might trade my presumptive half of the chocolates for ten apples since you have a surfeit of apples and don’t really like them. Or, since my tangerine tree is still going strong, I might take your half of the chocolates and give you ten seedless tangerines. These are actually, now that I think about it, even better than chocolates. Each seedless tangerine offers the pleasure of how it feels, how it smells, the activity of peeling it, the knowledge comes to mind that the white slightly bitter material between the fleshy segments is filled with rutin which is an important nutrient though the word is apparently not in the spell-checker. When you eat a tangerine, you get to break it into segments. This in itself is a satisfying process. If a friend happens by, you can have the pleasure of offering them a tangerine as well. If you happen to leave one of those tangerines in a sunny car for a few minutes, it will not be ruined. Nor will your car upholstery.

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But wait. There’s more! The world as it is, plus the world of my imagination, plus the world of your imagination, plus the emergent world of our collective imagination extends beyond even a world of you, me, chocolates, apples, and tangerines. You might actually not like tangerines, but you could learn from me how to like them, provided you are open to it. It might turn out that the only reason you currently dislike tangerines is that you tried some very small seedy ones when you were a kid. You found them bothersome to peel and deseed with your clumsy five-year old fingers. Then, when you got your hands all sticky, you sticky-fied your mom’s fine tablecloth at the Holiday dinner. She yelled at you in front of the whole family and now you hate tangerines. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault! Nor is it the fault of tangerines in general. Really. These tangerines in the here and now are not those tangerines at all. My tangerines are large, juicy, seedless, and easy to peel. Your fingers are likely far less clumsy than they were at five. Your mom is not here to yell at you for getting your fingers sticky. So, what you could learn from me about the joys of tangerines and the more general fact that you yourself are limiting your current pleasure in life based on a gross over-generalization of specific childhood experiences — that, my friend, is a lot more valuable than a box of chocolates.

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I might similarly be currently disinclined to see the value in ten of your apples because I had a bad experience with apples once. Perhaps it was one of those apples that looks all fresh and shiny in the store but once home, one bite tells you this apple is yucky, granular and brown inside. Quite possibly it got frozen in transport or terribly bruised. If you like apples, you can teach me to like apples (again). You and I might even decide to chuck the whole box of chocolates, trading it for money to buy more fruit, or even sending it jointly as a gift to a family for whom a box of chocolates would be far more meaningful than it would be to either of us. The gift of good feelings that we would get by being generous to others could totally outweigh the pleasure of 32 chocolates.

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We could take that box of 64 chocolates into the kitchen and so some joint experimenting in terms of a culinary challenge. It might work like this. We take turns choosing one chocolate either by the index (which any chocolatier who is not devil’s spawn will provide) or by appearance alone. Let’s say we flip and let me go first. I choose a chocolate and my challenge is to find something in the kitchen that will enhance the flavor or at least give it an interesting and different context. So, I pick a solid dark chocolate piece. I toast a piece of Dave’s Killer Bread and split it in two. I spread Laura Scudder’s crunchy peanut butter on each half. I melt the chocolate and spread that on top. Now, we taste the result. How does the chocolate add (or detract) from the overall concoction? Would more chocolate make it better? More peanut butter? Should I have added cinnamon? The fun of this and the knowledge we gained and the resulting bonds of friendship could easily be far more valuable than the chocolates themselves. Who knows? Maybe we could go into business with a line of chocolates not meant to be eaten alone but to be used as accoutrements to numerous side-dishes. Our explorations could lead to guidelines about which kind of chocolate goes best with which kind of other ingredients.

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Alternatively, we could each take 32 random chocolates and make an advent calendar. Perhaps, each chocolate comes with a picture and story about one of the ingredients or an interesting story about it. When did people first make chocolate? Who? When did people first begin “refining” sugar? Who first boxed chocolate? Do you know the story of “Mother’s Day” by the way? What is the current thinking on the dietary impact of chocolate? Is it good for you? Bad for you? Both? We could turn a simple box of chocolate into a thoughtful and interesting gift of value far beyond the box of chocolates itself. Yeah, it would definitely be a lot of work to make this into a multi-dimensional gift. But it would also be a lot of fun. Who knows? We might even make a multi-million dollar business out of it.

There’s nothing particularly “special” about tangerines, apples, or chocolate in this regard. Anything of value can be made more valuable by the addition of other ingredients, contexts, knowledge, love, caring, gaming, and by changing your stance or attitude toward it. You can continue to negotiate like a little kid. That’s not horrible. At least you’ll get half a box of chocolate out of the deal (or a fair chance for the whole box). Or, you could negotiate like a “real winner” type A go-get-um up-and-coming ladder-climbing dynamo of flash and dazzle. You can then brag to your friends (if you have any) that you ended up with one chocolate while I ended up owing three chocolates. Yes, you could brag that you “won.” Congrats.

Your third alternative: approach every negotiation as an exercise in creativity and creation. Every party to a negotiation brings something to the table tangibly (or why are they there?). But beyond that, each party also brings their unique perspective, values, and life experiences. Working together, we could almost certainly create something of more value than what we are negotiating about. Despite my best efforts, you might just not like tangerines. But maybe you do like oranges. Why? I mean, why do you like oranges but not tangerines? We might discover something of great interest to tangerine growers or the advertisers for oranges. You might like creamy chocolates but you don’t like chocolates with nuts although you like both chocolates and nuts. Why? We might discover something of great interest to chocolatiers. Or, in the process of trying to discover why you don’t like chocolate covered nuts though you like both ingredients, we might discover something about what makes some people allergic to nuts or something about you. Every disagreement need not devolve into a zero-sum game unless you decide or believe that’s all there is. Instead, you could treat every disagreement as an opportunity to work together jointly and create value beyond what comes to the table.

As explained in “The Winning Weekend Warrior” sports are not zero sum games. If you take me on in tennis, one of us will “win” the match and one of us will “lose” the match. But the winning is but a small part of the overall value. I improve, hone, or broaden your skills and you do the same for mine (provided we are somewhat evenly matched). We are both exercising which means we are improving the body, mind, and spirit of each of us. True zero sum games are largely a fiction. More accurately, they are zero-sum only in terms of a very limited view of the context of your experience. Be creative! When there is an issue of disagreement, create!

snowfall


Comments welcome! My computer is deathly ill and this was created on a borrowed computer so it may take a while to respond, but I will respond to comments when I can.


