3. Boundaries

02 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

Tags

boundary, Design, ethics, limit, privacy, truth, UX

3. Boundaries

Here are a few thoughts about “Boundaries” and how they apply in User Experience.

I decided to gift a copy of of Volume One on The Nature of Order to my daughter earlier today. I logged on to Amazon and looked at my address book. I am aware that she moved fairly recently. So, I was scrolling through my earlier text conversations with her to see whether she had told me of her new address. I couldn’t find a text about her new address so I texted her to get the new address.

Suddenly, a popup window appeared from SIRI. It had her new address. I hadn’t said anything aloud. I thought of SIRI as a voice-activated service on my iPhone. It was disconcerting to have it “notice” my text message and then suggest an answer (which turned out to be correct).

Last week, after physical therapy, my therapist & I began to discuss the time for my next appointment. I pulled up the calendar application on my iPhone and went to a particular day and began to type in her name. After the first two characters were typed in, the “type-ahead” function suggested three possible “completions” the first of which was the time we had been orally discussing (which was not a common time nor the time of any of my recent appointments with her). It also filled in her complete name and the purpose of the appointment, but that was more understandable.

One sense of “Boundaries” in User Experience connects with a notion of “boundaries” that is much discussed in contemporary mental health. We are advised to “establish boundaries” with co-workers, family, friends, and strangers. We don’t necessarily want to share personal information with everyone or let everyone touch us in any way they choose to. If intimate details are shared in a recovery group or group therapy, it is generally agreed that such details will not be shared with others.

We sometimes extend the idea of informational boundaries to written materials as well. If, for instance, we keep a personal diary, we do not expect other people to “search for it” or to read it. In this story, I relied on the expectation that someone would read a paper I “accidentally” dropped on the sidewalk. But she was so protective of my privacy that she wouldn’t even glance at my paper.

On the other hand, if we write and publish an autobiography, then we can expect that other people will feel justified in discussing the contents. To me, it would seem odd for an author to feel “violated” if people start talking about the contents of their autobiography (or their blog).

When it comes to modern interactions with computer software however, the boundaries are invisible — and sometimes non-existent. It can feel as though I write a private diary on paper; lock it up in a safe immediately; and then — without any sign that the safe has been broken into, I suddenly find details of my personal life revealed!

There appear to be boundaries between applications, and certainly between devices but these boundaries may be illusory. I find that troubling and confusing. I think the first application of “Boundaries” as a property of UX is that apparent boundaries should be real. There may be exceptions for exceptional circumstances; e.g., the police may get a search warrant to search your house if there is reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime.

When a social media site analyzes your reactions, relationships, and word usage to determine what to try to sell you and what type of approach is most likely to succeed, that does not strike me as a reasonable response to an “emergency.” As most readers know by now, such information is not only used to try to sell you more stuff; it was also used to manipulate public opinion; for example, to convince some US voters to stay away from the polls on election day in 2016; to convince voters in the UK to vote for Brexit; to convince people not to get vaccinated.

Living things do have boundaries. Breaching those boundaries is typically something to be avoided. We call such breaches by names like “bites”, “wounds”, “diseases”, “gunshots”, “parasites.” Living cells typically have a cell wall. Within the cell are tinier organelles such as the mitochondria. The mitochondria have boundaries. The nucleus of a cell has a boundary. Within the nucleus, the nucleolus has a boundary. Larger structures often have boundaries. Motor neurons have a myelin sheath which allows neural impulses to travel faster. Almost our entire body is covered in layers of skin which for a boundary.

The formation of boundaries does not stop with our physical body. Organizations of humans — nuclear families, clans, nation-states, counties, cities, townships, teams, corporations — they have boundaries. A bank, for instance, might have a safe for the money, but the building itself also functions as a boundary — not an impermeable boundary — customers are allowed to come in during banking hours. There are also legal boundaries. If you have “an account” at a bank, you will be allowed to do things that non-customers cannot. Similarly, if you are an employee of a company or a member of a sports team, you will be allowed to do things and go places that you couldn’t if you were outside that boundary.

All boundaries are semi-permeable. Boundaries change over time. A thorn tears your skin. Your boundary is broken. If you’re not careful, bacteria can get in and cause an infection. Your white blood cells destroy the invading bacteria. Your body heals. If the cut was bad enough, you may get a scar and the scar is now part of your “boundary.” It isn’t only at the level of the body that changes occur. Your social boundaries change too.

You get married. You get divorced. You are born. You join a team. You quit the team. You sell your house and other people buy it. Now, you are no longer allowed to come into the house without an invitation. Meanwhile, you buy another house. You have acquired new boundaries. Or, perhaps, you have no home. You are homeless and your boundaries are not so secure.

Most of our possessions have clearly defined boundaries. Your hammer is separate from your saw which is separate from your drill. They come from an earlier time and the “boundary” of such objects are determined by their shape. More recently, such tools (and nearly everything else!) Is packaged in bubble wrap which forms an additional boundary. This makes it harder for people to hide one under their clothes and walk out without paying. Such packaging has the added advantage that it will require time and energy on your part before you can actually start using the tool for its intended purpose. Not only that — such packaging helps pollute our world beyond the pollution required by “old style” tools.

Once you have separated your new tool purchase from its packaging, if you have any energy left, you can saw a board, or drill a hole, or hammer a nail. But you do not expect (not yet, at least), the saw to “communicate” behind the scenes with your drill. Or with you. You’d be surprised if it piped up and said, “Gee, Gene, you just sawed a board. Now, you have taken up the drill. Would you like suggestions on how to build a dog house?” (That’s what Clippy would do).

