The Loud Defense of Untenable Positions

07 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

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Democracy, fascism, government, Impeachment, politics, truth

The Paradoxically Fierce Blind Defense of Untenable Positions.

Quick! How do you know the earth is not flat?

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If you’re like most people, the question seems absurd. Everyone knows the earth is not flat, you think. Why should I have to prove that? It’s silly.

You’re so sure that the earth is round that you probably do not have a ready answer. You might know enough about astronomy or general science to put together a fairly convincing case, but unless you’re an elementary school teacher, or have family members who belong to the “Flat Earth Society” you will likely have to construct an answer “on the fly.”

Although you might be “annoyed” at having to produce a rationale for something that “everyone knows” it is unlikely you will get downright enraged. If someone challenges you, you’ll likely just shake your head and walk away. Or, you might try to convince them that the earth is round.

man wearing brown suit jacket mocking on white telephone

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You likely haven’t given much thought to how to “prove” that the earth is round; at least not since you were a kid. But there’s another and more insidious reason why you cannot “rattle off” a defense of the “earth is round” thesis.

There’s no money to be made. Not only science, but commerce is premised on the fact that the earth is round. Since (nearly) everyone already knows the earth is round, no-one is being paid to make disturbing videos that seem to “prove” the earth is round. No-one has a troll farm somewhere paying people to post things on facebook or twitter to push the position that the earth is round.

Let’s take another example. Imagine that you’re walking down the street one day and you look up from your iPhone long enough to notice a man who appears to be trying to walk through a brick wall. He bangs into it; backs up a few steps and walks into it again.

You were just about to beat your personal best in Candy Crush, but you sigh and ask the man, “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m walking through this wall.”

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The scenes from the Harry Potter movies where magical folks get to the Hogwarts Express via walking through the wall to get to platform 9 3/4 flash onto your internal TV. But you realize that is a movie about a magical world. Every instance you can come up with where someone walks through a wall is a cartoon or superhero. Perhaps this is where the guy got the idea. But here he is trying it out in real life. But he does’t just try it out once. Here he goes again. You don’t know how long he’s been doing this, but you’ve seen three trials, all with the same, and quite predictable result.

You realize that if he keeps walking into the brick wall, he will eventually be injured. Moreover, a person who is so clearly self-destructive might do other, and even worse, self-destructive things. Would it be possible to talk them out of this behavior with logic or facts? That seems doubtful. After all, assuming they didn’t just pop up on the street from a completely different universe where walking through brick walls works, he’ll have already had plenty of opportunities to learn about the world.

The more absurd the false beliefs are, the more vigorously people will defend them. You’ve spent no time practicing arguments about why the earth is round or why you can’t walk through brick walls. On the other hand, someone who does believe in these things will have had many occasions when those beliefs were challenged. Nonetheless, they won’t be very successful in convincing others that, say, the earth is flat. But every time they try to make that sale, it will convince the person who constructs and voices such arguments, even more deeply that the earth is flat. So, even though they might tell this story 100 times and every single person remains unconvinced, by thinking that they have to “stand up for themselves” they will try out any sort of non-sense to bolster their position. And, if there were serious money to be made by convincing some people that the earth is flat, you can bet there would be a never-ending series of propaganda offerings to push in that direction. And, while most people will continue to believe the earth is round, occasionally someone will hear enough crap to really begin to wonder.

Now, let’s go back to our original flat-earther who has just failed to convince one hundred people that the earth is flat — but at the same time, he (let’s say it’s a he named Milhaus) has practiced convincing himself 100 times. And now, a miracle occurs. Milhaus happens to run into Doubting Dolly who has heard or read screes promoting flat earth to the extent that she now experiences a certain amount of doubt. The two of them strike up an excited conversation in which each one reinforces the beliefs of the other. Mihaus is thrilled! Imagine! He’s been scoffed at as ridiculous 100 times. But now, right here, he finds an acolyte — someone who now shares his beliefs. The chances that Doubting Dolly will find such screes depends a lot on whether there is any extrinsic reward for writing and promulgating such screes. Flat Earth conspiracy theories don’t lend themselves to making money off such lies.

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Other currently popular lies, on the other hand are promoted initially by people with vested narrowly selfish interests. But once enough “Milhaus”-types get converted, these falsehoods, however bizarre, get repeated over and over. For instance, the oil company oligarchs have known for years that their business model is seriously damaging human lives, changing climate, and putting much of life at risk. What do they do? They spend millions creating and promulgating false narratives.

Ironically, then, people who hold untenable, counter-factual positions often are more practiced at their arguments than people who simply put forth the truth. Moreover, they not only are more practiced, they are also more emotionally involved. The average person who belongs to the “Flat Earth Society” has hugely more of their identity wrapped up in the idea of a flat earth than the average person has their identity wrapped up in the idea of a round earth. Of course, there are no valid arguments for a flat earth, for walking through a brick wall, or for interpreting the Constitution as saying that the President should be treated as a dictator. As a result, proponents of such things tend to scream and pound the table a lot.

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The screaming and table pounding is not just out of frustration for not having any valid arguments. For people suffering from PTSD, or who have been in abusive relationships, or grew up in an abusive household, yelling and screaming and pounding the table reminds them of terror and a remembrance that the only way to avoid pain is to make daddy happy. Oh, let’s find out what Pappa Putin wants and give it to him! Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t end up treating American citizens as badly as he’s treated his own countrymen. Maybe. But don’t count on it.

———————————-

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It’s Your Call!

19 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, psychology, sports, Uncategorized

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cats, Democracy, fascism, Feedback, games, politics, sports, Tennis

It’s Your Call

Tennis is played on a so-called court. As a matter of fact, when tennis began, it was literally played in a courtyard and people could hit the ball off roofs, etc. But, now the game has become much more regular. Historians believe tennis began in the 12th century. At that point, the ball was hit with the hand. At what point does it become close enough to modern tennis to deserve the name? I don’t know. My cats have been known to play a kind of primitive tennis with me and, more rarely, with each other.

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The most elaborate example of the latter was something I walked in on. Under the kitchen table were three of our cats batting back and forth the lifeless body of a small lizard who had unfortunately managed to sneak into our house. The cats are well-fed so there was no rushing or fighting over the meat. No, they were batting it back and forth. I don’t know how long they had been playing this little game, but at the point I observed them, they seemed rather bored. I can tell you that when I play tennis, almost all the time, almost all the players exhibit enthusiasm for the game.

Tennis, it turns out, is much like the game my cats played. Just as the cats did, there is a defined space within which a small object (lizard, tennis ball, etc.) gets batted back and forth. Sides (one or two people to a side) take turns batting the ball over to the other side. This back and forth continues until one side is unable to return the ball into their opponents side of the court. The ball must pass over the net before bouncing and it must land in the opponent’s side of the court. In tennis, as in baseball, if a ball hits the line (even a little) it is “in.” So, knowing when the ball is “in” or “out” is quite critical for scorekeeping purposes, just as it is in nearly every game or sport. “Baseball,” they say, “is a game of inches.” And so is tennis. And football, and hockey, and gymnastics, and basketball, and golf! There are boundaries — and often it is both critical and hard to determine where something falls with respect to those boundaries.

For that reason, professional tennis tournaments have not just one, but several people whose sole responsibility is to determine whether balls are “in” or “out.” There is also a “chair umpire” who has several roles but one of which is to serve as a kind of “over-judge.” He can “overrule” one of the linesman as to whether a ball was in or out. More recently, technology has added yet another layer of “presumed certainty” about whether a ball was in or out. Everyone assumes — or has agreed to act as though they assume — that the technology is perfect. As someone who spent many years working with technology, I think it is perfectly safe to assume that the technology is not perfect. But it is, in pro tennis, the final arbiter.

The kind of tennis I play, “Club Tennis” or “Friendly Tennis” is quite another matter! Our prize money is nil. Our trophies are nil. That doesn’t mean people don’t play their hearts out! But who gets to say whether a ball is in our out? We don’t have technology or line judges; we make our own calls. Here is the over-riding rule of “Friendly tennis”: people call the ball “in” or “out” on their own side of the court. There are three major reasons for this. First, when you hit a ball, you intend for it to be “in.” Second, if the ball is “in” that is to your advantage in winning the game. Both of these are “psychological” effects that impact everyone to a greater or lesser degree and will tend to make them “see” their close shots as in that are really out. The third reason, however, is much more important and it is purely physical. In nearly every case, the person who is attempting to hit the ball is way way closer to the ball (and the line) than anyone else.