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Standard Issue

13 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

advertising, civics, life, marketing, politics, social media

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Most of the suburban neighborhoods of my home town were quite similar. They typically had a long row of very similar houses and each house had a yard. That yard was filled with neatly mowed grass. Around the house were bushes. The size of the house varied from neighborhood to neighborhood but lets go back to the part where all the houses “decided” to landscape their yard in a very similar way. No-one, so far as I know, ever threatened a person whose lawn was not well-mowed. For the most part, people voluntarily kept their yards looking “nice” although within very narrow bands of taste. Having the neighborhood embody variations on a theme actually made the neighborhood as a whole look nice. Neighborhoods would have had a quite different look and feel if everyone competed on how high they could grow the bushes and trees throughout their entire property!

Sensationalism

And, at a larger level, that’s how I feel about the rampant sensationalism in advertising. I visited a small college town once for a job interview and the only signs were moderately sized wooden signs that said, “Post Office” or “USABank” or “Barber Shop” — and it all worked for everyone in that small locale. But when there’s enough money to “go national” businesses get into an arms race to grab your attention with all bold type and much worse tricks. But it all just becomes harder to read. It makes buying and selling actually more random as people need to filter out all that crap that they are exposed to nearly every waking moment.So, I actually think these huge ad budgets are exactly a kind of tragedy of the commons. All the companies would be better off with more low key and quieter ads and so would we. And, consumers could make more intelligent choices because they would be exposed to little enough information to make some sense of it.

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Is there a way for advertisers, regulators, the public, to unwind toward less sensationalistic advertising? I don’t know whether it’s possible or even desirable. But it’s worth considering.

It’s also worth considering experimenting with a different set of algorithms for social media. In their current instantiation, social media are a bad alternative to face to face meetings. In real physical space when people meet face to face, for a number of reasons, they generally act civilly. This doesn’t always happen obviously, but it generally does even if people do not agree. Actual fights at school board meetings, Congress, state legislatures, town hall meetings, high school debates, bowling leagues, assemblies, work meetings occur rarely.

Filtering and Bandwagon Effects

The social media that I know of have algorithms to filter what is shown to you. These algorithms work behind the scenes showing you and me just those things that are meant to maximize profits for the social media company. Yes, true enough, there is an intermediate goal of pleasing the user. But rest assured, if there were a way to displease the user and make more money, that’s what would be done. It’s important to keep in mind the intermediate as opposed to the ultimate goal. Of course, you realize that the social media company is out to make money. And, you also know from your own experience, that the social media company suggests things to you and shows you ads. In some cases, you also directly pay the social media company, perhaps for enhanced capabilities.

Despite not knowing the details of these unknown algorithms, I can make some educated guesses. For instance, on Facebook, we are presented with a scroll of posts. Generally, these originate from people you are “friends” with on Facebook. Ads and sponsored pages (=Ads that don’t look like ads) weasel there way in there as well. But I have hundreds of friends on Facebook.  Which ones actually appear in the feed? Likely inputs to that decision are: how many times I hesitated and for how long on previous posts for that person. Most likely, that weighting function is moderated by a recency & frequency metric. In addition, choosing an emoticon, would give that person a bigger bump and a still larger bump would come from commenting on a post. The biggest bump of all would come from a “Share.” It’s possible, but seems to me unlikely, that Facebook might actually do some natural language processing on the comment contents to see whether the reaction text is positive or negative about the post. I think it likely that Facebook may also assign some indirect positive weight. If many of my friends, especially those highly “valued” according to FB algorithm, like a post, then I am more likely to see it as well.

Let’s assume for the purposes of argument that the above speculations are more or less accurate. Clearly, there are unintended consequences if these are the only measures that the algorithm considers. For example, say I am friends with people Claude and Carol. I play tennis frequently with Claude and met him about a year ago. Carol, on the other hand, I’ve known for fifty years and I find everything she reads, thinks, etc. fascinating. As it turns out, Claude posts about 30 times a day and a lot of the stuff is rather cute. So if I see it, I may click a “Like.” Carol, on the other hand, posts maybe once every week or two. Whatever it is, it is interesting and I often comment or share it. Because Carol posts so infrequently, I don’t even notice that I haven’t seen her on FB for the last three weeks. Meanwhile, at long last Carol posts: “Hey guys. Recovering from accident. More later.” But do I see it? I haven’t paused on, liked, commented on or shared any of Carol’s posts because she hasn’t had any. It’s quite possible that Carol’s post will never get to the top of my queue. If I then fail to see this post, Carol’s “rank” will go down even further. Having a post get high in your queue probably depends to some extent on the content as well as the accompanying media. I like videos in general, and perhaps I like posts about “Human Computer Interaction.” This so happens to be what Carol typically posts on. Her most recent post, however, has nothing topic-wise to recommend it to me. The keywords that may be looked at “guys” “accident” “recovering” are not generally topics that interest me. So, because of the unusual and “uninteresting” post, I’m even less likely to see the post about my good friend, Carol.

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In any case, I can pretty much guarantee that whether these algorithms are good or bad for society as a whole has not been a top priority in design meetings. Perhaps there is a way for the user to be able to push and pull the priorities in various ways to achieve a panoply of different results. In fact, one can imagine an open system environment in which dispersed and diverse groups offer up various add-on capabilities. This is an alternative to having one giant company control how we see and react to each other.

Bandwagon Alternatives.

The “Bandwagon Effect” refers to social media algorithms putting high priority to show those items that already have more pauses, likes, comments and shares in the case of FaceBook. In Twitter terms, it would be likes and retweets. Thought of in terms of viewing humanity as a giant neural net, the bandwagon effect is a sharpening to the first stimulus that pops up. This is less than the intelligence of an earthworm! We should be able to arrange a multi-layer, highly interconnected network of people to have a more intelligent and nuanced reaction than “WOW!” And, yet, every time one of these idiotic tsunamis of insanity gone viral, it interferes in a very real sense with your ability to keep up with the people whom you actually know.

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Anonymity Alternatives. 

Companies need to carefully consider ways to insure people’s identities are broadly consistent with reality. I do not think it would be okay for me to have an account on twitter, for instance, that has a name like “Donald_Trump” or “Barack_Obama” if I have no official relationship to the real people who are most likely referenced by these labels. This is even more serious if I am really using a moniker to get people to see my posts when my real goal is to trash these political figures.

My FB profile says I worked at IBM Research and Verizon and studied at the University of Michigan. Does FB do any work to verify these claims? After all, if I make a comment about IBM, people may reasonably put a little more credence on that comment if they know I worked at IBM Research than if I just made that up out of whole cloth. As we have recently discovered, some “fake” accounts that claimed to be US citizens concerned about our country were actually the accounts of Russians who were intentionally trying to foment discontent in America. Things of a similar nature are being used to disrupt and divide other Western democracies.