(Link to Wikipedia article on “Clippy” and how it was parodied). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant

Clippy tried to be helpful. But it didn’t really have enough information about my tasks, goals, and context to actually be helpful. But today’s behind-the-scenes information sharing with dark forces is not trying to be helpful. It’s trying to get you to change your behavior for someone else’s benefit — and you don’t even know who those someones are.

Notice that if you buy a house (which typically comes with doors and keys), you can lock the house and the default is that it keeps everyone else out — except those you’ve given a key to or those who have rung your doorbell or otherwise asked for permission to come in. Typically, if a rare visitor comes to your house, you make arrangements for a time and a place. The piano tuner comes to tune your piano. You might let them use your bathroom or even offer them something to drink. But you don’t expect the piano tuner to redecorate your study or to spend the night uninvited.

That’s kind of what does happen in the electronic world though. In many cases, you cannot visit a website or use an application unless you give permission for the “guest” to rifle through the choices you make. Just to be clear, these “choices” are not only explicit choices; your “choices” can include how long you linger over a particular message or video clip. In many cases, you have not just given a key to a specific vendor, application, or website — in many cases, you have also given them rights, essentially, to make as many copies of your front door key as they care to make and hand them out to whomever they like.

These are missing boundaries, not so much in the user interface design, but in the socio-technical context in which we use our technology.

In the physical world in which we evolved, invasion of privacy typically involved symmetry. If I can see your eyes, you can see mine. Conversely, if I can’t see anyone, chances are that they can’t see me. Of course, this isn’t literally true. A tiger’s camouflaging stripes may mean that they can see the gazelles even though the gazelles cannot see them. The astounding eyesight of the eagle allows them to see a mouse on the ground and start their deadly dive before the mouse can see the eagle.

In the electronic world, it isn’t genetically coded asymmetries of information that allows other people to invade your boundaries — in many cases without your permission or even knowledge. It is an asymmetry that comes from money and time. You don’t have anything like the fortune that rich companies have. They can hire experts at subverting your boundaries. They can hire an entirely different set of experts to convince you that it’s all okay. They can afford to hire still other experts to defend themselves in a court of law should you seek redress for any particularly unethical behavior. They can afford to hire politicians as well in order to make laws to protect their unfettered access to your data. You typically cannot afford to hire politicians to protect your right to privacy.

You probably don’t have 10,000 to 100,000 people working for you. Companies not only have the money to spy on you. They also have to time to collect and analyze your behavior & make sense of it. You don’t. Perhaps, every once in a while, you take the time to wade through a “privacy policy.” In most cases, since experts were hired to make the text as incomprehensible as possible, you likely didn’t see much value in reading the document.

The Nature of Order is about aesthetics, not ethics. And, this post was meant to be about aesthetics, not ethics.

The poem by Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn,

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44477/ode-on-a-grecian-urn

ends thusly:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Life includes differences in sensory capability. And life includes camouflage. Generally, however, when you get to the end a cliff and step off, you have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen. The boundary is visible to you, to a bison, to a mouse, to a lemming, to an eagle.

When we walk through the woods in northeastern USA where I lived for many years, we run the risk of being attacked by a deer tick. The dear tick makes a hole in you and starts sucking your blood (oh, while they’re at it, they may inject a large does of Lyme disease bacteria into your blood stream). You don’t notice it, because the deer tick is “kind enough” to administer a local anesthetic so you don’t feel any pain from this invasion of your person; this breaking of boundaries. It’s a one-sided breach. The deer tick is well aware of the invasion. It’s the whole point! But you do not perceive the breach. At least, I didn’t. Twice. Thankfully, I don’t seem to have any long-lasting effects though I have several friends who do.

A one-sided boundary breach, doesn’t seem “aesthetic” to me. Nor does it seem “truthful.” The little orange deer tick, is, in a very real sense, lying to me. It uses its narcotic to tell me, “No worries! There’s no wound here! There’s no deer tick sucking your blood. There’s no deer tick injecting a serious disease into your blood. No, no. All is well!” It seems the opposite of beauty and the opposite of truth.

I suppose if I had been born a deer tick, I might view things differently.

———————-

Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

Pattern Language for Collaboration and Teamwork

Design – Interpretation Model of Communication

22 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

communication, deception, experiment, HCI, IBM, media, psychology, truth, UX

In my early days at IBM Research (1970’s), we were focused on trying to develop, test, or conceive of ways that a larger proportion of people would be able to use computers. One of the major ways of thinking about this was to use natural language communication as a model. After all, it was reasoned, people were able to communicate with each other using natural language. This meant that it was possible, at least in principle. Moreover, most people had considerable practice communicating using natural language.

One popular way of looking at natural language (especially among engineers & computer scientists) was essentially an “Encoding – Decoding” model. I have something in my head that I wish to communicate to you. So, I “encode” my mental model, procedure, fact, etc. into language. I transmit that language to you. Then, you “decode” what I said into your internal language and — voila! — if all goes well, you construct something in your head that is much like what is in my head. Problem solved.

Of course, people who wrote about communication from this standpoint acknowledged that it didn’t always work. For instance, as speaker, I might do a bad job of “encoding” my knowledge. Or, I might do a good job of encoding, but the “transmission” was bad; e.g., static, gaps, noise, etc. might distort the signal. And, you might do a bad job of decoding. It’s an appealing model and helped engineers and computer scientists make advances in “communication theory” and helped make practical improvements in coding and so on.