Sometimes, however, there are mitigating circumstances. The person hitting the ball may be running hard and tracking the ball in order to hit it. It sometimes happens that they will admit to having no idea whether the ball was in or out. The first recourse is to ask their partner whether they saw the ball clearly. They might also ask their opponents. Remember: it’s a friendly game. But that does not mean it always stays free from controversy.

You are supposed to call a ball “out” only if you are sure it was out. What “sure” means though can vary quite a bit from person to person. There are also physical reasons why some people’s line calling is better than others. Many players in our games wear glasses. I won’t go into all the various issues with glasses. If you wear glasses you already know and if you don’t, you couldn’t care less. (Unless you’re extremely empathic and then, you might want to read “The Myths of the Veritas” which delve heavily into empathy; go ahead; give it a try; it’s free with no ads). People also differ in how much they compensate for the effect of parallax. If I am receiving a serve, for instance, I am likely to see a ball that’s slightly long as “in” while the server will tend to see it as “out” even if it is barely in. If a serve comes to my side and lands near the line, the effect of parallax is to make them look “out” even when they are slightly in. Some people are aware of these effects and some aren’t. To make a long story short, people don’t always make the best call.

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We have the exact same issues that we had when we played baseball, football, in grade school. The only difference is that now that we are in our 70’s we don’t spoil our day and tell Johnny we’re not going to play with him any more. Instead, we revert to “It’s your call” even when we “know” that our opponents have just called one of our hits that was really in, out.

In the same way, in life outside the tennis realm, we can sometimes see problems that the person nearest to their problem cannot see. We may know that you are eating too much for your own good, or drinking too much, or would be happier in the long run if you studied harder. We might say that, under the right circumstances, to a good friend. But — at the end of the day, it is “their call.”

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As I’ve argued elsewhere, there seems to be an urban/rural difference in how hard one pushes to let people know they are screwing up. It isn’t only an urban rural split. It seems to me, that many conservatives are afraid that liberals want to make them do and be and like all the things they do! But liberals, you see, by the very nature of the word “liberal,” don’t want to have everyone the same. It’s okay with almost all liberals if you go bowling, or play tennis, or watch NASCAR. We’re not going to force everyone to eat quiche or adopt a “gay lifestyle.” I have to admit, I do think there are some liberals who would be happy to write you an extremely detailed “prescription” for your life. But they are really rare exceptions, in my experience. Liberals, just like conservatives, do want to have laws that prevent people from hurting others for no reason.

There are interesting edge cases that people may differ on. Is this “your call” or “our call”? That has changed over time as people have multiplied across the earth and as science has understood more and more of our interactions. In the middle ages, when people began congregating in large cities, they lived in (what we would now call) disastrously unsanitary conditions that were ideal for plagues. Dump your sewage into a place that flows into the water supply? Sure. It’s your sewage after all. But now we know that is not a good idea.

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When I was a kid, my dad and my grandpa would “rake the leaves” in the fall; rake the leaves into a big pile; and then burn them. And, everyone was doing that. Now, I would guess that such is illegal in most places in the US. We realize that the smoke doesn’t simply “disappear” but is, in fact, bad for other people. You are burning the leaves on your land, but the smoke doesn’t stay there. Now, we’re more savvy than when I was a kid. But it’s much more than that. There are also a lot more of us! When I born, there were about 2.4 billion people on earth; now there are more than 7 billion. But it isn’t only the number. Many of us around the earth, including me, are using up a lot more resources than we did back then. We are using materials like plastics and sending more and worse chemicals out into the environment we all share. I still believe in the general principle that it’s your call, in terms of how much pollution you are willing to live with.

As I’ve mentioned before, Air Fresheners are a good example of a bad example. So-called “Air Fresheners” do nothing of the kind. They make you think the air is fresher because they have perfume in them. Not only that; they typically include carcinogens, a chemical to mess with your hormones and another chemical that deadens your sense of smell! You see? Air Fresheners, some people might call the “Bill Barr” of household products. They label themselves as “Air Freshener” but they are really noxious stuff that only makes the whole situation worse.

I’m afraid that what is “your call” will continue to shrink in some ways if humanity keeps expanding the population and using up more and more resources. On the other hand, the space of what is your call is also expanding. Whether it is sports, clothing, food, games, movies, TV, books, experiences — even with the choice of burning autumn leaves in your backyard gone, you have way more choices available to you than your parents or grandparents had.

If there is one person in a car driving alone, they can pick the music they want and play it loud. They can change stations every two seconds. Or not. But if there are six people in the car, it’s going to be more complicated. That’s not because people hate your music or hate you. Now, you could take the attitude: “It’s my car, so I’ll pick whatever music I please!” And then, you might choose to play disco music at full blast. You could. But if you do that, then as soon as possible, people will choose note to ride with you. That’s okay. But don’t complain that you’re ever more isolated. It’s not your choice of music that isolates you. It’s your insistence that everyone is subjected only to what appeals to you.

And, then we come, at last, as we seem to inevitably do, to the crisis at hand.

It’s our collective “call” to determine who our leaders are. Some prefer someone who is stately, intelligent, and diplomatic. And, some prefer Donald Trump: bombastic, often inarticulate, and crude. Styles and tastes differ. It’s your call. Personally, I don’t think style is irrelevant, but I don’t think it’s vital either.

But being an agent, witting or unwitting, of Vladimir Putin, rather than of America, is not a question of style. Doing what is in Russian interests and against the interest of America over and over is not a matter of style. Nor is dividing the country against itself. Nor isolating us from our allies. Nor destroying the morale of our intelligence agencies, our military command, our State Department, and the Justice Department.

If it were possible for you to have a dictatorship and for me to stay in a democracy, that might be fine. I would caution you that you wouldn’t really be the least bit happy about living in a dictatorship, but in the end, that’s your call. Also problematic is the fact that dictators are almost never satisfied with the absolute power they have and want to keep extending it to other areas.

Donald Trump doesn’t want to just be dictator of the Republican Party (which he pretty much already is). He wants to be dictator of the entire country. That is destroying and will continue to destroy everything good about America. It’s the whole country. It’s not just your car. Before finding out just how horrendous it is for everyone to live in a dictatorship, go live for a few months at least, in a cult that has a dictator and see how you like it. You might like it. You might not. It’s your call.

But America is not going to let our entire country go to ruin. No-one has the right to make that call.

That would be like one of my tennis opponents saying, “The ball was “out” and furthermore, from now on, everyone’s tennis rackets are mine and you can only play when I say so and I win every game no matter what happens!

You know. It’s possible it could happen one day. We’re old. People have strokes. People get dementia. I hope none of my regular tennis players go insane like that, and if they do, I hope they get appropriate care.

We’re not crazy enough to “give in” to such absurd demands! Not even if he yells and screams and says, “It’s my call!”

Because it isn’t.

It’s our call.

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The Myths of the Veritas

Trumpism as the new religion

Why the Rule of Law is important

City Mouse and Country Mouse

Myths of the Veritas: Killing Sticks

03 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, story, Veritas

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bullying, fascism, legends, myths, truth, Veritas

The pain in Lion Slayer’s arm came in waves. He neither whimpered nor cried aloud, but even in the fading light, Eagle Eyes could see the flashes of pain playing across his face like heat lightening. She put her fingers to her lips to signal quiet. Then, she took her fingers and pushed four fingernails into his shoulder, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to hurt a little. At the same time, his excruciating burn pain disappeared. She continued the pressure for some minutes and then released it. Lion Slayer braced himself for the pain, but it didn’t come. He looked in her eyes and bowed his head slightly, silently mouthing his thanks.

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When Eagle Eyes reckoned that most of the straggling band of the People Who Steal Children would probably be asleep, she whispered that they should try to move closer to the camp but not so close as to be seen. Slowly, they crawled through the grass, eager, if at all possible to overhear the campfire, though neither of them spoke the language. Nonetheless, she hoped to glean something from the pacing and the mood. Their efforts were frustrated however. These people had no common evening campfire or discussion. People mumbled here and there but no real conversations took place; at least, none that they overheard.

Before first light, they receded though a zig-zag path so as not to be discovered with the dawn, which arose in brilliant red. The pain had returned to Lion Slayer’s arm and Eagle Eyes again relieved it with her magic touch.

For three days and three nights, they followed the People Who Steal Children, each night sneaking a little more closely and each day receding, but not quite so much. It seemed to Eagle Eyes that the People Who Steal Children not only lack all skill at covering their trail but also in seeing one.