Similarly, my LinkedIn profile is even more detailed with degrees, work experiences, and other details. But suppose I present myself (falsely) as a highly experienced diplomat with widespread middle east experience. Won’t people who read my various posts and comments about the middle east put more weight on my opinion if I claim to know something about it? The question is, however, does LinkedIn do anything to verify the claims a person makes about their experience and background?

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I am not picking on these specific social media platforms. They are among the most popular and are three I happen to be active on. That’s the only reason I chose them. But do any of them make attempts to verify the information? Sure, you could argue it’s up to the individual to do this kind of checking but that’s insane. My name, for example, John Thomas, is an extremely common name. It’s not that trivial, even with google, to distinguish my actual publications, background, etc. from others with the same name, even for me. Wouldn’t it be a lot more efficient for, say, LinkedIn to at least lightly verify that I worked at IBM than for every one of my 3000 connections on LinkedIn to do it themselves? Part of the value of the social media platforms is in the profiles that people create. Is it to much to ask for the social media people to do any checking? Don’t we expect the FDA to at least spot check that things labelled as “beef” actually contain healthy cow meat and not rotted horse meat? We don’t allow people to get away with fake credit cards or driver’s licenses and with good reason. Who makes sure these social media profiles contain reasonably accurate information? Who should? It would be one thing if these media were simply used as occasional sources of entertainment. But that’s not the case! People rely on FB, for instance, for their news! 

In the absence of any checking, most people, me included, are putting up “real” information about ourselves, but others are completely lying perhaps as part of a small personal scam, but more crucially as part of an international attempt to divide America and other western democracies. True enough, FB terms of service ask for the help of users to put up real information about themselves. But we have learned that some accounts were not even telling the truth about their country of origin. This is not okay, folks. This is not okay.

Enforced Civility. 

Could or should social media do more to enforce some kind of civility in the content? This may admittedly be difficult to implement. Currently, social media do have various “Terms of Service” meant to move people toward civility but real civility is much more than simply avoiding swear words. It is easy to avoid being blocked and still “say” the swear word in a number of ways such as embedding or substituting other characters. You know I mean a**hole and I know I mean it. No one thinks it is short for a parameter “a” raised to the power “hole.”  But even if smarter algorithms detected and deleted disguised swear words, it would only address a small part of the problem.

As I have blogged on many occasions, another part of the problem is likely due to society’s rush and that, in turn, is reflected by limits such as (until recently) Twitter’s limit of 140 characters. I personally like the restriction since it provides a creative opportunity. However, even in my most creative mood, I find it very difficult, in 140 (or even 280) characters to acknowledge your point, restate it, and then move forward some kind of reasoned dialogue about an issue we disagree on.

 

Research and suggestions about how to make on-line environments more constructive have been published for awhile. For example, lac, of anonymity and human moderation appear to be critical. One can also create better communities, perhaps by using levels of intimacy and trust. In the physical architecture of a home, for example, Christopher Alexander points out that most homes have a gradient from public to private space. The front porch, for instance, is somewhat public. Your vestibule or entry is somewhat private but you may let in the pizza delivery man. People would have to be further vetted to be allowed into your living room. Traditionally, the bedroom and inner garden would be still more private and reserved for fewer people.

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In some cases, people may type something that is unintentionally uncivil. When you speak face to face, you can see the reactions of the other person immediately. This allows you to get feedback in real time and discover immediately that you may be causing an emotional reaction in the other person. You may choose to moderate your speech accordingly. In addition, when you speak, you say things in a particular tone of voice with a particular prosody. I might say, “Wow. That is a really interesting dress.” I could say this and sincerely mean precisely that. If I type those words, however, you do not actually hear my voice. Instead, you “hear” these words mentally with the intonation you put on them. You may hear me say it sarcastically even though it was not intended that way. Alternatively, you could “hear” me say those words suggestively, as a come on, even though I intended nothing of the sort.

In couples therapy, people are often encouraged to use “I talk” instead of “You talk.” What this means is that it works more productively for me to talk about how I feel about you and what you do than about what you do and how you should change. It also works better to be specific and to seek a solution rather than to be general. For example, let’s suppose I find my socks scattered all about the house. It works better to say, “This evening, after a hard day at work, I felt a sense of eager anticipation as I opened the front door. Then, when I saw socks strewn about the living room, my heart sank. I would be really happy if I saw no scattered sox.” than to say, “You are such a slob! You don’t care about my sox. You always strew them everywhere!” Your spouse is much more likely to react favorably to the first statement than the second. Of course, in our case, the real culprits are the cats. And no amount of coaxing or coaching, however lovingly I couch it, will convince the cats from strewing my sox about. If I want them to quit, I will have to put the sox out of reach. Similarly, people being what they are, one cannot simply ask them to behave well. The situation must include guidance and enforced penalties for misbehavior as well as perceived benefits for good behavior. Should companies provide (optional?) guidelines on rules of discourse such as being specific and using I-Talk?

While the formal properties and terms of service of the social media may be a strong force in influencing behavior, they are not determinative. For example, in the early days of AOL, there were “chat rooms” which allowed up to 21 or 22 people to enter. People could only input a couple lines at a time. Most chat rooms that I explored were largely filled with “age sex location checks” and trivial talk. I tried on several occasions to engage people in more serious debate and discussion on issues of importance to the future of civilization. My wife made similar attempts. Generally these attempts failed. But on some occasions, we both entered the same chat room and began more serious discussion. On these occasions, people were much more likely to move to that type of interaction than if just one of us tried it alone.

At this time, there were several “Native American” chat rooms. These chat rooms were completely different from the “typical ones.” I could “tell a story” — a long story — two lines at a time and no-one would interrupt. When I finished a story, people would comment. After that, someone else would “tell” a long story — again without interruption for perhaps a half hour or more. At the end of that, people would comment on the story. So, the formal characteristics of the medium could prove adequate for several quite different modes of communication depending on how people acted.

If you read the “Terms of Service” of various social media, you may quickly come to the conclusion that their main motivation is to make money. After all, they are for-profit corporations. However, it seems clear that some thought has been given to safety and privacy concerns. It’s less clear that much consideration has been given to how these social media may be shaping (or misshaping?) society as a whole.