As a general theory of how humans communicate, however, it’s vastly over-simplified. I argued that a better way of looking at human communication was as a design-interpretation process, not as an encoding-decoding process. One of the examples that pointed this out was a simple observation by Don Norman. Suppose someone comes up to you and asks, “Where is the Empire State Building?” You will normally give a quite different answer depending on whether they are in Rome, Long Island, or Manhattan. In Rome, you might say, “It’s in America.” Or, you might say, “It’s in New York City.” If you are on Long Island, you might well say, “It’s in Manhattan.” If you are already in Manhattan, you might say, “Fifth Avenue, between 33rd and 34th.”

Building on Don Norman’s original example, but based on your own experience, you can easily see that it isn’t only the geographical relationships that influence your answer. If you were originally from Boston, now on your own in Rome, struggling with Italian and homesick and someone came up to you and asked that question in American English with a Boston Accent, your response might be: “Are you joking? But how did you know I was an American. My name’s … “

On the other hand, if you’re a 13-year old boy in Manhattan — one with a mean streak — and someone asks you this question in broken English and they’re looking around like they are totally lost, you might say, “Oh, no problem. Just follow 8th Avenue, all the way north up to 133rd. It’s right there. You can’t miss it.” (Note to potential foreign visitors, most kids in Manhattan would not intentionally mislead you. But they point is, someone could. They are not engaging some automatic encoding process that takes their knowledge and translates into English. Absurd!

You design every communication. I think that’s a much more useful way to conceive of communicating. Yes, of course, there are occasions when your “design” behavior is extremely rudimentary and seems almost automatic. It isn’t though. It just seems that way. Let’s go back to our question-asking example. Suppose you work at an information booth in New York City. People ask you this question day after day, year after year. You’re seemingly giving the answer without any attention whatsoever. Suppose someone asks you the question, but with a preface. “Look here, chap! I’ve got a gun! And if you give me the same stupid answer you’ve given me every time before, I’ll shoot your bloody brains out!” You are going to modify your answer. It only seemed as though it was automatic.

When you design your answer you take into account at least these things: some knowledge that you communication about, the current context (which itself has hundreds of potentially important variables), a model of the person you’re creating this communication for, a set of goals that you are trying to achieve (e.g., get them safely to their goal, mislead them, entertain them, entertain yourself, entertain the people around you, demonstrate your expertise, practice your diction, etc.). The process is inherently creative. In many circumstances (writing, playing, exploring, discovering, partying), you can choose how creative you want to make it. In other cases, circumstances constrain you more (though likely not so much as you think they do).

Many readers think this is a classic example of a straw man argument. “No-one believes communication is a coding-decoding process.”

Well, I beg to differ. I worked for relatively well-managed companies. I’ve talked to many other people who have worked in different well-managed companies. We’ve all seen or heard requests like this: “I need a paragraph (or a slide or a foil) on speech recognition. Thanks.”

What??

Who’s the audience? Are they scientists, investors, customers, our management? How much do they already know? What are your goals? What other things are you going to talk about with them? The people who have left me such messages were all smart people. And, providing the necessary info only took a minute or two. But it critically improved the outcome. It’s not a straw man argument.

Sit-com plots often hinge on the characters doing poorly at designing and/or interpreting communications. A show based on encoding-decoding? No. What could be funny — indeed what often is shown in comedy — are people failing to do good design and in the extreme case, that can arise by having an actual robot as a character or someone who behaves like one.

People also interpret what was said in terms of their goals, the context, what they believe about your goals and capacity, what they already know, and so on. And, even though this may seem obvious, millions of people believe what advertisers or politicians say without questioning their motives, double-checking with other sources, or even looking for internal inconsistencies in what is being touted as true. In other cases though, the same people will not believe anything the “other side” says no matter what. Just as one can do faulty design, one can also do faulty interpretation.

In any case, I decided that it would be good to “show” in a controlled laboratory setting that the Encoding-Decoding model was woefully inadequate. So, I brought in “subjects” to work in pairs at a simple task about communicating Venn diagram relationships. The “designer” had a Venn diagram in front of them. “The “interpreter” was supposed to draw a Venn diagram. The “designer” was constrained to say something true and relevant. In addition to a “base” pay, the “interpreter” subjects would be given a bonus according to how many relationships matched those of the “designer.” The designer’s bonus depended on condition. In the “cooperation” condition, their payoff would also, like the interpreter’s, be determined by the agreement in the diagrams. In the “competition” condition, the designer’s bonus depended on how different the two diagrams were.

Photo by August de Richelieu on Pexels.com

I ran about half the number of subjects I had planned to run when the experiment was ended by corporate lawyers.

What?

IBM had no unions at that time. And, they didn’t want any unions. One of their policies, which they believed, would help them prevent the formation of unions was that they never paid their workers for piece-work. Apparently, somehow, IBM CHQ had gotten wind of my experiment. People were being paid different amounts, based (partly) on their performance. They couldn’t have this! People might think were paying people for piece-work!

It hardly needs to said, I suppose, that IBM definitely tried to pay for performance. This was true in sales, research, development, HR, management, and so on. No-one in IBM would argue that your pay shouldn’t be related to your performance. That was exactly — in one way of describing it — was going on here. By the way, these were not IBM employees and each subject only “worked” for about an hour.

Basically, regardless of how irrelevant this experimental set-up might have been to the genuine concern of unions not to pay people in an insanely aggressive and ever-changing piece-work scheme, the lawyers were concerned that it would be somehow misrepresented to workers or in the press and used as evidence that IBM should unionize. In a way, the lawyers were proving the point of the experiment in their own real-life behavior even as they insisted the experiment be shut down.

Lessons Learned: #1 Corporate lawyers are not only concerned about what you actually do or how you represent your work; they are also worried about how someone might misrepresent your work.

Lessons Learned: #2 Even when constrained to say something true and relevant, ordinary people are quite capable of misleading someone else when it’s to their benefit and considered okay to do.