Each night they also made a farther retreat once the traveling band had gone to sleep. Here they were far enough a way to speak in normal quiet voices, and it was in these quiet normal voices that each day they argued about whether to go back or keep tracking the Children Stealers. Neither was “wedded” to a particular position; each contributed pros and cons equally as they thought of them. Their dialogues often wandered into observations of the Children Stealers.

Eagle Eyes had just wondered aloud whether the rest of the tribe might either take them for dead or send out a larger search party for them.

Lion Slayer said, “But what about the eagle?”

Eagle Eyes replied, “Yes, I hope he takes the message back to the center place, but we don’t really have enough experience to know how likely that is. The hope itself makes me happy though. The tribe might also surmise that we might be injured … have you heard any of the Children Stealers cry?”

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“Why would they cry, Eagle Eyes? Oh, I see. Yes, of course. They just lost their village. And some of their warriors died. They lost their horses, though I know not how much they might care about that. No, I heard no cries.”

Eagle Eyes nodded. “Nor I. And by the way, I would expect that some suffer not just emotional pain but some are likely badly burned as are you.”

Lion Slayer sighed. “It isn’t just crying though. I haven’t heard a really sad voice or happy voice among them. It may seem crazy, but in my tribe, even in the face of great tragedy, the children playing among themselves sometimes find occasion to laugh and sing.”

Eagle Eyes furrowed her brow. “Why are they doing any of it? If there is no … no feeling? No … experience?”

“Indeed, Eyes of the Eagle, it seems no life. But perhaps this is how they react to pain and tragedy.”

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The next day, they tracked the People Who Steal Horses to the largest village any of them had ever seen. There were so many people milling around what appeared to be a gate in a wall, it was hard to comprehend. Their cover had become nearly non-existent. They decided to attempt to reconnoiter the perimeter both to see the extent of the village and look for another way in that might enable them to enter unseen. They waited until twilight and then began their explorations far enough into cover so as not to be seen. Every so often, however, Eagle Eyes would creep forward toward the wall, looking for a way in.

About half-way around what appeared to be a largely circular wall round the city, Eagle Eyes spotted a postern gate beyond a small trellis maze. It was evening and the light was fading fast. They appeared to have entered an anteroom to some sort of ceremonial chamber. They could see into the brightly lit ceremonial room through a fine wooden lattice, but judged they could not be seen provided they stayed far away from the screen and stay silent.

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One man sat on a large chair set atop a large platform of polished wood. In front of that man three men knelt on what seemed to be sharp stones. The one on the throne sounded both sly and angry. He gesticulated at the three and then snapped his fingers. At this juncture, one of his guards brought a strange spear over to the man in charge. The man in charge, toyed with the spear and then pointed it at one of the three men kneeling.

A deafening noise followed and the kneeling man screamed and crumpled. Blood began to flow freely onto the gravel. Yet, the spear had not left the hand of the man in charge! Nor, so far as Eagle Eyes could tell, had the spear touched the man! What strong and strange magic is this, she wondered.

Another of the kneeling men now seemed clearly begging for his life. He kept saying “Nut-Pi! Nut-Pi!” Apparently that was the name of the man in charge who pointed his magic spear at the begging, cringing man who put up his hands to protect himself. The magic spear made another thunderous noise and this man fell back and soon blood pooled around his body. And yet, Eagle Eyes once again did not see any thrust or throw of the spear!

The man in charge, possibly named NUT-PI, then seemed to speak to the man remaining alive, whom he called, “BRA-BRILL.” This man BRA-BRILL begged for mercy but to no avail. Yet again, NUT-PI pointed his magic spear and BRA-BRILL screamed and fell. Unlike the others, he did not so quickly fall silent. It appeared that the magic this time had not killed him outright but only severely wounded him.

BRA-BRILL clutched his thigh and soon his hands were covered in blood. He began crawling away on the sharp gravel. NUT-PI began laughing and sauntered after him. He pointed the magic spear at BRA-BRILL and another loud report was followed by a scream of pain. BRA-BRILL now crawled with his elbows, both of his legs trailing uselessly behind him. NUT-PI only laughed even more raucously. He came up behind BRA-BRILL and pointed the magic spear at one of NUT-PI’s shoulders. That too became injured. NUT-PI now began to jump on the injured parts of BRA-BRILL, each time eliciting a fresh, inhuman wail.

Wordlessly, Eagle Eyes and Lion Slayer sidled back outside. Eagle Eyes peered out into the area beyond the postern gate. She crouched stock still for some moments, looking for a sign of movement. She neither heard, nor smelled, nor sensed anything untoward. She crept out and she and Lion Slayer quickly headed for the nearest cover. Their quest to circumvent the whole wall was abandoned. It only took one look into each others eyes to know that they both agreed. The knowledge of this magic killing stick had to be shared with all the people as soon as possible.

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The Beginning of Book One, The Myths of the Veritas

The Beginning of Book Two, The Myths of the Veritas

Introduction to a Pattern Language for Collaboration

The Pros and Cons of AI

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Essays on America: Wimbledon

15 Monday Jul 2019

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

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Corruption, Democracy, dishonesty, fascism, innovation, life, politics, truth

Wimbledon.

An amazing venue. An amazing tournament.

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This year, in particular, offered up a host of amazing matches; e.g., Federer vs. Nadal; Federer vs. Djokovic; Serena Williams vs. Simon Halep; all the matches of Coco Gauff. And many more. The quality of tennis keeps improving. And not by accident. It’s due to fair competition.

In match after match, not only in the finals, players threw themselves into the fray to run, perceive, plan, hit, decide, and use their emotional energy in positive ways. What makes this, and every sports event, wonderful is that it is a fair contest. And because it is a fair contest, people train hard, push hard, try their damnedest to win.

The opponents make each other better. And, then, after they have trained as hard as they can train, they play as hard as they can play and we watch the drama that reveals the limits of human performance.

Imagine instead that the outcome were to be predetermined by those in power. Because someone bribes the dictator, or is otherwise connected by favors or blood, the winner is chosen by the dictator. Then, everything is “show” to make it fall into place the way the the dictator wants. Maybe some of the competitors would be drugged. Maybe some of them would meet with accidents. Maybe the line calls could consistently shade one way.

Would fans even get any joy in watching? I suppose some might. After all, I do enjoy watching 007 movies, Star Trek, etc. even though I already know which side will win. But then, why bother with a tournament? Why not just make a fictional movie about tennis and the dictator’s favorite tennis player?

Who would want to enter such tournaments if they knew that the outcome depended on your connections to the dictator rather than on their skill and strategy? Who would bother to train hard for the event? Who would even be attracted to the sport in the first place?

If you were a top quality athlete, if some sports were “open and fair” and other sports were predetermined by the dictator, which one would you want to play in?

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Of course, in a dictatorship, it isn’t just sports that are corrupted. Every aspect of life is corrupted. You can poison the food and water and get away with it — if the dictator likes you. You can run your company into the ground and be bailed out if you are aligned with the wishes of the dictator. Government officials will be advanced according to how corrupt they are rather than how well they do their jobs. You can be a brilliant academic, but if your views do not align with what the dictator thinks will protect and expand his own power, you’ll be passed over for promotion. That’s the best case scenario. You could find yourself in a prison camp.

And under these circumstances, why should people try hard to discover and disseminate the truth? Why should anyone make the best possible product if the dictator might jail you because you are competing with the dictator’s son-in-law?

Under dictatorship, everything in life decays into a moldy shadow of what it should be. Creativity is stifled. Your brilliant discovery won’t be approved by the dictator because the dictator didn’t know about it ahead of time (by definition). On the other hand, the dictator might “prescribe” findings and discoveries such as the existence of phlogiston. Experimental results will be manipulated and the population will begin to believe in a reality that is less and less aligned with the actual facts.

Do you think this is an exaggeration? It isn’t. But don’t take my word for it. Read about writers, film makers, singers, movie stars, athletes that were not in “favor” with Stalin or Mao.

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Do you, like most workers, take pride in doing a good job? Why bother if the dictator can brush away your team’s product in order to promote the competitive product made by the dictator’s daughter, say? Absolute power is an addictive drug and a dictator will never voluntarily give up power. They insist on more. Of course, no-one can know everything and the worst kind of dictator is the impulsive/cover-up kind. They don’t bother to understand a situation but make snap judgements. Then, everyone is required to scramble to pretend the snap judgment was actually a good — no, a great decision.

The lies and mediocrity will proliferate. In many cases, cruelty will be extracted from “enemies of the people” intentionally. Beyond that, there will be almost no incentive for government to be effective under a dictatorship. Do you think the Bureau of Motor Vehicles is inefficient now? You haven’t seen anything like the inefficiency of a dictatorial state! But if things stay on the current trajectory, you will.