We drive our private cars on public roads. We have considerable freedom in how we drive and when we drive and how we drive. But we are not allowed to drive north on a one-way, southbound street. We are not allowed to weave in and out of traffic or speed recklessly nor block traffic by sitting still in the middle of the road. The car manufacturers do not control these laws. They are enacted for the benefit of society as a whole. Safety is a large consideration, but not the only one. (If it were, we might have a world-wide speed limit of 35 or 40 mph). The rules recognize that safety is important but so is “reasonable” speed. We tolerate a fair number of deaths every year in order to accommodate speed. But if we were killing half the population, we would insist on changing the rules. Perhaps it is time to start considering changing the rules about how we use social media. Perhaps the Terms of Service should not be the sole province of the company’s who provide the platform any more than the construction companies that build our roads are the sole determiner of traffic laws, fines, and penalties.

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There are many other thoughts on media, its impact on society, and how to make it a better force for good. Here is just a small sample.

https://www.amazon.com/Community-Building-Web-Strategies-Communities/dp/0201874849

https://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Amy.Bruckman/papers.html

https://medium.com/hci-design-at-uw/information-wars-a-window-into-the-alternative-media-ecosystem-a1347f32fd8f

http://epic.cs.colorado.edu

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https://www.amazon.com/author/truthtable

New Fools.

23 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by petersironwood in America, psychology, sports, story

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

#fakenews, #socialmedia, advertising, Business, life, marketing, spam, sports

iPhoneDownloadJan152013 1150

They say there is “no fool like an old fool.” I may be an old fool, but I am now being fooled in entirely new ways.

Despite my injured knee, I went out onto the tennis court in the San Diego sun today to practice. Mainly, I focused on one important, simple, yet difficult skill: keeping my eye on the ball all the way onto the racquet and then, a split second beyond that, keeping my eye fixed on the point of contact. If you would like to see what this looks like in a professional tennis player, watch a slow motion video of Roger Federer. All the professionals typically do this, but no-one does it more obviously, more consistently, or more effectively than Roger.

Most athletes are aware that watching the ball longer allows you to make any needed adjustments as late as possible. It increases your chances of making good contact. There is a second, and more subtle reason for this technique however. We humans are social animals. We have evolved to be extremely good at reading social signals. One of those social signals we’re expert at is judging where someone else is looking. The “natural” thing for me to do is to intend to hit the ball into a particular place, say deep into my opponent’s backhand corner. And, the “natural” way to do this is to look right into that corner an instant before I hit the ball. Then, I will easily see where the ball actually goes. Unfortunately, this increases the chances that I will mis-hit the ball. More importantly, it signals to my opponent where I am intending to hit the ball. They can tell from my gaze where the ball is headed, at least roughly, much sooner than they can by tracking and extrapolating the path of the ball. The trick which I was practicing today was to simultaneously have a clear intentional target but keep my eyes on the point of contact. Keeping your eyes on the point of contact still leaves plenty of time to then look over and see where the ball is going and how your opponent is moving toward it.

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Not “telegraphing” your punches is vitally important in boxing and other martial arts. Similarly, a good basketball player will try to “fake” one direction and go another. A good football play often hinges on misdirection. In fact, in any sport in which the players interact in real time, avoiding doing anything to “signal” what you’re about to do is crucial. In baseball, for instance, if pitchers are not careful, they may develop a habit of giving away the pitch they are about to throw.

In sports which do not involve this kind of direct interaction such as weight lifting, hurdling, pole vaulting, shot putting, bowling, etc. there is no need to “fool” your opponent about your intentions. No pole vaulter thinks, “I’m going to run real slow down the runway so my opponent thinks I won’t be able to clear the bar. Then, I’ll put on a burst of speed at the last second and clear it! They’ll all be so surprised!” No.

Conversations among friends generally involve people sharing news or information or feelings in a straightforward way. You tell a story about what happened to you because you want to share the experience with your friends. You might introduce humor or some exaggeration, but if the whole purpose of your stories is to manipulate your friends into doing something that’s for your benefit, you won’t keep many friends for very long. Conversation is supposed to be a cooperative enterprise.

On the other hand, in other venues such as courtrooms and debates, skilled speakers may try various tricks, not aimed at working together to share information in order to reach a more profound or broader truth, but to manipulate someone into doing what the speaker wants; e.g., to confound the opposing debater and win the trophy or, more seriously, to render a “not guilty” verdict and to let the murderer walk.

I love acting. In acting, of course, I play a role and my intention is to be believable. In this case, I am not only saying things that are false, I am faking everything. I am pretending to do things I am not really doing (e.g., drinking whiskey but it’s really tea), speaking lines with absolute sincerity that are complete lies, and expressing feelings that I may not be feeling at all. There is some sense in which I “believe” in the story I am participating in, but I’m willing to bet that if I’m in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest and the theater curtain catches fire, I will not run for the fake phone, imagine hearing a dial tone and place a pretend call to the fire department and then engage in a conversation with an imaginary fire department dispatcher. I will dial 911 on my iPhone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest

We put up with this “dishonest charade” because everyone knows its for entertainment purposes. As you may recall from history class, plays were not always regarded kindly by custom or law. Some religious regimes have banned or regulated stage plays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_theatre_closure_1642

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Personally, I love watching live theater as well as participating. I believe that overall, it has beneficial impacts on society by showing other ways that things could be. But theater is only positive so long as everyone is clear that these are fantasies, not realities. (Even if a play rests on historical fact as its basis, it will still be a vastly simplified account from one angle). We are basically all in this together. And the more people that inhabit the planet, the closer we all get. None of us can know everything. We must rely on each other in order to make our complex system work. It’s fine to play “what-if” games for entertainment or as part of a scenario planning process. But we should never mislead each other about whether something is a fantasy or a truth or something partially true. Are there exceptions?

Yes. One can generate scenarios in which a lie can save someone’s life. An obvious example: your depressed friend comes to your apartment agitated and asks for your gun so they can kill themselves. Your gun is right under your pillow. Instead of locating it for them, you lie, “I don’t own a gun! Why would I? Anyway, sit down here and tell me why you’re so upset.”

It is sometimes fun to play harmless pranks on people although even these have a tendency to go awry. I recall a kid at YMCA camp saw one of our cabin-mates approaching and decided it would be really cool to scare him by jumping up and screaming like a wildcat just as he opened the door. The unsuspecting camper-to-be-pranked (in a primitive 10 year old way) pulled open the door. The “practical joker” sprang up all of about two inches before hitting his head on a protruding nail. Instead of screaming like a wildcat, he screamed like a wounded ten-year old.

While I love acting, I do not really enjoy scamming people or fooling them for my benefit. I really think it’s really bad. Our information and actions are so interconnected and interdependent that every positive or negative thing you do has completely unseen ramifications. If you lie, even a little, you have no idea how gigantic those implications might be 25 steps removed. In other words, there is no such thing as a “harmless lie” because every lie has a cost. That cost is hard to predict.

