Poor Reading Comprehension @poorreadingcomprehension - Tumblr Blog

Rebuilders Wanted

The first car I ever owned was a 1974 MGB. It had gotten in a wreck and so it stayed out on the curb of our house, a derelict, for 5 years before my father came to me on my 16th birthday and handed me the keys to it.

In order to get it running again, my father told me we would need to do a rebuild of the engine. This meant we would both be working togehter to tear everything down, clean and inspect all the major parts, and put it all back together again.

You learn a lot of things in a rebuild. Unlike a troubleshooting session, whereas you only have to have enough understanding to get things running again, a rebuild means you're going to get knowledge of how everything works from the ground-up. You walk away a deeper understanding of how things work. You walk away with knowledge.

What if we could apply the ideas behind that rebuild to our conversations? Instead of a debate, I propose a "rebuild".

The rules of a rebuild

Hello, rebuilder!

Here is your styleguide for a rebuild. It is very short.

(1) A rebuild is about creating, not destroying

A debate is about destroying the other person's argument in a Cagematch-style context of "Two Ideas Enter. One Idea Leaves" A rebuild is not that.

A rebuild is tearing everything down, putting it all back together again to see if you come back to the same place.

A rebuild is you and your partner creating something, together. It should be fun.

(2) No attempt to change minds

Assume that your position will not change at the end of this. Assume your partner's position will not change at the end of this. Unfetter yourself from that internal obligation for anyone to admit anything.

If you or your partner change (and you will), it will come later, and it will be because of your internal examination of what you learned on the rebuild - not because someone else mind-wrestled you into submission.

Let's find each other, rebuilders.

From the Chronicles of the Esteemed Mr. Carlucci

Resolved to remedy my colleagues’ misapprehensions of the Founding Fathers, and being strong in spirit, I gathered resources at the market into a wicker basket and constructed a crude Time Machine. Austere in nature, but suitable for the task at hand, I maneuvered the mahogany-inlayed levers into the correct positions and alit. A momentary flash of whispery blue light, and I appeared in the year of our Lord, 1788. Thence, I began the task of abducting the esteemed statesmen, carefully depositing them into the present day. [It is here, I will not suffer you, the reader, the details of my misadventures in convincing these poor souls to enter the contraption, nor will I be tempted in my embellishment of their kidnapping, nor will I impugn the character of those that could not fathom the mere conception of time travel, and in so being, were apoplectic in their shock. However, it is to be known that of all who were acquired, Jacob Broom of Delaware was by far the most cowardly in the undertaking, and possessed the fear of a small child trapped under a distempered horse.] Now here you may think me brutish in word and deed, but the great exasperation of dealing with Mr. Broom of Delaware had quite exhausted my patience. As such, I retained no desire to explain any more of our present day world than absolutely required. The pleasantries of my original stratagem had been supplanted by a narrow, pointed inquisition of the Founding Fathers wishes in regards to their “Second Amendment”. A light lunch, and then the presentation of the weapon; an AR-15 shooter, laser-scoped, matte-black, venting shroud attached, and with several 30-round clips of steel-jacketed projectiles. A veritable dispensary of Death, the venerable masters took turns firing its lethal contents into the cushions of a daybed that I no longer cared for. All proceeded with a mixture of horror and childish glee as they dispensed round after round of metallic fire into the drab, unwanted settee. After sufficient time with the weapon, I surveyed the participants, and in the truest sign of a statesman (in any era), all vehemently disagreed with one another as to the proper interpretation of the aforementioned Amendment. Reddened faces, blustery and bespittled, their floundering tongues fell flaccidly across the reaches of my tastefully appointed parlor. I discretely removed the weapon. Some were firm in their commitment to the Amendment’s original intent. Others freely acknowledged the sheer destructive power of the weapon, insisting that it must, and at all costs, be destroyed, lest it find itself in the hands of a maniac! Still others wondered which civilians would be chosen to garrison a militia carrying such unspeakable power. It was, at that moment, that John Langdon of New Hampshire exclaimed, “Gentlemen! A’hither!”, beckoning all to the window. Now here, I should mention, that the window Mr. Langdon had peered through was on the first floor, and as such, was accommodating to those that wished to take in the substantial foot-traffic outside my estate. In order to not conflate or obfuscate the issue at hand with other present-day hubbub, I had drawn the curtains closed, and now Mr Langdon had thrown the curtains wide in a histrionic display that attracted the unbroken gaze of his fellow Founders. The men, quietly gathered, observing the Marvels of the Modern World and the numerous humans who made routine their actions within. Quiet in their expression, stolid in their demeanor, the men stared, mouths agape, awed as babes. Then, a voice: “Why are there so many negroes wandering around freely?” Turning toward me in broad perplexment, they awaited with great trepidation for my lips to part and thus breathe an understanding into their minds; minds that had been long-arid and hardened by the social landscape of a bygone era. 1787 was not a magic year, but simply the year that came after 1786, that came after 1785, that came after 1784, and so on and so forth. Thus, no magical wisdom - no beings of singular ability had made their prestigious mark in this year, or in any other. It was here that I realized the foolhardiness of my endeavor. Under my breath, I chastised myself for losing the better half of 3 full days to this donkeys’ errand. Luring each man back to the contraption with plates of buttered scones, I patiently reversed my experiment, sending each soul back to its point of origin; except Jacob Broom of Delaware, of whom I sent far into the future to contend with the Killbots of 2085. Idiot.