Once honesty becomes replaced with loyal lying, everything crumbles. Everything.

Your body only stays healthy and alive because it sends all sorts of communication signals. If your body “lies” to itself and sends false signals, you will soon find yourself in terrible health or worse.

It is the same with a nation. If public officials lie, it destroys government in and of itself — and it also encourages the rest of the population to lie, cheat, and steal.

Game. Set. Match.

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Corn on the Cob

06 Monday May 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, family, management, psychology, Uncategorized, Veritas

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altrusim, cats, fascism, gratitude, politics, science, selfishness, truth

{This is not part of the “Myths of the Veritas” series. But writing about these ancient, if mythical, people has caused me to reflect on how much we owe today to the millennia of humans who preceded us.}

Corn on the Cob.

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I made corn on the cob tonight for dinner. I cooked it in the micro-wave the perfect amount of time and put just the right amount of butter and seasoning. I loved it. And, I have loved corn on the cob ever since I can remember.

Now, I am guessing that most of you saw no problem with my first statement. Indeed, this is how most people speak about “making dinner” and generally the way I think about it as well.

But think for another moment. Did I really make the dinner? I might have grown the corn in my garden (in this case, I did not), but I certainly didn’t build the microwave from scratch! And, I did not milk the cow nor churn the butter. And similarly, the seasonings were not something I went out and found.

Corn? Corn was first domesticated in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. It did not look or taste like it does today. Consider: the first corn was not something that these early Mexicans discovered in a seed catalog or happened across on an afternoon stroll through the supermarket.

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There were people among these tribes who learned from people who learned from people who learned…from many generations how to grow food, how to choose the very best from among those foods and then not eat them but instead use them to seed the next generations.

I am quite sure that most of you have worked hard in your careers. Maybe your career lasted 50 years, like mine. A half century is not an inconsiderable time. But the corn that we eat today is the result of the labor of many people: ancient Mexicans; early settlers to the American continent; scientists from across the globe. The overall effort it took to create the corn that I cooked today is undoubtedly thousands of times greater than the effort I spent preparing it.

Not to mention the microwave! How did that come about? How many scientists and engineers over how many years? Of course, they could not even have begun to work on such a thing without other scientists and mathematicians from around the world advancing basic physics, equations, zero, numbers, counting — going back again — thousands of years!

Statue of Archimedes who brought value to many, and who was killed by a Roman soldier.

A similar timeline exists for salt, pepper, and butter. Have you ever actually seen a cow? They’re big! They’re strong! Who knows how many ancient peoples died in the process of trying to domesticate cows.

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And, let us not forget the leisure that comes from living in a house and not fighting off Saber-Tooth tigers while I’m trying to cook. (Although our youngest kitten Luna, did persistently try to lick the butter and nibble the tuna salad. She’s still young and has much to learn.)

Everything in the way of goods and services and security that we enjoy in a so-called “civilized” society is something we might think is something we “deserve” because, after all, we worked hard all our lives. But let’s not forget that if you were born in the stone age, you could work hard all your life and not get anything like the luxuries we have today. Those products and services are the result of countless numbers of other people who tried to leave the earth better for their fellow humans than the way they found it.

The next time a thought crosses your mind that you ought to be able to keep every cent of the income that “you” earned, hopefully you will chew awhile on the fact that everything you enjoy today is the result of other living beings doing things for themselves and doing things for future generations. Some of them were your direct ancestors but the vast majority were not. They were people of all colors, countries and religious persuasions.

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And, every time you look at your computer screen, or watch a movie, or put on a pair of shoes, or use your indoor plumbing, or sleep in a vermin free house, or listen to a song, or pet your dog without it biting off your hand — all these things we take for granted were vast gifts from earlier and current generations.

Yes, you should we rewarded for your hard work, but let’s not delude ourselves. The fraction of all that we have that we could have achieved on our own is miniscule.

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Chain Saws Make the Best Hair Trimmers

12 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

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autocracy, Business, collaboration, Design, fascism, Feedback, meritocracy, politics, teamwork

Continuing with the theme of deciding how much risk is “reasonable” to take in your career and your life, I’d like to share a story about my time at a mythical company we will label as NYNEXX. NYNEXX we’ll imagine, was one of the so-called “Baby Bells” who provided local phone service. It was created from the break-up of AT&TX. NYNEXX paid some marketing company millions to come up with the name which is for New Yorkx (telephone), New Englandx (telephone) and XX = who knows what we might do in the future!? And sure enough, within five years most people who were served by NYNEXX knew it was a brand of headache remedy. See, marketing is not nearly so scientific as some (particularly those selling marketing services) would have you believe. More about that another time. NYNEXX later merged with Bell Atlanticx and then with GTEx and has transmogrified into a company known as Verizonx. (Any resemblance to similarly named companies, such as NYNEX, of course, is purely coincidental).

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This story concerns itself with professional advice I was asked to render. At the time, I was the executive director of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at NYNEXX Science and Technology. But my management chain knew that I was knowledgeable in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors, User Experience etc. In fact, I was asked to start up and then head up the AI Lab to do work in speech recognition, expert systems and machine vision. Before even accepting the job, I explained how much we also needed a group doing Human-Computer Interaction research. This turned out to be a wonderful thing for all the obvious reasons, but one of the non-obvious reasons was that it helped cement HCI into the minds of my management.

black and white board boardroom business

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A hot summer day, several of us were called into a conference room by one of the chief aids to the CEO so we could advise on a new proposal the CEO had for increasing trust of top management. You probably intuit quite well that it’s important for workers and managers to trust the top management of the company. The numbers for NYNEXX at that time (decades ago) had been abysmal several years running. The first year that they reported results, only something like 14% of the workers trusted top management. The numbers were even worse for lower management than for union workers. Top management decided the reason for these terrible results was that people did not know enough about top management and the reasons for their decisions. So, they instituted a plan to TELL people more about why what top management was doing was RIGHT, damn it! They did this for a year and then re-measured the results. Now, the percentage of workers who trusted top management had skyrocketed all the way to about 10%! Wow! In the company rag, which I believe was called The Leader, they reported last year’s numbers, this years numbers, and then said that with all their success, they would continue the program for another year. Huh? Yeah, right? And this was way back when Donald Trump was still merely a racist, misogynistic, unfaithful, bankrupt builder.

The top NYNEXX management had called in one of the top business consultants on the topic of trust and he related to them the story of Sam Walton. You have to understand that whatever you may think of Sam Walton, Wal-Mart, or the Walton heirs, he was a down to earth, hands-on manager. He would spend half his time riding around in his pick-up truck with his hound dogs in the rear of the truck and go personally to the stores and see how things were going and talk to his store managers. At some point, the business grew so large that it took a long time to get back to every store so they started an hour long conference call each week. Each of his store managers called in to a conference call number and any manager could explain in one minute, a problem that they had encountered and solved. Since each of the store managers might face many of these same problems, this sounded like a very useful exercise in knowledge sharing and organizational learning. Part of the reason it worked as well as it did was no doubt because the managers could relate to Sam Walton. They already trusted him because of all his personal contact and the reputation that arose from that personal contact. I am sure the conference calls served to further enhance mutual trust in the organization as well as provide valuable organizational learning.

The chief aide from the CEO’s office explained all this to us by way of background. Next, he revealed their “take-away” and plan from the consultant’s consultation. They would do what Sam Walton did! He was trusted! So, now they would be trusted. Well, the design rationale thus exposed caused that same facial expression to appear on my face as when I discover that the jar of garlic-filled olives I was looking forward to consuming is completely encased in a finely feathered grey mold. Why the crinkled nose? Because NYNEXX top execs were nothing like Sam Walton when it came to being content to be “just folks.” They didn’t drive pick-up trucks, but were chauffeured in stretch limos. They didn’t ever wear jeans and a plaid shirt. They wore 3-piece suits. Even in the shower. So, already this plan was showing a serious issue. It seemed to me that it would succeed in about the same degree as my wearing the same brand of shoes that Rafa Nadal wears would enable me to create the same degree of speed and top-spin on my forehand drives that he does. Aside from the much more collegial nature of Walton’s relationship to his employees than our executives enjoyed, the other major difference is that all the Wal-Mart store owners faces at least some similar problems. There was a reason to share information. By contrast, the diversity of contexts and jobs and roles that NYNEXX managers faced was tremendous. Some sold yellow page advertising. Some led AI labs. Some managed repair crews. Some managed coin-counting operations. Still others were in charge of long-distance operators.