I did, nonetheless, break this general rule on rare occasion. My older cousin Bob kindly demonstrated the general concept by conning me repeatedly. Eventually, I wised up. But not before being tricked into doing things against my own interest just for Bob’s amusement.

I spent two of my teen summers as a counselor at a camp (e.g., a Rotary Camp) for kids with special needs. This was a coed camp on the shore of a beautiful lake (Let’s randomly call it “Rex Lake” for convenience). We took kids out on motorboats, canoes, and rowboats. We played kickball, sang camp songs, swam like every other camp. Since the camp was coed, so were the counselors. One of the women counselors my age was headed to one of the prestigious “Seven Sisters.” Let’s just pick one: Bryn Mawr. She was very well read and intelligent. I bring this up because, despite her intelligence and knowledge, she was one of the most gullible people I’d met, up to that point in my life. I probably would never have had occasion to discover this if left to my own devices. At least, I like to think that.

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I must explain that the “boy counselors” (yes, only the boys) went to this camp a week early to refurbish it. We peeled old paint, applied new paint, washed windows, replaced light bulbs, scrubbed floors, etc. Though pretty hard labor, much of it allowed us to talk. I heard many stories about this woman (let’s call her Susan) because she had been a counselor before. So, a week before I actually met her, I was told a number of stories about her. For example, one of the daily chores was to sweep the shiny red floor of the recreation room. A long handled, black-brushed broom provided the main tool along with “sweeping compound” which consisted of oil and sawdust and had a very sweet odor to it. The camp counselor, let’s still call her Susan, found sweeping more enjoyable, apparently, when done bare-foot. When my companion counselor happened upon her, his brain immediately hatched a plot. “Oh, my God, Susan! You stepped in the sweeping compound with bare feet! Go see the head counselor (let’s call her Gracie) at once! She’ll have to rush you to the hospital for immediate treatment!”

Meanwhile, Gracie was serving tea to some would-be potential donors to the camp. Normally, we counselors would knock politely on the door to Gracie’s tiny ivied cottage. Instead, Susan turned the knob, threw open the door and yelled, “Gracie, I stepped in the sweeping compound!” Gracie lowered her teacup gently onto the crystal table, turned to Susan and asked, “So?”

Susan purportedly next said, “But I mean, I stepped right in it barefoot!”

Gracie: “So?”

Susan: “Well, I mean, don’t I have to go to the hospital? Isn’t it poisonous?”

Gracie: “No. Go finish sweeping.”

This might have been a “harmless” joke that kept a hundred thousand dollars of donations from flowing to the Rotary camp.

Another lengthy example, while — let’s call him Stan — and I washed a thousand window panes involved convincing Susan that she had accidentally married Stan in a legally binding ceremony. Setting aside for a moment, the cruelty of such a joke, if believed, let’s again remind ourselves that this young woman was intelligent and well read. She was headed, remember, for Bryn Mawr.

Every week, at one of the evening gatherings, each cabin put on a skit. Working with these kids to design, rehearse and perform these skits — priceless. Anyway, according to Stan, she and Stan were in a joint skit with her cabin and Stan’s cabin in which, she and Stan get married. Stan’s older sister (let’s just call her Lynda) played the part of the minister. A day later, Stan approaches Susan all trembly and nervous apologizing for the horrible accident.

Susan said, “What accident?”

Stan claimed, “I am so sorry. I forgot that my sister is an ordained lay minister. That makes our marriage legal. Since I’m catholic, divorce is out of the question. I’m so sorry, Susan. I never meant for this to happen.”

In the world according to Stan, she took this bait hook, line and sinker.

Of course, I didn’t really know this Stan counselor. So, I didn’t take just his word for it. When I met Susan, I probed her about these events and she confirmed that she had fallen for both of these pranks and several more besides. Beyond that, the very first 3 weeks, sad to say, I participated in one of these scams.

Our motorboats ran on gasoline and periodically, we would need to motor over to a nearby dock called (let’s just say) Dusty’s Landing. Typically, one of the counselors would motor over with a bunch of empty gas tanks, obtain and pay for the fuel and motor back to the Rotary Camp. I understood this from the very first week and Susan had been a counselor for two previous years.

Nonetheless, we convinced her that we had changed the procedure and that she was to go out in the middle of the lake and wait there. Dusty would be along any minute as part of his new weekly mobile gas run around Rex Lake. Sigh. What disturbs me even more than being mean enough to have been part of this is that she fell for it. 

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To fully understand why that was so disappointing, you have to understand that Dusty’s was very much a one-person shop. Dusty himself was quite a character. Probably around 60 at the time, he had some interesting shows of strength he could perform such as plant his hands on the ground and stick both legs straight out in front of him parallel to the floor. He sold all sorts of things besides gasoline in his dusty, musty clapboard store. His was a “convenience store” whose wares included one of my favorites, “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” Whenever it was my turn to go buy gas, I, like the other counselors, could buy a piece of candy from the change. So I picked the Reese’s. Unfortunately, as I discovered on the way back to our landing, the chocolate was infested with worms. Who knows how long those two cups been sitting there on the dusty shelf?

Anyway, the idea that Dusty would leave shop in the middle of the day is pretty far-fetched to begin with. While the camp had a pretty regular schedule, the shore of the lake was dotted by small mansions whose owners came and went as they pleased. It would be impossible to make any kind of efficient distribution of the gas by having Dusty cruise around the lake to meet people. It made infinitely more sense to have the patrons come to Dusty.

One must also understand, that unlike the case of stepping in “poison” sweeping compound, there was no urgency here. Even if, God forbid, we missed the mythical “Dusty’s gas run”, we could still motor over and get gas the “old-fashioned way.” Moreover, you need to understand that the camp was small. It would take no more than five minutes to find Gracie or another authority to confirm this new procedure. And, Susan had been fooled into so many pranks before. My own role was even more rotten because Susan already had good reason to distrust Stan, but not (yet) to distrust me. So, I really was “feeding the evil wolf” here. I remain more upset though about Susan. Why would she fall for any of these. It’s bothersome, of course, not just because of Susan but because by this time, I knew she had gone to a private school that had the best reputation in the area (let’s call it the Akron area). Come to think of it, this was an all girl’s school. Perhaps the one lesson they were not well-equipped to teach was how treacherous men can be. Then, you would think they would make double the effort, unless, of course, the whole point was to make intelligent sounding wives who were extremely gullible?

Susan is not the only one, of course. Criminals would stop phishing if it didn’t sometimes work. There lots of dishonest people out there. In many cases, they are not just trying to “make a harmless joke” or “get your goat.” They are out to steal your money, rob you blind, get you vote against your own interest, and ultimately to take arms against your neighbors. That’s not for your benefit. It’s not for your neighbor’s benefit. It’s for their benefit.