It is this second aspect of the experiment that I myself felt to be “edgy” at the time. Sure, people can mislead, but I was providing a context in which they were being encouraged to mislead. Was that ethical? Obviously, I thought it was at the time. On reflection, I still think it’s okay, but I’m glad that there are now review boards to look at “studies” and give a less biased opinion than the person who designed the study would do.

I view the overall context of doing the study as positive. As adults, these people all already knew how to mislead. I was letting them, and many other people, know that we know you know how to mislead and we’ll be on the lookout for it.

What do other people think about studies wherein the experimenter encourages one person to deceive another?

———————-

References published literature that describes some of the research that was done around that time.

Malhotra, A., Thomas, J.C. and Miller, L. (1980). Cognitive processes in design. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 12, pp. 119-140.

Carroll, J., Thomas, J.C. and Malhotra, A. (1980). Presentation and representation in design problem solving. British Journal of Psychology/,71 (1), pp. 143-155.

Carroll, J., Thomas, J.C. and Malhotra, A. (1979). A clinical-experimental analysis of design problem solving. Design Studies, 1 (2), pp. 84-92.

Thomas, J.C. (1978). A design-interpretation analysis of natural English. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 10, pp. 651-668.

Thomas, J.C. and Carroll, J. (1978). The psychological study of design. Design Studies, 1 (1), pp. 5-11.

———————

Other essays that touch on communication.

Freedom of Speech is not a License to Kill

Ohayogozaimasu

The Sound of One Hand Clasping

Fool Me

Claude the Radioman

Know What?

The Story of Story, Part 1

The Temperature Gauge

Whom to Trust?

14 Monday Jun 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

ethics, leadership, legend, myth, truth, Veritas

“Whom can I trust?” Shadow Walker paced, his energy still high from his second brush with death since becoming the “King” of the Z-Lotz. He didn’t wait for Eagle Eyes to answer and instead ‘ran ahead without his footwear’ as the Veritas liked to say. “I mean who? I am supposed to be their King! Can you imagine someone plotting to overthrow or kill Many Paths?”

Eagle Eyes nodded. “Yes, I can. If we are going to discuss this, you must keep your voice low. We might be overheard and that would not do. I can imagine someone trying to overthrow or kill Many Paths.” Eagle Eyes paused, watching the face of her friend carefully. When she saw that he understood, she continued. “Shadow Walker, you had better be able to imagine that you might be undone. Or, we surely will be. And I have an inkling that your death would be of some interest to Many Paths. Thunder clouds she would see on every horizon. For her, bright green would turn dark blue and blue would look brown. The yellow sun would no longer sparkle like stars after a rain. She would just find annoyance in the rain. Her large bright heart that sets a glow in all the people would instead be a siphon to suck their sunny spirit out and replace it with spent black embers from a fire once so bright.”

Shadow Walker took deep breaths and consciously calmed himself while Eagle Eyes spoke. Just thinking of Many Paths helped. But it also awakened an overwhelming desire to leave; to return home; to see Many Paths; to touch Many Paths; to smell and taste her; to make love with her; to be home where he could trust everyone.

“Yes, Eagle Eyes. She would grieve for a time. But she is our leader. And she takes that responsibility — that is above everything else, her own comfort, her own desires — even her love for me. She would not allow her to stay in such a foul place very long. Because of exactly what you say. She would well understand that by seeing a snake in every river, she would lead others to see the same and eventually the people would die of thirst. She knows how important it is to lead by example.”

Eagle Eyes nodded again. “Yes. And an angry leader may anger everyone. A stupid leader encourages the people to be stupid. A cruel leader inspires more cruelty. Do you agree?”

Shadow Walker admitted to himself that it sounded plausible. But then he tried to imagine a counter-example. He couldn’t. Yet, something tickled in his mind that the truth of Eagle Eyes was a partial truth. “There is much truth in what you say. However, just a few minutes ago, I was very upset — for obvious reasons. But you didn’t let it make you upset. Instead, you calmed me down so that I might think more clearly and not do something impulsively that might make the situation worse.”

Eagle Eyes considered. “Yes. You’re right. Sometimes bad behavior produces a good reaction in good people. But that only works at first. Imagine –these people, the Z-Lotz — the leaders lie to the people. They choose their king by assassination. The king — well, certainly NUT-PI, but conversations with Cat Eyes suggest that others were similar — the king shows no loyalty at all to the people whom he depends on. He tries to control them all with fear.” Eagle Eyes bowed her head and shook it side to side. She sighed a deep sigh. “How can people let themselves live like that? It’s horrible. Anyway, the effect of all this to our current circumstance is that because NUT-PI himself was so untrustworthy and so disloyal, many of the Z-Lotz could well be the same. They may think you’re better than NUT-PI, but the ambitious ones are all able to convince themselves that they’d do a better job than you! After all, you’re not even a Z-Lotz.”

“All right, Eagle Eyes. So…” He broke off because Eagle Eyes put her index finger on his lips. He remembered her admonition to speak softly so as not to be overheard. He took several deep breaths and continued.

“So, let’s leave! Let the Z-Lotz sort out their own issues! For all we know, Many Paths needs our skills right now. Why are we saving these people when we may still have more problems at our own Center Place.?”

“First, I don’t think sneaking out is all that feasible. But even if we did leave, might they not be affronted by a King who simply — abandons them. Hard to know whether they would become so ensnarled by their own fighting that they would ignore us or whether they would somehow find this a good excuse to attack the Veritas. And — the very best we could hope for is that things would “get back to normal.” And these people would come and steal children again. If we stay…and we live…there is some chance we could improve relations between … well, really among all the tribes. And, they know things that could be important for us. Besides, none of the people born into the Z-Lotz chose to be born there. If we can help them….”