At the time, there were about 1000 Wal-Mart stores but there were 70,000 NYNEXX managers, so the top management at my company decided it simply would not do to allow them all to talk; it would be chaos. So, to increase “trust” in top management, all 70,000 NYNEXX managers would leave whatever else they were doing each Friday morning at 9 am and dial in to a conference call and hear the CEO talk at them for a solid hour. So, here’s one dilemma. As a so-called Human Factors Expert, I am supposed to take humans as they are and design to them. But I am sitting in the meeting thinking, “How the hell can adult human beings in management not be smart enough to see what a bad idea this is!” But it’s antithetical to the premises of the field to yield to the temptation to shout that.

And now the aide approaches the punchline, with this gem. “But we do want to make it interactive. At the very end of the hour, each manager will press one of the keys on their touch tone pad and we’ll record their answers. So, for example, the CEO might talk for an hour about how important it was for each manager to know precisely their job responsibilities. And, then, at the end of the talk, every manager would be told to indicate by touch tone on a ten-point scale how well they knew their job responsibilities.” So, this was the plan. Now, the aide turns to me and says, “So, that’s why we need your help. You’re a human factors expert. Should we have them use the “0” key for ten? Or should we use “9” for the top of the scale and “0” at the bottom? Which one?”

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Here we have an example of a classic dilemma in human-computer interaction. The boss/developer/client/customer asks you a very specific question. You could answer the question, but you know that it is the wrong question. Do you answer their question? Or, do you point out that they’ve asked the wrong question? And, what if you point out that it’s the wrong question and they insist that you answer the question asked, not the one you think they should have asked? I do not think that one answer is correct for all circumstances. How much are you willing to risk? It will depend on culture, for instance, and your circumstances; how much your own boss supports you; how much you care about keeping your current job – and many other factors. Here is what happened in this case:

I explained to this aide as clearly and calmly as I could that this whole idea sucked big time and why it sucked. No, I didn’t use that term. On the other hand, I probably could have toned down the exasperation in my voice just a tad. But sometimes, a degree of righteous anger is appropriate. It wasn’t simply that this was a bad design. It was a bad design because they had no understanding of how trust is created or any ability to empathize with their 70,000 managers that they were supposed to be leading. So, it’s not clear to me that it was inappropriate to be a bit exasperated.

The aide’s face grew red. He got a pugnacious look on the front of his head and said, “WELL! When my boss, who by the way, is the CEO, asks me what the best way to do something is, it is my job to tell him the best way, not to tell him it’s a bad idea!”

To which, I responded, “Well, when my boss asks me which type of chain saw is best for him to use to trim his hair, it’s my responsibility to tell him that a chain saw is a really bad way to cut his hair!”

It makes me chuckle to recall it, but the aide didn’t find it all that funny. One of my colleagues also pointed out the telephone traffic congestion peak created by having 70,000 people call in simultaneously. We apparently put enough doubt in their collective corporate mind that they ran some focus groups on the idea and it was thankfully never actually implemented.

Silly ideas like this may soon grow more common and the penalties for pointing out the truth may well grow more severe. We all have to ask ourselves how much we will tell the truth — and how much we will answer the wrong question in order to save our jobs, our ratings, our lives. This is not an issue limited to human factors and user experience. It can happen anywhere when people are put in charge based on something other than experience, expertise and a commitment to excellence.

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Anti-Pattern: Taking Credit & Spreading Blame.

27 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

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Anti-Pattern, bully, Business, collaboration, competition, Democracy, fascism, innovation, learning, pattern language, politics

man in brown long sleeved button up shirt standing while using gray laptop computer on brown wooden table beside woman in gray long sleeved shirt sitting

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Think back to the worst boss you ever had or ever observed. Maybe one stands out immediately. Or, maybe you had two so it’s hard to say which was worse. If you have been very lucky and had reasonable bosses throughout your life, then, maybe you can think back to a very nasty teacher. In either case, I’m hoping you can think of someone who was not only strict, but pig-headed, arbitrary, unfair, and liked to demean employees (or students) in front of everyone. Not only that, they would take credit for the work of others and blame others when they had actually made the mistake themselves.

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These are the sorts of people who practice the Anti-Patterns that I’ve been writing about lately. And it occurs to me that most people have had some experience with something similar to fascism in its mildest form: having an “intolerable” boss or teacher. It’s a very mild cousin, but it is a cousin.

The major difference is that if you have a horrible boss: a bully, a liar, a person who uses their position to hide their incompetence and blame it on others, it bothers you at work and you may lie awake thinking about it, but you do have other things in your life. You don’t have to have it affect your personal life; it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have fun playing a sport or dancing or singing. But actually living under fascism is a 24×7 business. Your bosses now are in charge of everything in your life that they want to bother with being in charge of. In the post below, I describe another one of the Anti-Life Anti-Patterns that they will tend to use: Taking Credit and Spreading Blame.

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Taking Credit and Spreading Blame.

The basic idea of this Anti-Pattern is simple. The “boss” controls information into and out of their group. They are in a position to present the work of the group to higher management. The workers under the boss, in some corporate cultures will have little recourse when they are mistreated or their actions are misrepresented. If someone comes up with a good idea, for example, it may be ridiculed by a boss who knows less. Let’s say, for instance, a member of a research group at a camera/film company comes up with the idea of an electronic camera, the boss may well call the idea ridiculous. If it later turns out that the camera/film company goes out of business due to competition from electronic camera companies, the boss who originally pooh-poohed the idea will now claim that they were all in favor but that they had asked the employee who originally thought of it to look into it. That employee had come back with such a negative assessment of the market, that they had all convinced the boss not to pursue it. This is an example of “Spreading the Blame.”

On the other hand, if the boss had decided to pursue it and it had made the company successful, that kind of boss would lead everyone to believe that it had been their idea all along. They might even go so far as to discredit, transfer, or fire the employee who had actually thought of it. One might be tempted to think the “truth would out” and it might, but the boss has more control over how the group and the individuals within it are perceived than the employees do.

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In an organization without any form of checks and balances, a tyrannical boss may gain a stellar reputation among higher management by the use of this tactic. This may result in promotions and an ever-expanding scope of power with which to ruin people’s lives. If you can convince the people above you that you never make a mistake yourself because you convincingly blame others; and you manage to take credit for everything that happens in your organization (and possibly even credit for some of what happens even in neighboring organizations) then you will gain more control over the information flow.

Ultimately, the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization suffers when Anti-Patterns such as Taking Credit and Spreading Blame are employed. People will begin to see little reason to work hard or imaginatively since the boss will take the credit. People who gain pleasure from friendly and collegial interactions will work somewhere else if they possibly can. Similarly, people who are primarily motivated at work by the work itself and doing it well will tend not to thrive under such a boss and will also go work somewhere else as soon as the opportunity arises. However, people who like to be told what to do, and enjoy power themselves, might collaborate with a boss who uses Anti-Patterns because the employee may feel as though helping the boss is the best way to open a promotion for themselves as well.

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What “Anti-Patterns” have you observed in a boss, petty bureaucrat, teacher?

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Anti-Pattern: Conjure a Common Enemy

20 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

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authoritarianism, Bete noir, bully, Business, competition, Dictator, fascism, history, innovation, learning, military, pattern language, politics

Conjure a Common Enemy

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Of course, it is quite a commonly used technique among leaders to arouse people to work together by pointing to something that they all want. For example, leaders may use visions of a better future to motivate diverse people to work together to build a bridge, say, or find a cure for cancer or to put a person on the moon. And, sometimes, as when an army stands on the border about to cross into a country, the leader may call upon everyone to work to defeat that enemy.

The difference between working together to create something and working together to destroy something is quite palpable. Working to create something tends to make people feel happy and behave and think creatively. Working to destroy an enemy tends to arouse fear and anger. It is stressful and stress tends to foster doing the same thing rather than doing something new. At the end of the day, when people work together to build something good, that may provide positive value for a long time to come. When people work together to destroy something, they feel good temporarily, but what they have at the end of the day is, at best, nothing.

I claim nothing is the best long-term outcome for destroying a common enemy. This may strike you as odd because, after all, if you defeat an enemy, you might be able to enslave their children or sexually abuse some of the survivors. You may also be able to steal some of their wealth. I still claim that these “benefits” are worse than nothing as an outcome because they will tend to corrupt and demean everyone involved in the effort. The gold that is extracted from people’s teeth and given to you as the spoils of war is not really a benefit. The gold may not tarnish. But you will. And so will your children.