When someone appears to be sincere in their communications, how can you tell it’s a manipulation? It’s not easy. I have to say, Stan was a pretty convincing liar. I think in the pranks pulled on Susan, she could have reasoned that they didn’t make sense. Would the camp really ask the counselors to sweep the floor where the kids played every day with a deadly poisonous substance? Seems absurd to me, but then it also seems absurd that human beings would knowingly ruin the habitability of their planet. It seems pretty absurd that the people of Flint Michigan would be given poisonous water knowingly.

Just as some people are more gullible than others, some people are much better liars and manipulators than others. Any great salesperson is a great manipulator. They may or may not also be a great liar. In some cases, such as tech sales, a sales person is primarily a problem solver and to a large extent that can apply to other sales people as well. The real sleaze occurs when there is no repeat business.

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What sales people can do is read you. For example, a smart sales person (actually, I think Stan became a salesman) may think the best feature of a used car is its engine. But if the sales person is smart they are going to tell you all the wonderful features and see which ones light your fire. Maybe all you care about are the tail fins. Is the sales person going to say, “Oh, yeah, but who cares? Right? They’re just gingerbread. The real nice thing about this car is the engine.” You are the one buying the car. So, they are going to appeal to your values, not try to make you take on their values.

A politician who gives speeches live must be able to “read the crowd.” In a similar way, he will test the reaction of the crowd to various things and see which ones trigger a really good response. Since everyone in the crowd can hear everyone else, it becomes something of a positive feedback loop. Once the crowd as a whole latches onto something, then everyone is even more prone to join in. Reading a crowd, however, is much harder than reading a single individual, up close and personal. For this reason, most politicians, put some kind of control over the setting, the timing, the audience, for their speeches or other events. People who disagree, protest, heckle are really not all that welcome. Some politicians go further and only allow in avid supporters. When this kind of a crowd then appears on TV, viewers at home may assume this is a random cross section of America. No. It is a very select group. “Reading the crowd” becomes much easier within a fairly homogeneous group. A great politician can do it no matter what the group composition or initial position. Though clearly fiction, Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar displays Marc Anthony believably turn the crowd from applauding the conspirators who slew Caesar to searching to destroy them. But even the most mediocre politician can rouse a group who already strongly supports him or her.

The sales person (and the politician) are operating on two levels at the same time. Remember Roger Federer and his watching the ball with his eyes while he is mentally prepared to hit the ball down the line to his opponent’s backhand? Roger knows the plan. But he is not sharing that plan with his opposition.

Although a sales person is not your opponent or your enemy, they do have an agenda. They want to sell you a car, or a house, or a pig in a poke, or a life insurance policy. They are appearing to have a conversation with you and are indeed exchanging information. In the case of the car, they might talk about how reliable the company is, how great the service is (even though it’s never needed) or about how roomy the back seat is. But always, always, while they are watching the ball of the conversation, they also have a very clear intention in their mind to close. If you would like to hear a funny genius at sales discuss this, check out any one of Zig Ziggler’s books or tapes.

A politician often does the same thing. They are trying to manipulate the crowd in some way; to make noise, to scream, to applaud, to go out and vote, and sometimes, on rare occasions in recent American politics, they are actually inciting people to riot or commit actual crimes. One way you can tell a politician is doing this kind of desperate manipulation is to listen to the form of their speech. Unless they are intelligent, being totally occupied with trying to read and manipulate the crowd while they are also talking, will render their speech marred with errors, vagueness, and non sequiturs. They will repeat themselves over and over. By contrast, some politicians are mostly speaking from the heart. Even when their words are crafted partly or solely by professional speech writers, those people know what the politician really believes. If it is real belief, the politician can not only appear glib; they can also probe and respond in a deep way to complex issues. If they are overwhelmed with the dual tasking of manipulation and speaking about something they don’t care about, they will stumble and bumble about, simply repeating, repeating, repeating words and constructing “sentences” that do not really form complete sentences.

That inarticulateness is an important cue but it isn’t a perfect one. Some politicians are smart enough to lie eloquently and still have enough intellectual capacity to try to move you in your beliefs or actions from point A to point B. After all, many politicians have been lawyers and that’s practice. In fact, Congress and car salesman are perceived to be the least honest professions in the United States. (If you’d like to learn more about the demographics of your Congress, you can check it out here).

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44762.pdf

You would probably be hard-pressed to come up with a belief so whacky that no-one in America believes it. Generally, that’s not such a big deal. It’s been historically difficult for any politician to pull together funding from the “People who believe our brains are in our armpits” Foundation. Until now. Because now, the politician does not have to try to cajole the nut cases from all over the country to a $2500 a plate dinner so they can listen to him blab about how he has long believed our brains are in our armpits and thank God  for these brave souls in the audience withstand the daily ridicule of their neighbors to help bring out the real truth. The politician in such a mythical $2500/plate dinner would say he agrees with the audience about the cover-up and he’s sure something stinks. The press does nothing to ensure fair coverage. For the past 50 years, the story scape on this vital topic has been arid, says the politician.

Because this fringe is so scattered however, the logistics make such a dinner unworkable. Until now. Furthermore, there is always the chance that a videotape of his acceptance of this tripe will appear on the evening news. Until now.

Now, the politician does not have to appeal in a traceable way to such fringe groups. Nor, does he have to even communicate with them. Instead, he can pay people to make up stories that support their beliefs, whatever they are, and add in some manipulative message. For example, let’s imagine the politician in question is being investigated by the New York Times for tax evasion. He can have fake stories sent almost exclusively to people who already believe that their brains are in their armpits. “New York Times found guilty of complicit coverup. Newly discovered files confirm the Times knew all along people’s brains were in their armpits but failed to break the story.” This helps the politician’s cause of course, but it can’t be tied back to him. The politician no longer needs to be able to read the crowd. He can have the computer do it for him.

Claude

Every time you “like” or “dislike” something on Facebook or retweet on Twitter or google something, a record gets created. Those records are collated over time and compared with the records of millions of other Americans. That can be used by software programs to make a damned good guess as to whether you are part of the .05% of Americans who believe our brains are in our armpits. This process is many times more effective than the most tuned-in politician in history trying to watch people in the physical crowd before them.

Tuning fake news stories to appeal to very small audiences could be used to sway elections. Right now, here in America, and apparently elsewhere, these fake news stories are not aimed primarily at swaying an election. They are aimed squarely at destroying America and other western democracies by exaggerating our differences until we are so distracted and weakened by internal disagreements that we can be taken over without firing a shot.