“If. Yes. If. They know their ways. We don’t.” Shadow Walker looked at Eagle Eyes, who was clearly deep in thought. “I don’t even know how many of them know about that cache of weapons and gold that we found. I don’t know whom I can ask about those weird liquids in the see-through rocks that are not rocks.”

Eagle Eyes and Shadow Walker reflected on their situation in comfortable silence for a time. The Veritas were unafraid to give their ideas space enough to breathe; time enough to mature.

After a time, Shadow Walker said, “We desperately need to understand more of their language. Perhaps we could find some tutors to trust. More than one. It may be very hard to decide whom to trust, but it may be possible to find someone to trust. If we could ask questions of multiple tutors, and we get the same answers, we might presume that they are telling the truth, or at least the truth as they see it. Yet, if they say almost the exact same words, then they are telling a rehearsed story to gain our trust.”

Eagle Eyes added, “In addition to learning more about the Z-Lotz and their language, for others, we can simply be honest. Tell them that, because of the assassination attempts, you don’t know whom to trust so we will need to test their loyalty. Give them the Veritas Test of Truthfulness. If they pass, you will trust them and that will be a very good thing for them as well as for you. On the other hand, if they lie to you, they will not pass the test and that will be a very very bad thing for them.”

“What is the Veritas Test of Truthfulness? Why have I never heard of it, Eagle Eyes?”

Eagle Eyes smiled. “We will need to create it.” After all, She Who Saved Many Lives created seven tests of empathy. We ought to be able to create one test of truthfulness.”

“We observe someone doing something very difficult without their knowing that we are watching. We note how they do. Then we ask them how they did. We will see how accurate they are in their description. If they are honest about their mistakes, they are likely to be honest about other things. On the other hand, it seems a bit ironic — and more than a little sad — to build a test of honesty that relies on deception.” Shadow Walker looked down to the side and bit his lower lip.

“Then let’s not,” said Eagle Eyes after a time. She saw the questioning look in the eyes of Shadow Walker. “I mean, let’s not be deceptive. I don’t think we need to. We will ask them to do something and observe them. I believe, the dishonest will still give themselves away. They are so used to lying that they won’t be able to give a fair description of what they did and did not do.”

Shadow Walker considered. ALT-R had been able to fool nearly everyone about his true nature. For most people though — Eagle Eyes was likely right. What if the Z-Lotz had their own ALT-R? Would they be able to smoke them out? After all, Cat Eyes had said that the Z-Lotz leaders convinced the people who actually worked that they believed in a whole jungle web of lies when actually, they didn’t. She had seen their hypocrisy. Perhaps because as a slave, they saw her as not fully human or not very clever. Shadow Walker realized that he would benefit from the thoughts of Eagle Eyes so he said aloud, “We need to start with the people I do trust. I can explain to Tree Vines that the sooner he can help me vet the Z-Lotz, the sooner he can leave to see his daughter — and — that his daughter will grow up in a safer world. If we do this right, we might be able to prevent kidnappings such as what happened to his own daughter so many years ago.”

Eagle Eyes laughed.

Shadow Walker frowned. “Is that funny?”

Eagle Eyes said, “No, it’s just that I had an image. I saw honesty spreading through the Z-Lotz like a plague.”

Shadow Walker chuckled too. “That would be something.” Then another frown passed over his brow. “But that seems like we’re making them into Veritas. Is that right? What if they prefer being dishonest and choosing Kings by assassination rather than competence?”

Eagle Eyes said, “Yes, in the same way that watering the squash turns it into something edible instead of a barren stalk. We’re not talking about their preferences for how well done they like their meat. We’re talking about truth — which is every bit as vital as water is for life itself. Lies, dishonesty, cruelty, hate — these are not the paths of Life. These are paths of Death. As shown by our story of the Orange Man.”

——————————————-

The Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

The Myths of the Veritas: The Forgotten Field

The Myths of the Veritas: The First Ring of Empathy (Beginning of Book I)

The Myths of the Veritas: Feast and Fire (Beginning of Book II)

The Myths of the Veritas: A Map of Sorts (Beginning of Book III)

Author Page on Amazon

Index to Patterns for Collaboration and Teamwork

An Essay on the Nature of Nature

Yum! How About Some Ground Glass?

05 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

collaboration, greed, lies, politics, truth, USA, veracity, Veritas

Lies in civilization are much like ground glass in an otherwise nutritious, delicious buffet. They are dangerous. They are potentially deadly if undetected. Quantity matters. One piece of undetected ground glass is serious. One hundred pieces means that some people will die. Twenty thousand means everyone who partakes of the buffet will likely die.

If one side lies constantly and one of the things they lie about is saying the other side lies, then, of course, your “loyalty” to your own side may get you to thinking: “Both sides lie equally.” Or, even more sadly, “The other side lies!”

Imagine Rembrandt’s Mona Lisa: a beautiful painting. Now, imagine painting a red stripe one inch wide diagonally through the painting. It’s only a small part of the painting, after all. Maybe 10%. But is the value decreased by only 10%? Of course not.

Ever use a dictionary? How much would you pay for a really good dictionary? How about a dictionary with 1% errors? How about one with 10% errors? How about one with 50% errors? How about one with 100% errors?

Imagine you finally manage to save up enough money to buy your dream house. Location: near highways, shopping, & parks. Style: perfect. Condition: perfect. Except for one small thing.

It reeks.

Living in a society that is perfused with lies is like living in a house situated right next to a sewage plant.

The *only* advantage humans have in their struggle to survive is their ability to cooperate and communicate. A lie diminishes that ability to coordinate. The impact is not just that one lie. It’s the spread of skepticism. It’s the felt need to double and triple check everything.