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Note however, that the title of this Anti-Pattern is not: “Fighting a Common Enemy.” I chose “Conjuring a Common Enemy” quite deliberately. These are not enemies that are about to take your life and property. These are enemies conjured out of thin air, or more accurately, out of the disappointments, fears, humiliations, and angers that people have suffered. The Anti-leader essentially claims that any failure you have experienced and all that attendant negative emotion you felt is not your fault. The disappointments of the past are not due to your own faulty actions, bad choices, bad luck, or being born into unfortunate circumstances. No, the Anti-leader proclaims that your illness, unemployment, lack of wealth, lack of a loving relationship – they are all caused by an enemy.

The Anti-leader wants to make it really easy to distinguish these conjured common enemies from everyone else. They might therefore choose dress, age, gender, race, or location as “magic markers.” They are “magic” because in real life, all one finds are, at best, tenuous correlations between the markers and actual behavior. But in the conjured enemy, they are all alike. It is a magic marker of ability, motivation, or behavior. If it is too hard to tell enemies apart from the “good guys,” the Anti-leader will mark the conjured enemy. Jews might be required to wear yellow stars. The “good guys” might all wear brown shirts or red hats while they “spontaneously” destroy things.

In some cases, leaders try to cast inanimate and abstract things as “enemies.” Thus, we have the “War on Poverty” and the “War on Drugs.” While this framing is not so nasty and despicable as a “War on Immigrants” or a “War on Jews” or a “War on Blacks,” it is still an ineffective framing. Instead of a “War” on “Poverty” it would make more sense to build a bridge to prosperity, to my way of thinking. A “War on Drugs” is just plain silly. It would be laughable if it hadn’t cost so much money ($ 1,000,000,000,000 – one trillion dollars and counting) and ruined so many lives (many more than drug misuse and abuse has). Among the important questions that a “War on Drugs” glosses over are: “What is a ‘drug’?”, “Isn’t it really drug abuse that you are against?” “Why are some powerful and addictive drugs like caffeine, alcohol, Ritalin, and nicotine deemed okay while others like marijuana deemed not okay?”

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One problem with blaming all your troubles on a conjured enemy is that, even if you do destroy this “enemy,” you’ll be left with the same set of issues that you had before. Stemming immigration to the USA in 2018, will not land you a job in 2018 or in 2019 nor in 2020. Making homosexual marriage illegal will not improve your own marriage in the slightest. Making it illegal for Buddhists to practice their religion will not make you a better Jew; making Islam illegal will not make you a better Christian; making Christianity illegal will not make you a better Hindu.

There is also a more systemic and pernicious problem with Conjuring a Common Enemy. Eventually, a society, business, or team who never faces the real causes of their failures will never improve and will be relatively disadvantaged in any competition with similar organizations who do face facts. In addition, once people are in the habit of blaming others for their troubles, they become ever more pushed into an “us vs. them” mentality; they will be unable to see win/win solutions for what they really are.

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They may well eventually turn on their Anti-leaders the way they did on Mussolini. Since the enemies are conjured, it is also necessary to spin an illusion about them. This was fairly easy to do in ancient times or in Medieval times. With mass media and the Internet, one cannot simply assert some absurdity and have it go unchallenged. The Anti-leader will therefore tend to destroy people’s access to sources of information that might challenge his or her lies; e.g., TV news, newspapers, websites, etc. and instead try to fill people’s minds with so much doubt that they will be tempted to make the “easiest” decision; that is, simply to believe the liar and their lies.

Comments welcome; e.g., agreements, disagreements, references, examples, suggested Patterns or Anti-Patterns.

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Here are some of my books. Perhaps I should do the next one on Pattern Language?

The Winning Weekend Warrior focuses on strategy, tactics, and the ‘mental game’ for all sports as well as business and life. The Winning Weekend Warrior

Turing’s Nightmares depicts possible scenarios in the world filled with Artificial Intelligence. What might that mean for humanity? Turing’s Nightmares

Fit in Bits is for anyone with a desire to stay in shape but an extremely hectic, busy, or unpredictable life. Fit in Bits suggests many ways to work various exercises into other daily activities. My own favorite is to dance while cooking or washing and drying dishes.

Tales from an American Childhood: Recollection and Reflection. Actually, this one is related to and inspired by the Pattern: Build from Common Ground. In Tales I recount early memories and then relate them my current values and what that says to me about contemporary issues in society. I invite you to take a little of my journey, not because it is your journey, but precisely because it isn’t. Therefore, we have observed different things and then come perhaps to observe the same things differently. It is simply my recollections and reflections – not the “correct” ones. Tales from an American Childhood

All are available on Amazon from links on my Author Page.

Anti-Pattern: Gratuitous Push Down

11 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

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authoritarianism, Business, collaboration, competition, cooperation, cruelty, Democracy, fascism, Pattern Langauge, politics, teamwork

Anti-Pattern: Gratuitous Push Down

Prolog/Acknowledgement/History:

This is the first of a planned series of “Anti-Patterns.” These are things to avoid. “Anti-Patterns” is admittedly a kind of odd name. Anyway, I simply mean that while the Patterns are something to be used in many cases to enhance collaboration and cooperation, these Anti-Patterns should never be used. While I think the focus of improving teamwork and collaboration should be on using the Patterns; I do think it is worth pointing out some of the Anti-Patterns to avoid. While forcing the behavior you want on others may result in coercion or obedience, they are antithetical to real teamwork or cooperation.

Of course, some people feel that coercion and obedience are enough. There are at least two major issues with trying to control a world through coercion and obedience.

First, no-one is that smart. No one person or even small group can know enough to make the best choices. The inevitable result of top-down control with autocratic powers with no checks and balances is that the group insulates itself from what is really happening. No-one wants to tell the King that they have no clothes. In the Anti-Pattern world which values “obedience,” the messenger will be shot unless the news is quite excellent indeed. As a result, every dictatorship spirals more and more out of touch with reality as time goes on. In the middle ages, knowledge and situations often changed slowly so an Empire as vast as that of the Romans might last hundreds of years. In the middle of the 20th century, a dictatorship might last a decade before it makes decisions on completely out-of-date information about what works. Now, it will be even less. A dictatorship can still take more time to completely disintegrate into chaos, foreign invasion, or anarchy; particularly, if it starts with a lot of resources already in place. But eventually, when no money is spent on public education or basic research; when people are appointed and promoted on the basis of how they were born or who they know rather than their abilities and experience, people who succeed in such organizations are the ones who are most capable of lies and deceit. There is little time and not motivation left over for learning what is really going on. Eventually, dictatorships fail, and they will do so even more quickly if they begin with basically flawed doctrines that are already “out of date” when the administration begins.

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The second fundamental flaw with authoritarian dictatorships that demand obedience is that people will never be motivated to do their best and in many cases, behind the back of the dictator, where they can’t be seen, they will do actual damage and sabotage. The more the dictator tries to “crack down” and make sure everyone is “pulling their weight,” the more insidious becomes the sabotage.

The third fundamental problem with authoritarianism coercion, as opposed to cooperative democracy, is that administering cruelty and mediocrity necessarily dehumanizes the “successful” people in a dictatorship. They become nastier and nastier people. It’s inevitable. And they will become less and less capable of giving and receiving love, not only from strangers, but even from their own family.

Author, reviewer and revision dates:

Created by John C. Thomas in June, 2018

Related Patterns: Anti-Pattern: Power Trumps Good.

Abstract:

In dictatorships of any size, people at the top have absolute power. In order to rationalize the inhuman behavior toward others that they exhibit, they rationalize that everyone is like them (mean and egocentric); the dictator believes they are just better at it. In other words, they live in a world limited by their own concepts to one composed only of zero-sum games. Whatever one person loses, they gain and vice versa. They do mean things to others, not only to gain some real benefit, but just because they can. Such acts are meant to demean, dispirit, harm, enslave or kill others. Such acts are antithetical to actual teamwork and collaboration. And, let’s not forget that they are also unethical.

Context:

I believe that every person has some mixture of behaving so as to maximize their own interests and maximizing for the “greater good.” Normally, as people mature, they begin to gain confidence in themselves and their ability to deal with the world including dealing with other people. Humans are intrinsically very social animals. In societies, there develops a basic sense of trust in others. Of course, in every society, that trust is sometimes betrayed. But most people have enough confidence in themselves and in the society that they live in so as to believe that when trust is betrayed, they can recover. In a few cases, people have so little confidence in themselves and/or have such bad experiences with trusting others that they will do anything to avoid cooperation. Instead, they want power. They want to dictate the terms of every situation. If someone trusts them, they will simply exploit that trust. They don’t view this as “wrong” or “unethical” because they don’t really believe in ethics. They believe everyone is out to get whatever they can for themselves, regardless of the cost to others. All the social “niceties” are basically viewed as a scam to “trick people” into trusting so that you can scam them better.