Susan, now you have lots of company. We will all join you as the New Fools. We will sit in our rowboats in the middle of the lake until past dinner time.

Author Page on Amazon

Know What?

08 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, psychology, story, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

"Fake news", advertising, life, marketing, newspapers, politics, Russia

 

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Know what?

The Etruscan shrew (Suncus etruscus) is the smallest mammal weighing in at a measly two grams or less.

There are 907185 grams in a ton, so the blue whale at two hundred tons, weighs 90,718,500 x as much as the shrew. Yet they both have spines, a brain, a liver, intestines, breathe oxygen, eat food, have a beating heart, etc. They mate, nurse their babies, raise families, just as we do!

Know what?

First, there is huge variation — but at the same time, a lot of similarity — among mammals. We naturally have a curiosity about the largest, smallest, tallest, fastest that is possible. This curiosity is not limited to our culture or our time. Indeed, it seems to be true of animals, in general. In fact, our nervous system is fundamentally tuned to changes, boundaries, and extremes. For example, if you walk into a kitchen, the aroma of freshly baked cookies seems to fill you with pleasure. It can be very strong. But after a few minutes, you may barely notice the smell. If the fan in the kitchen is on, it may at first seem pretty loud. But after a few minutes, most people will no longer notice. There are limits of course. If the smoke alarm goes off, you will continue to notice it. It is designed to be loud enough to annoy you forever. Just as our ears are mainly attuned to changes, so too, our visual system is attuned to edges. This is why, for instance, a cartoon “works” to depict something that is actually much more complicated. Given that neither humans nor any other animal has an infinite brain, it is a useful general heuristic to especially note changes, edges, and the “extremes” of our experience.

The second thing to note is that, since life is complex and complicated, there are many astounding facts.  It is interesting and exciting to know about the “edges” of experience in many different dimensions. This is not a “bad thing” but it does make us susceptible to being “suckered in” by things that are astounding or sensational even if they are not particularly useful. Some people take advantage of this tendency and use it to manipulate us into buying toothpaste, drugs, and candidates.

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When I was a kid, there were certain newspapers (which still exist) which “everyone knew” were absurd attempts to capture people’s attention with “fake news.” Photographic evidence of the Loch Ness Monster, BigFoot, Aliens from Outer Space, people rising from the dead. Amazing! Too good to be true! Well, they weren’t true. Now, it is much easier and cheaper to “publish” fake stories than it was in the days of print.

There is a much subtler and more virulent change as well. Fake newspapers lay out on the checkout stands at drug stores and grocery stores for everyone to see. Most people knew these stories were fake, but some people would fall for it. Everyone could see the headlines: “New Hope for the Dead!” and pretty much dismiss the entire magazine on that basis.

The Internet is has become worse that tabloids because if you’re like most people, there are traces of your behavior all over the Internet. Fake news doesn’t have to concoct one common story for everyone to swallow. They can analyze your personality, your likes and dislikes, your background, your political affiliation from what you look out, how you comment, what you buy on line and so on. They can *target* stories that you are especially likely to believe and that are particularly likely to sway you in your buying or voting behavior. Of course, it isn’t perfect. But it doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective. Whether there was any collusion between the Russian intelligence agencies who were and are doing this and the Trump campaign is still up in the air. However, that they were doing such things is clear. They’ve been doing it for a long time and they are continuing to do it.

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Why would they bother? The USA has, by far, the mightiest military in the world. Direct military action against us is absurd. Much better idea: weaken us from within. The greatest strength of the US is its diversity. Use that to push and prod at all the rifts between people whether based on sexual preferences, religion, dietary habits, what kinds of sports you like, your preferences as to how and when you celebrate Holidays, your skin color, your country of origin, whether you think pot should be legalized, whether you favor more lax or more stringent gun regulation, the  music you like, the clothing you find attractive. Anything on which people differ can become a battleground if the people are properly played.

I can easily imagine people from different backgrounds or beliefs, when faced with a real world problem, taking the time to understand each other’s concerns and come up with either a compromise, a vote, or even a transcendent solution. You can probably imagine that as well. Humans have been doing this for a hundred thousand years. We humans don’t always resort to violence every time there’s a difference of opinion.

Let the media notice the disagreement and it will get worse. Let the fake news decide it’s an issue worth making people hate each other over, they will zoom in on that disagreement with more passionate love than house flies buzzing toward a forgotten turkey carcass in the garbage. They will make a fake story sure to inflame the passions of one side. They will generally create an inflammatory headline first that is a complete lie. Then, they will “back it up” with vague statements, lies, or half-truths, and generally with a combination of all of those.

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To see how this might work, let’s imagine that there is an island where there are two species of birds that look identical. Squeakers live on one side of the island and the Squawkers live on the other side. The squeakers like to squeak, need I point out, while the Squawkers like to squawk. No big deal. Then, one day a very rich human arrives on the island and offers to make them all very very rich. He claims he is going to buy a tiny piece of their lovely island for sunbathing. He just wants to make sure his investment is safe so he needs to know which bird is going to speak for the entire island. Need I point out that the squeakers and squawkers are now all at risk to become squabblers. As a matter of fact, it may not even matter whether the bird who “speaks for the island” is a squeaker or squawker. Nonetheless, there will be argument and counter-argument. But at long last, this dispute will almost certainly be settled without bloodshed. That is not a guarantee, but it is likely.

Now, let’s first inject a legitimate TV news crew into the picture. They hear about this deal the rich man is offering ahead of time. So, they go and do a report. You might well hear this on the news or read it in the newspaper: “A rousing controversy is brewing tonight on the normally peaceful island of “Ang-Grebe-urds. Multi-billionaire business tycoon, Lance O’Latte has offered an undisclosed but sizable sum to the natives of “Ang-Grebe-urds.” However, to collect this handsome sum, the Ang-Grebe-urds must choose a single spokes-bird. Who will it be? No-one yet knows. Indeed, that is where the process seems to be stuck in the craw of the Ang-Grebe-urds. We’ll keep you updated on this breaking story as more details unfold.”

That’s not all. They scan the environment for particularly nasty things that one side says about the other.

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Imagine this hypothetical interview: the reporter asks one of the prominent Squeakers how they feel about the head of the Squawkers. The interviewed Squeaker might say, “Oh, I’ve known Mr. Squaw-Squawk for ages. We are both big fans of soccer. He was our top speller in high school. Also, he did a great job as quarterback on the high school football team. I don’t particularly like him in the way he squawks all the time though.”