In a complex society, even a tiny bit of deception can multiply far beyond the immediate effects. That is particularly true if a deception passes through a number of weak points in what could be and should be the world-wide web of wisdom.

For example, an employee at a drug company might be pressured to downplay side effects in a report. He does so. But in a corporate culture of honestly, someone will catch the lie and patiently explain that this is not the way things are done around here. The error will be corrected.

And no-one will die from that lie.

On the other hand, the same employee doing the same act in a company with a sociopathic corporate culture might well have that lie not only propagated but further elaborated. As a result, the drug is over-prescribed and over-used. Millions of dollars, and then, that money is like seed money to buy layers and layers of political protection and press protection. At last billions of dollars flow from the pockets of customers into the pockets of the drug company. And, when I say “the drug company” of course, ultimately it ends up in someone’s pocket. Whose? A little of it goes to workers within the company. A huge amount goes to the top executives. But a huge amount also goes to the major stockholders — people who did nothing to discover or promote the drug, but in some sense provided money to support the company.

Guess what? It might even turn out that the drug’s drawbacks outweigh the benefits. In the short run, that might not diminish profits at all.

Again though, we need to realize that the damage to society is not limited to the effects of this particular drug (though those can in and of themselves be devastating effects). It is experiences like this, for instance, that play into vaccine reluctance. Because some drug companies have done some unethical things, people naturally have some degree of mistrust for *all* drug companies for *all* drugs. Nor is the mistrust that such a scheme produces limited to the drug industry. If people believe corruption is widespread, they may themselves become more tempted to engage in it. Even if they don’t themselves engage in lies, deception, bribery, etc., they will certainly be on the lookout for such schemes. It will be harder to take people at their word.

Putting crushed glass in a buffet injures people and ruins the buffet. And, if it happens often enough, it can turn you off from going to any buffets or any restaurants.

Lying can seem attractive in the short term. But in the long run, it will be found out. It will ruin your individual reputation, but it will also tarnish the reputation of your organization and even, to some extent, your entire industry. Beyond that, lies work to spoil society as a whole.

Imagine that a well-functioning society is something like a well-oiled machine. One part connects to another and things function smoothly. Lies are like pouring sand in the gears. Things will move more slowly. Parts will also wear out more quickly. Add enough sand and the motor will burn out or the machinery may catch fire. Would you put sand in your gas tank? Would you add sand to the oil in your auto? Of course not! Why would you support lies in your company or in your society?

Photo by Stephan Streuders on Pexels.com

Apart from the societal disintegration that lies promote, if you actively pursue a policy of lies to benefit yourself, you are basically taking a kind of informational poison into your own psyche and eventually it will poison your mind. You’ll become more and more addicted to a strategy of relying on lies rather than relying on doing a good job or learning from your mistakes. When someone asks a perpetual liar a question, they will not be able to simply answer. They will have to calculate who knows what and how easily the lie will be found out and try to recall what lies that they have already told to whom.

Just as more and more of an addictive painkiller must be used to achieve the same level of pain relief, so too, an addicted liar will find that they have to tell more and more lies. The lies may at first be “reasonable” lies. That is, at first, a liar may tell lies that are plausible. Over time, they will have to tell more and more absurd lies. If the liar is a popular figure, his or her fans may echo the lies despite not having any relevant direct knowledge. As the lies become more absurd, the fans echo not only plausible, lies but also echo absurd lies. To those who are not addicted to the lies, fan behavior becomes more and more ridiculous and pathetic.

—————————————

Happy Talk Lies

The Invisibility Cloak of Habit

The Update Problem

You Gave me no Fangs

Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

Essays on America: Addictions

Bounce

Claude the Radio Operator

Plans for us; some GRUesome.

A Lot is not a Little

Come Back to the Light

07 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

America, light, patriotism, poem, poetry, truth, unity, USA

Come to the Light Side

The Bright Side

The Right Side.

Come join the Love Side

The Dove Side

Above Side.

Eschew that Hades Hate:

Pretending all is Great;

Lying through your Teeth;

Playing from Beneath;

Adoring gilded Calf.

There is no Seed;

It’s only Chaff.

There is no Rose;

Your Garden’s Weed.

The Path you Chose:

A King sans Clothes.

It’s Long Past the Hour

To Douse the Light

And Worship Brainless Power;

Believe that Might makes Right.

Our Evolutionary Arc

Turned Long Ago away from Dark.

Now we Stand

Upon the Edge;

It’s Razor-Thin;

Will Cut your Skin.

It was not Planned;

No Time to Hedge.

We Must be Brave

And Face our Fate:

Return to Cave;

Or Elevate.

We Green our Land —

Or Decimate.

To Beautify

Or Putrefy?

Tend the Gardens; Build those Spires!

Put out! — don’t Spread those Fires!

We can Use the Help of Everyone.

Lend a Hand; You’ll see it’s Fun.

By Giving you will surely Find

Improving Muscle and your Mind.

By Giving, you’ll Receive the Greatest Gift.

By Stealing, you’ll Create a Rift;

You will Set your Soul Adrift;

You’ll Live a Pointless Life of Grift.

Come to the Light Side

The Bright Side

The Right Side.

Come join the Love Side

The Dove Side

Above Side.

Together we will Make Earth Green;

We will See the Stars Unseen;

We will Feel the Love of All.

We will Whirl & Twirl the Ball

While Dancing on the Razor Rim.

We will Smile & we will Sing,

We will Make the Hillsides Ring.

Every Cup, we’ll Fill to Brim.

Come back Over to the Light.

Come back Over; Truth will Win.