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Often this type of psychopathic personality will also have poor impulse control and run afoul of the law on multiple occasions. They cause a lot of pain and suffering to the victims of their crimes, and some to everyone they come in contact with. Generally, they become incarcerated early and their influence on the larger society is minimal. Sometimes, however, they are capable of “kissing up” or at least “holding their tongues” when interacting with those who have power over them. People such as their managers, bosses, and parents may not see their gratuitous push-downs. The people who work for them; or their students or children will see them for what they are. They may be clever enough to avoid adverse consequences to themselves by directing all of their gratuitous cruelty to people who have no power to push back. These are the coaches who molest children; petty dictators; bosses who publicly berate employees; Hollywood directors who insist on sexual favors and so on.

In order to dramatize and illustrate this Anti-Pattern, I have characterized the behavior as being related to particular people and the way that they have often been brought up. In reality, of course, everyone’s behavior has multiple determinants, only one of which is their character. The situation also has a huge effect. For example, for most people, there is some tendency to use the Gratuitous Push Down occasionally. It is not uncommon for an older sibling or upper classmate to use such a ploy.

Situations do make a difference. When people suffer no consequences of any severity, they are much more likely to employ this Anti-Pattern. When people are removed from the consequences to others, it is also easier for most to use this Anti-Pattern. Most people would not, for example, walk over to a troop of Girl Scouts selling cookies and scream at them to go away and never come back. The would-be miscreant would be embarrassed to act like this in public. They might, however, very well vote for an ordinance to make selling Girl Scout cookies illegal even though there were no real consequences for the person casting the vote. That’s what makes it “gratuitous.” They are denying someone else the achievement of that someone else even though it doesn’t really cost the other person anything.

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Problem:

When people have no desire for “true” cooperation but instead view each transaction as an opportunity to gain for themselves at the expense of others, this tends to decrease social capital within the society. Such people will often show their true colors by using the Anti-Pattern: Gratuitous Push Down. The true psychopath feels immediate pleasure in doing this, but also feels that they will gain more later because the person that they have demeaned, assaulted, insulted, stolen from, raped, etc. will have less power in the future as a consequence of their act (and in their minds, less power for others automatically means more power for them).

Such mean-spirited behavior will tend to destroy social capital in a society generally, but it will also have much more specific and localized effects. For one thing, eventually everyone the psychopath comes in contact with will realize that such a person, whatever they say, is in it for their own gain and has no honor; their word means nothing. Because people come to trust the psychopath less and less, the psychopath sees this as vindication for their stance of treating everything as a zero-sum game. In reality, it is the major cause. Having never experienced unconditional love or even a win/win solution, they forever fail to see their own role in creating this “micro-climate” of mistrust around them. What they experience becomes increasingly confrontational until it destroys them and many nearby.

Any kind of gratuitous push-down tends to send waves of mistrust and negativity throughout the environment. A person insulted or humiliated is more likely to exhibit similar behavior with others. Similarly, people who experience child abuse or sexual abuse are more likely to wreak these behaviors on others.

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Forces:

Normally people trust more than mistrust others.

Mutual trust typically leads to good outcomes for all parties.

Having trust rewarded with good outcomes tends to improve the chances of future trust.

People who grow up with constant demeaning and criticism will tend not to trust others.

Some of these people will become true psychopaths who view others only in terms of tools to be used for one’s own gain, typically by making “agreements” and then breaking them.

True psychopaths will often say or do mean things, not because there is an immediate material gain, but “just because they can.”

A person who uses the Anti-Pattern: Gratuitous Push Down will tend to generate a self-fulfilling prophesy because eventually more and more people will not deem them trustworthy.

People who do not trust others, but have minimal power themselves will sometimes look for a “powerful” leader to tell them what to do. In return, they expect to be able to use the Gratuitous Push Down on others who are “below” them in status due to age, race, place in a hierarchy or gender.

When people making decisions suffer no real consequences regardless of result and when they are “distanced” from the bad consequences others feel, they are generally more likely to use this Anti-Pattern.

Solution:

There are (at least) four known solutions to help avoid this Anti-Pattern. 1) Watch for signs of the Gratuitous Push Down and do not promote, elect, select or choose someone who does this to be put in a position of power. 2) Make sure that anyone who uses Gratuitous Push Down is as close as possible to the impact that they are causing. 3) Insure that the perpetrator’s behavior is made public as widely as possible and do not let them get away with lying about their behavior. 4) Remove such a person from power as soon as possible. You do not want a Minister, Judge, Boss, Coach, Teacher, Lab Head, Director, etc. to use Gratuitous Push Down. Replace them with a cooperative person who cares about others.

Examples:

A coach molests boys in the shower and then makes them feel too guilty and vulnerable to say anything.

2. A Director has a choice of many actors for a particular role. Instead of simply choosing the best actor for the role, they insist on sexual favors for the one that is promised the actual role. (Of course, they could still promise the role to multiple actors, extort sexual favors and then deny the role to all of them). Again, they will tend to arrange things so that no-one can verify their behavior. And, they will say anything and do anything to lower the credibility of the person making the accusation.

3. A research manager suggests to a new researcher that they do a particular project for their first year. The new researcher expresses some doubts to the manager but the manager insists. Then, the new researcher works on the project for a year and then presents the work to higher management. Higher management dismisses the work as being not very original and of no practical value. As soon as this is obvious, the research manager says quite forcefully, “I told you this was a bad idea that we never should have pursued!”

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4. A kid walks across a field and deviates toward every anthill he sees and then kicks it apart. Or, a kid likes to pull the wings off insects. Or, a kid gets a slingshot and likes to kill songbirds just for the hell of it. One might question whether cruelty to animals is in the same category as cruelty to people. Regardless, the research shows this kind of cruelty to animals is correlated with being cruel to people (See references).

Resulting Context:

When the Anti-Pattern Gratuitous Push Down is used, it immediately makes the person so pushed feel bad. But it also may have longer term effects on their behavior. It increases the chances that they themselves us the Gratuitous Push Down. But there are additional possibilities, almost all of them negative. The person may try to avoid the situation. The boy in example 1 may quit wrestling to avoid the coach. The actor in example 2 may give up on their Hollywood dreams. The researcher in example 3 may go work for another company. In other cases, the person may secretly vow to get more power for themselves so that they can be the one doing mean and humiliating things to others. The researcher may decide, for instance, that politics is more important than science, fake results, document assignments, kiss up, and otherwise maneuver themselves into a position of power. Once they are head of the lab 15 years later, they might finagle things until their first year research manager is fired in the most humiliating way that they can manage.

Regardless of precisely how an individual reacts, the use of Gratuitous Push Down poisons the organization in which it occurs. Whether it is a wrestling team, a movie cast, a research organization or an entire nation, when there are gratuitous cruelties going around, people’s attention is diverted from the actual tasks at hand. Wrestlers are not focused on wrestling. Actors are not focused on the quality of their performance. Researchers are not focused on doing the best possible research. There is this other vector of motivation: petty power struggles.

Of course, the negative effects above are the extrinsic and instrumental aspects of gratuitous cruelty. There is also an intrinsic and experiential aspect of gratuitous cruelty. It denigrates and devalues human experience for both the person who performs cruelly and the person on whom it is performed.

References:

http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/129343/the-link-between-animal-cruelty-and-antisocial-personality-disorders/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/201611/the-psychology-animal-torture

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233706971_Children_Who_Are_Cruel_to_Animals_A_Review_of_Research_and_Implications_for_Developmental_Psychopathology

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25 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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collaboration, competition, cooperation, fascism, fear, greed, hate, learning, life, love, science

Humanity finds itself in a new place. In evolutionary terms, we could say humanity suddenly finds itself in this new place. Life on earth, by best estimates is 4.75 billion years old. It’s easy to imagine, as a person, that the whole point of evolution is us. I don’t really see any reason to believe that. To the dolphin, deer, dog, dodo, and dinosaur, every one of their lives are every bit as precious to them as ours are to us. I do not even think humans are the “smartest” species on earth, at least, not in any absolute sense. We are the smartest in the directions of thought and behavior that humans find useful. So far as we know, we are the only species who has the information to know that our collective behavior can destroy us along with a lot of the other limbs on the giant, diverse tree of life and yet, here we still are, with atomic weapons, not pointed out defensively against invasions from outer space but pointed at other people on the planet. How could we possibly think we are the smartest species? Even if we avoid that kind of catastrophe, we still face dangers from over-polluting the planet, over-heating it, over-populating it, over-fishing and being over-hating. Indeed, this is nearly the darkest day in the darkest year. Is there reason to celebrate?