What will reported? No way to predict for certain, but my money is on this quote: “I don’t particularly like him…he squawks all the time….” Publishing that statement is really not going to help the Ang-Grebe-urds come to consensus. But it probably still won’t prevent it. Newspapers are still largely paid for by subscriptions. This is important. Because the newspapers are not completely paid for by advertising, it tends to make them more likely to stick to the truth. Individual reporters may exaggerate or hype the conflicts but they very seldom make things up. If they did that, many subscribers would stop doing so. Even some advertisers might shy away from the newspaper that sold papers on the basis of lies. Advertisers do look at readership and people are more likely to pick up a newspaper if the headline is: “Famous Squeaker Complains that Squaw-Squawk squawks all the time!” She said, “I don’t particularly like him…he squawks all the time….” But, there is still a “brake” on complete fabrications. Companies who care about their brand (e.g., Coke, Pepsi, IBM, AT&T, Microsoft, Disney) will not want to be associated with news organizations that only lie, Subscribers too will fall off if they become suspicious that they are being lied to.

 

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Now, let’s see how this situation worsens with stories that are presented on-line. Being on-line is an important detail. Because it is on-line, the media outlet need not have one single actual artifact (such as a printed newspaper) that everyone can point to. Instead, stories can be slanted to different readers. A Squeaker who is pretty much a decent old bird but hates onions, for instance, can get a fake news article that claims Squawkers love onions. Furthermore, the fake news claims, there are secret plans, if a Squawker is elected, to make onion-eating required. 

In reality, Squeakers and Squawkers mostly don’t care much one way or the other about onions. Rather, both Squeakers and Squawkers each have about 10 percent, both equally divided about whether onions are: 1) completely wonderful to add to any dish or 2) the invention of the devil to torment Ang-Grebe-urds. Many on-line sources are not paid for by subscribers. They are paid only by advertising.

Furthermore, while the newspaper advertisers only know the circulation of the newspaper as a whole, by contrast, the on-line advertiser can measure how many clicks they get for particular ads and stories. This is a huge difference. It means that every single article for on-line media is pushed toward sensationalism and conflict. Furthermore, the on-line sources can republish many different versions to many different selected sub-audiences to maximize clicks. If, for example, there are some Squeakers who feel football is too violent, the interview reported can be: ““I don’t particularly like him…quarterback on the football team…he squawks all the time….” No need to include that phrase if you are presenting the article to football fans.

These kinds of “fake news” stories are designed to make money out of advertising of course, but beyond that, they are not only meant to grab your attention but are often designed to set you at the throats of your neighbors and countrymen. Of course, in our hypothetical example, that’s precisely why the rich business tycoon set up this situation and then kept using fake news to jack up the emotions of the Ang-Grebe-urds until they killed each other off. Now, he can not only have his sunbathing cove; he can have the entire island. For free. Well, free for him. The Squeakers and the Squawkers paid with their lives. They will rest forever in total squilence. Differences in preferences and slight variations in behavior were driven into hate and violence by targeted messages. While the Squeakers and Squawkers thought they were enemies of each other, in fact, they were both being manipulated by the Takers. The Takers are birds of an entirely different feather. They don’t actually give the slightest damn whether birds prefer to squeak or squawk. All they care about is buying real estate cheap and selling it dear. Some may have actually enjoyed watching the Squeakers and Squawkers kill each other off, but that’s just the icing on the cake.

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What about citizens in the US, the UK and Europe and other countries that are currently democracies like Canada and Australia? Know what? We are under attack. I’m not trying to be sensational. (I’m not paid by subscribers or ads). I’m just trying to put it out there for your consideration. While it is not yet clear how much, if any, collusion existed between Russia and the Trump campaign, it is clear that Russian interests worked fake news stories into the discussions and debates leading up to the US election as well as the Brexit vote. These stories are not only meant to sway elections but also to foment discord; to make people in one party or part of the country distrust others; to make people doubt science and more objective media. (After all, if you can’t trust “experts” and “scientists” and “the mainstream media” then, where  are you going to go for information? You guessed it: social media and on-line media become even more popular.

Back in the days of mostly local newspapers, normal checks and balances pushed owners, editors and reporters toward printing news that was truthful. They would tend to be motivated to say things about the community that were useful, kind, and true because otherwise false stories would negatively impact their own community. In addition, if they were “found out” they would definitely experience social ostracism that would likely be extensive. A false story about a coming plague might sell a lot of newspapers in the short term, but when it was discovered to be a lie, the entire newspaper was in danger of losing its readership.

By contrast, a very large national newspaper chain might be headed up by someone who cares very much or little about social ostracism and probably lives in a “community” completely divorced from the people he or she lives and works in. The CEO might well be only interested in profits which in turn means pushing stories based on how they impact readership, not based on what it means for America as a whole. Nonetheless, there is a still a tradition in newspapers of long standing to tell the truth and to verify stories. There may also a sense of long-term commitment to the company. For example, the people in a traditional newspaper want to be able to hire the best people for their organization. To allow that to happen, it is vital that they have a reputation for telling the truth and for responsible reporting. As I’ve mentioned, newspapers who lie regularly are at risk of losing both their subscriber base and their advertisers.

By contrast, when it comes to on-line news media, because they are new, there is little tradition; they don’t depend on subscriber dollars; their advertisers tend not be companies like IBM and Disney who care about their reputation, but instead unheard of companies who want to sell you miracle cures and self-adjusting tea cozies.

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Know what? These on-line media are doing this to us now and even when we retweet or argue about the truth of divisive news, it’s still divisive. Then, we often disagree on social media about whether it’s true and that’s also divisive. Is nothing to be done? I do think that there are some principles and guidelines than can help distinguish real news (which does also appear on-line) from made up manipulations to make you angry. Next week, we will explore what some of those principles and guidelines might be. Meanwhile, I personally like onions. But I don’t insist you do.

Know what? We are all now “Citizen Soldiers” in a war of words. Most likely, you were never trained as a reporter and most likely, like me, you aren’t making a penny out of your use of social media. But social media grows ever more important in people’s understanding of what is true about the world. Like it or not, your Facebook posts and tweets either exaggerate the impact of fake news or dampen it out. You might consider a reporter’s questions: What, who, where, when, how, and why. You might also consider these before sharing a story: “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful?”

IMG_4695Author Page

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http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/01/circulation-and-revenue-fall-for-newspaper-industry/

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34789-democracy-in-peril-twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-under-the-telecommunications-act

https://brandeyemedia.com/2017/07/03/with-the-growth-of-online-media-will-the-newspapers-survive/

https://theconversation.com/social-media-is-changing-our-digital-news-habits-but-to-varying-degrees-in-us-and-uk-60900

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