Come back Over; Join with True.

We need Red and White and Blue.

Come back Over; Quit Vain Sin.

Open your Eyes; Restore your Sight.

Come back Over to the Light.

Open your Eyes; Restore your Sight.

———————————————-

Other Poems

https://petersironwood.com/2020/02/23/piano/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/02/26/race-place-space-face/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/01/the-bubble-people/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/04/ambition/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/05/the-impossible/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/07/peace/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/17/the-truth-train/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/17/maybe-it-needs-a-new-starter/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/25/the-joy-of-juggling/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/27/the-most-serious-work/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/30/is-a-dream/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/04/05/imagine-all-the-people/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/04/13/life-is-a-dance/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/04/16/the-pandemic-anti-acedemic/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/05/08/snowflake/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/05/23/you-gave-me-no-fangs/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/05/24/blood-red-blood/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/05/30/screaming-out-a-warning/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/06/20/the-watershed-virus/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/07/13/who-are-the-speakers-for-the-dead/

The Ailing King of Agitate

https://petersironwood.com/2020/08/11/put-in-the-fool-put-out-the-fool/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/08/17/roar-ocean-roar/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/08/20/try-the-truth/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/08/23/listen-you-can-hear-the-echoes-of-your-actions/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/09/06/my-captains-no-captain/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/09/09/comes-the-dawn/

Author Page on Amazon

Con Formation Confirmation

13 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

America, Democracy, Dictatorship, ethics, pandemic, politics, Supreme Court, truth, USA

Welcome viewers, one and all!

We hope you like our newest show:

Hypocrites on full Parade!

Where everything’s a shade charade!

Voters, hey, it’s not your call!

How dare you think you have a voice!

It’s not as though you have a choice!

Your task: to bask in liar’s glow!

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Dear Daddy Vladdy’s Kingdom fell!

Despite his poisons, thugs, and band,

His slaves deserted broken bell

And opted for their native land.

Deserted Vlad without a friend —

He trudged along a swampy bend;

He kicked in pique a rotten stump

And slithering there, he spied his Trump!

A kid born rich who lost it all

And begged for more from Elder Fred

He took it but he lost it all

And then Mein Kampf at last he read!

He tried again — but still fell short.

He grabbed & clawed, this spoiled brat,

He wasn’t much the thinking sort.

And coward as a junkyard rat.

Yet time will come as you will see

That Mango Mussolini fails.

He falls and fits and snits in jails.

And there he’ll rot eternally.

While this show may be quite vile,

You and I can still show smile.

You and I can show the world,

A way to make the sand be pearled.

All manure can be reused.

Turned at last to useful ends.

Let insight come to those abused;

Let those he conned become our friends.

We can’t let Eden slip away.

Instead, we’ll garden every day.

We’ll learn to love and help and play.

We’ll hold to trust and truth, I say.

Trumpism is a New Religion

The Pandemic Anti-Academic

The Watershed Virus

The Ailing King of Agitate

Absolute is not Just a Vodka

The Stopping Rule

The Update Problem

Where Does Your Loyalty Lie?

My Cousin Bobby

Essays on America: Wednesday

You Bet Your Life!

Author Page on Amazon

Index to Pattern Language for Collaboration

Listen: You Can Hear the Echoes of Your Actions

23 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

science, truth, USA

Life on earth, by our best estimates, is about 4.5 billion years old. If you are lucky enough to live to a “ripe old age” you might live 100 years or slightly more. When you “die” the influence that you had on others will continue to ripple and ripple and ripple. Let’s examine one of the ways in which such ripples may vary qualitatively based on the “rules” that you use to learn about and communicate about your own experience.

Roughly speaking, we can consider two quite different types of rules that people might use when their own experience appears to contradict the experience of others or their intuitions about what action to take. These rules might be called “The Power Rule” and “The Truth Rule.”

The Power Rule: I will do my damnedest in every interaction to convince the other person that I am right! I will never give in! How do I know I’m right? Because I’m better than everyone else! If I can’t convince them, I’ll try to make them do what I want anyway.

The Truth Rule: I will do my damnedest in every interaction to work with the other person to find the truth. That truth might be what I already thought, what they thought, or something completely different. How do I know I’m right? I don’t, but I know I’m getting closer as I go on.

It should be obvious that a person who follows Rule One will largely be in for a lifetime of trouble. First, they will irritate a huge number of people who disagree with them — not because they disagree — but because they act robotically, when the disagree. They respond to every argument with a pre-programmed counter-argument. If you ever watched “All in the Family” Archie Bunker was the perfect prototype of someone who would not be swayed by science or facts.

Second, a person who always uses “The Power Rule” will make many unnecessary mistakes in life simply because they refused to learn something from others if it was in conflict with what they already believed. As a result, they might be “stuck” with a variety of bad habits that they learned early in life but which they would always “defend” so no change was required — even change for their benefit.

Third, The Power Rule approach has a negative impact, not only on themselves and their families but on everyone they come in contact with. When they interact, they will only either agree or disagree, not discover. By contrast, using The Truth Rule among people with different beliefs and opinions means you can actually discover something new.

Analogously, most species of complex animals and plants reproduce sexually. There is a reason evolution favors that approach. It allows for faster adaptation to change.

Of course, all of us are actually mixtures of Rule One and Rule Two.

I would be very careful with having very many examples of The Power Rule in your repertoire.

In addition to the issues raised above, it stands to reason that you will have less real influence on others beyond your own lifetime. Our world today is much richer and more comfortable because of the work of people like Mozart, Beethoven, Frank Lloyd Wright, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Tesla, Edison, Einstein, Galileo. Can we say the same about Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin? The latter three, along with many other dictators and war-mongers have killed millions. But let’s not forget that those millions are human beings who are, in a very real sense, part of their family. Destroying other people, as well as destroying other species is anti-life. Discovering, learning, solving, communicating honestly — these are life-affirming activities.