I think there is. In the blink of an eye, in evolutionary terms, we’ve managed to migrate across the entire planet. People live in tropical jungles, hot desserts, and in the frozen tundra. We’ve developed tools of thought and tools of trade and ways of dividing labor and communicating. And, now, although many people still do not have access, we have a communication network that spans the globe and we can communicate to some degree with people of different religions, cultures, languages, and experiences. We have vast networks of trade. We’ve come a long way.

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Yes, there are a few greedy people who, like Voldemort, cannot or will not experience love or its benefits. Instead, they have convinced themselves that everyone is out to get as much as they can for themselves (or, if some people aren’t on that program, they’re just stupid, in the view of the greedy). In reality, only a few people are completely hooked on greed and power. They do not see other human beings as partners, or colleagues, or fellow explorers in this vast world before us — a world that still has billions of unfound discoveries. Indeed, we have even built machines to help us make new discoveries. And, if we don’t change trajectories, we may make far fewer discoveries than we might. Of course, it isn’t just the people completely hooked on greed that are accomplices in humanity’s direction toward greed. The alternative is to think quite consciously about our decisions in terms of who we invest in, what product we buy, how we talk with our neighbor, how we ourselves do business. We ourselves can make choices that move us toward greater cooperation rather than necessarily choosing only on the basis of immediate cost/benefit analyses. Then, and only then, can we turn the world to kindness and discovery.

Despite our many advances, we have yet, for instance, to have conquered cancer; we have yet to conquer war; we have yet to conquer hate and fear. You see how easily, in fact, the metaphors of war pervade our thinking. It is possible that we don’t need to “conquer” cancer, war, hate or fear. Maybe, we just need to let them go. Maybe if we understand these things sufficiently, they will dissipate. Maybe these four things all required quite different approaches from anything that has yet been tried, and possibly all require a different approach from each other. But my reflexive approach is to state this in terms of “conquering” – that is, winning over an enemy rather than winning over an enemy.

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Perhaps, instead, the right approach to conquering cancer is not to “destroy” cancer cells but to re-integrate them into the society of the body. Perhaps they have been disillusioned that being part of the whole (body) is working for them. Maybe there is a way to “convince” them not to be cancer cells but to revert to what they were before cancer began.

Or, maybe we put something on an edge of the human body that has more of what the cancer cells “want” then anyplace within the body and let them “migrate” to the edge (and out of the human body — the “Pied Piper Approach”).

Or, perhaps, apart from pollution, a huge reason for cancer is that people are so busy so much of the time that they are not “noticing” teeny cancers within them. Perhaps people can be trained from birth to notice cancer cells and to send an overwhelming immune response before its too late. It sounds a bit absurd, but is it really? People can learn to “turn on” a single neuron in their brains with proper feedback. Is it really so far beyond the pale to imagine we could train ourselves to mount a targeted immune response?

Perhaps all of these approaches might work and perhaps none of these approaches would work. The point is, that we need not reflexively think that “armed conflict” and “destruction” are the only methods that work to change the world. Many biologists think that the “nucleus” of our cells as well as our “mitochondria” were originally different organisms that started living symbiotically inside our cells. Is it too much to imagine that we could some day control the process of cells mutating and do it for our benefit? It seems absurd and ridiculous from the perspective of our knowledge today. And, yet — what would have our common ancestors on the African Savannah have thought 1,000,000 years ago if we could have explained to them that someday we would have machines that fly us around the globe — and to the moon? Or, how would they have reacted to the idea that we would have a network allowing us to communicate around the globe; that we would build machines that enable us to look into the workings of cells or the far reaches of the galaxy; that we would build fantastically beautiful musical instruments and that we could share music and ideas and stories across this earth; or that many people in our world die from having too much to eat!?

It is quite possible that a century from now, people will very seldom die from cancer — or any other disease. In a similar fashion, we may well be able to set aside, recommission, redesign, or simply let go of war, hate, and irrational fear.

But none of that will happen unless we collectively decide what we want to be when we grow up. Because, as a species, despite wonderful achievements, we are still adolescents, at best. There are many tyrants in the world. Tyrants, as I’ve explained in prior postings, hate love and hate the truth. They really need war for cover in order to stay in power. Love complicates things. It’s just too unpredictable for people who want to be in control of everything. People’s reactions to absolute power wielded without ethics are much more predictable. Under enough painful torture, anyone will say anything 99% of the time. Of course, nothing positive and growth oriented ever comes from hate and fear alone. Only love moves life forward. Only love creates a more beautiful earth for our descendants. Only love discovers new beginnings, offers new ideas and new approaches. Beyond love’s instrumental value, more importantly, a world run by love is a world that feels good most of the time while it is happening, moment to moment. Of course, even in a world run largely by love, you will stub your toe or lose a friend, but most of every day’s activities you spend doing something because you feel as though you are making a contribution to something beyond yourself.

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On the other hand, in a world run largely by hate and fear, the momentary experience of almost everyone almost all of the time is miserable. You are basically snarling or sniveling with every communication. Naturally, even so, there will be moments of joy, but it will never be unmarred because joy will either fall prey to guilt, or even worse, spend so much resources defending against guilt that life will become gray and pointless. Every day, most of the time you are doing what you’re going because you feel as though you’ll be badly punished if you don’t.

Does it make any sense then, to have a society run by the very greediest people among us? What if the only reason they are so greedy is because they don’t experience the full spectrum of human emotion that the rest of us do? What if a huge part of their greed is actually specifically and quite consciously designing and demanding a society run by hate and fear?

Why? Because they themselves don’t feel love and they don’t want others to be able to in an unrestricted way either. They are jealous and the only way they see to avoid being faced with their own shortcomings is to reshape the world so that no-one can express love openly and fully. I am not talking only about restrictions on sexual partners. I am talking as well about artistic expression, a free press, scientific exploration, and education. Everything is subject to restriction in a dictatorial society. Love is the source of exploration. It cannot be fully functioning under a dictatorship.

And what about Christmas? What about the solstice? What about the light and the dark? I do believe we now live in much, much darker times than most people realize. We are, in one of three states: 1) we are like one of the beginning scenes of the Star Trek prequel where Kirk speeds a stolen car towards that he does not realize is a deadly chasm. At the last moment, he tries to skid sideways to a stop, leaps from the car, begins to totter over the side and holds on by his fingernails — then clambers back up. 2) we in the same scene but this time, our foot hits the door an inch to the left and we don’t quite make it. 3) we are like the road-runner cartoon character who has just run straight off a deadly cliff but his legs are still windmilling and for a short time — he appears to be running, and does not fall until he looks down and realizes he is no longer on solid ground.

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Well, it’s Christmas Day for me. And, the winter solstice has passed. The darkness really is receding and the daylight is encroaching on that darkness, minute by minute. We humans have had some dire times before and gotten through them. That doesn’t prove we’ll survive this Age of Greed, but I think it possible, perhaps even likely. But we must put the brakes on now. We must jump very carefully. And we must hold on for dear life.

We must hold on to each other. We must hold on to ethics as something that matters. We must hold on to the thought that, ultimately, we are all in this together. We must hold on to the thought that we are much more alike than we are different regardless of what customs, clothes, and food we prefer. We must hold on to the realization that a few greedy people cannot really rule the world, unless we participate with our own greed, fear, and hate.

We can pull this off. Instead of being the despoilers of the planet, we will make it ever more beautiful. Eventually, we will be “in tune” again, with nature and each other. How precisely to make this happen isn’t clear and no two people would probably approach it precisely the same way. Nonetheless, if we work together as best we can, keep discussing our differences in a civil way, and make as many decisions as we possibly can with at least a thought to the greater good, we will make it.

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Merry Christmas.

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petersironwood

~ Finding, formulating and solving life's frustrations.

Tag Archives: fascism

The Loud Defense of Untenable Positions

It’s Your Call!

Myths of the Veritas: Killing Sticks

Essays on America: Wimbledon

Corn on the Cob

Chain Saws Make the Best Hair Trimmers

Anti-Pattern: Taking Credit & Spreading Blame.

Anti-Pattern: Conjure a Common Enemy

Anti-Pattern: Gratuitous Push Down

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