It’s pretty obvious that different political systems are aligned with these different approaches. Hereditary Kings with absolute power, dictators, Czars — they institutionalize and depend on The Power Rule. Democracy and Republics are premised on The Truth Rule. It’s not surprising that science and the arts tend to flourish much more in Democracies.

Which rule do you find works better for you?

——————————————————————-

Try the Truth

The Truth Train

The Pandemic Anti-Academic

The Watershed Virus

Absolute is not Just a Vodka

Trumpism is a New Religion

Math Class: Who Are You?

The Invisibility Cloak of Habit

The Update Problem

Try the Truth!

20 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

America, deception, Democracy, Dictatorship, fascism, lies, pandemic, poem, poetry, truth, USA

“Try the truth! Try the truth!

Forsooth, forsooth

I clearly say and loudly state:

All those lies? Let them abate.

Try the truth and you may find

The truth is good for heart and mind!”

“Go away you pesky fools!

Your real news hurts my orange head!

You count each death as really dead!

I like to fudge a bit instead.

Lies and cruelty are my tools!

I mix folks up with bogus rules.”

“Would you try the truth today?

Would you taste the truth this day?

Tell the truth — just this once.

Try it Trump and you may see

Lies are for the cowardly.

Lies are for the little runts.

Heroes take the truthful way.”

“I do not like the truth at all!

I would not tell it at a ball!

I would not tell it on a call!

I would not tell it to a doll!

I do not like the truth at all!

It makes my teeny hands get itchy.

It makes my suck-lips go all twitchy.

I do not like the truth at all!”

“But try it once and you’ll discover

The truth means there’s no Cover-

Up and Down and Left and Right;

Let all reveal in shining Light!

You’ll be part of something great!

None need more exaggerate.”

“I do so hate the truth at dawn.

I do so hate the truth at dusk.

I hoard the corn and tout the husk.

I flash my flab as though it’s brawn.

I tell them all I’m smart as a whip.

And fly on a magic crystal sailing ship.”

“Yet, if you’d try the truth you might well see

That truth, my friend, would set you free!

Sharing truth allows humanity

To cure disease and mount the moon!

Without the truth, no-one learns.

Without the truth, everything burns.”

“I hate the truth since I was born!

Give others husk; I’ll gorge on corn!

Give others poo while I watch porn!

Steal their wealth and kids with lies!

Rape the kids! A sweet surprise!

I believe Putin; not our own spies!”

“Try the truth! For just one hour.

You’ll find it’ll cure your cowardly cower.

You’ll find that you can learn from errors;

Improve; get better; leave more for your heirs.”

“More? You’re nuts! That wouldn’t be wise!

My wealth is based entirely on lies!

I’ve never worked! Not a day in my life.

Just ask my wife or my wife or my wife.”

“Well Mr. Trump, it you won’t try the true,

You’ll be out of a job; even Pu-

Tin can’t rig the entire election.

Lies will spoil your climb to power.

Lies will ruin that garish Trump Tower

And even the teeniest shroom of erection.”

Trumpism is a new religion.

The Truth Train.

The Pandemic Anti-Academic.

The Watershed Virus

Life is a Dance

A Tight Flock Unified by Division

18 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, family, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#Cult, America, cognitive dissonance, conformism, cowardice, cruelty, Democracy, division, fascism, Feedback, GOP, life, MAGA, politics, Trumpism, truth, unity, USA

Photo by Jose Lorenzo on Pexels.com

Does it seem odd to anyone else that — no wait. Hold on. I was about to say: “Does it seem odd to anyone else that the Trump death cult is only united by their devotion to Trump and the only common value in their “platform” is that they value hate and dividing people, not uniting people — and yet, they are completely unified. They are unified about division.”

abstract barbed wire black white black and white

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

But then, I realized, in a twisted sort of way, this is actually logical. *Because* they are united in hatred and dismissing anyone different, they are terrified to stray from the pack. But what if they do it by accident? What if they see something that looks interesting or useful and head toward it? NO NO NO! They might be culled from the herd! (A fate that could literally be worse than death if they & Trump continue to destroy the rule of law). No-one in America will be safe. Neither red hats nor assault weapons will keep you safe from Trump’s predations which will include the same horrors that other cruel dictators have employed because they think it helps keep them in power and because they simply enjoy making others feel pain.

Photo by Thuanny Gantuss on Pexels.com

How can such a tight pack keep from disintegrating? By listening to Trump. To them, he is the ultimate authority on every single topic. In precisely this way, the entire flock knows exactly what to say (at least today; yes, it could change tomorrow, but they’ll be watching for his tweets again tomorrow or listening to Fox News to tell them what is real). They listen to the Oraclown and his reflection.

————————-

For some reason, the real-world evil and treachery of Putin’s puppet always makes me think of these *purely fictional* stories about a child sociopath.

(Not suitable for children or people without a well-developed sense of values. To reiterate, these are pure fiction meant to illustrate how a sociopath “thinks.” For details about Donnie’s actual life, try his niece’s book:

https://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Never-Enough-Dangerous/dp/1982141468

Donnie Plays Bull-Dazzle Man

Donnie Boy Plays Captain Man

Donnie Boy Plays Soldier Man

Donnie Lets His Brother Take the Fall

Donnie Visits Granny

Donnie Takes a Blue Ribbon in Spelling

Donnie Gets his Name on a Tennis Trophy

Donnie Gets a Hamster

Donnie Learns Golf!