The High Road and the Higher Road

"Taking the High Road" and "Taking the Higher Road" are not the same thing. Historically, we conflate these two concepts. Historically, our compromise with the "High Road" becomes simply "A Higher Road than Theirs". Historically, we engage in a Cycle of Reduction that creates a "preponderance of evidence"™ that reduces Them to something evil and inhuman; the Road They take isn't just the Lower Road, it's a road so despicable, so vile that nearly any Road we take will be higher than Theirs. So, historically, we take nearly any Road. And historically our original "High Road" becomes a disappearing distant memory to the sweltering swamp we did take - the one we now know as "the Higher Road" . So if you see this and you want to fight this, remember that you're not just fighting against your allies and enemies, you're fighting against all of Human History. Good luck.

An Ode to “Sometimes”

"Sometimes" is a lovely thought-terminating cliche that allows me to not have to think about the integrity of what I stand for. I use it a bunch. A lot of times I use it in a way that adds the feeling of sagacity to things that I just couldn't be bothered to think about:

"Sometimes you have to yell louder to be heard" "Sometimes evil has to be fought with more than words" "Sometimes you have to put aside what you think is right for what is right now" "Sometimes you have to make war to fight for peace" "Sometimes you have to hold 'em" "Sometimes you have to fold 'em" "Sometimes you have to turn left in order to turn right" "Sometimes you have to put aside what is right now for what you think is right"

I can do this all day. ALL. DAY. It's soooo easy.

"Sometimes" forgives me. It's the sweet Indulgence I grant to myself, and as many times as I want. It's awesome. All I have to do is just imagine that the actions of my opponents are not only extreme, but imminent.

I can go to war with foreign countries, assault people, steal, lie, shoot unarmed teenagers .. you name it. I can do it if I can show that they their plan is not only more extreme, but imminent, and that the only way to stop this from happening is with my own extreme counter-measures. I grant myself this, and give myself a pass on any self-examination afterwards with the word "sometimes".

The best thing about it: for people who agree with me on the original subject, this will be a brilliant (twitter-able?) substantiation. Christ, "sometimes" is a virtual Fan Club Generator. Everyone can get behind it because it's almost always true. Better yet, it's violent ambiguity gives my opponents nothing really to rebut -- well, unless they want to rebut with their own "sometimes" clause, which they usually do; something along the lines of "yeah but _sometimes_... "

Of course they'll rebut in kind! How could they not? Because "sometimes"... well.. ... means "sometimes", and the world is full of "sometimes". It's like calling rain wet or the sun hot. It's true to anyone who doesn't look at a contentious discussion as anything more than a Battle for Capitulation. For those rare folk, on the other hand, it is pretty damn jejune.

Fortunately for me, I don't know many people like that, and only have to resort to self-examination in the quiet moments between my extreme actions and generating a Fan Club of Righteousness; well, except for sometimes.

Internet Argument

It seems that most Internet argument is mostly just trying to convince the other person that they are the bad person you think they are.

#internetargument #strawman

Meanwhile on Earth 2 (pt. 1)

In 1985, China finds an alternate fuel source right underneath their feet, abundant and plentiful but only effective if used as soon as it's pulled from the ground. The new fuel, Tetroclone, is not easily or cost-effectively transportable to other countries, but revolutionizes China's energy needs. The U.S finds pockets of Tetroclone scattered throughout North America, but most of them are sparse and cannot be used cost-effectively. And so, like all other countries, the U.S. stays on fossil fuels, which are still cheap and relatively abundant throughout the world. As decades pass, scientists begin to track the emissions of Tetroclone and find that it is a major contributor to climate change; not just a few scientists; 97% of the leading climate researchers in aggregated studies around the world find that this change is contributing to destructive weather patterns, droughts, and large-scale glacial melting. China rejects this research and counters with their own research, at first, showing that climate change is not happening, and then later showing that the climate change is happening but is naturally occurring, and not at all connected to the use of Tetroclone. Later still, China concedes that Tetroclone is contributing, but not to a significant degree. Upon hearing the research, U.S lawmakers spring into action, at first heavily sanctioning the few pockets of U.S.-based Tetroclone, and then quickly phasing it out altogether. China, on the other hand, spreads the idea that these climate researchers are inflating their claims in order to gain more research money. As such, to "bring balance" in the scientific community, they heavily fund the 3% of the dissenting scientists to continue their research in debunking the other 97%. U.S lawmakers call these claims out as ridiculous. China gains a reputation for being anti-science, so much so that it becomes a meme. Late night talk-show hosts use it in their monologue. T-shirts, posters and cat videos come out ("I CAN HAZ SCIENCE?") China remains unmoved in their use of Tetroclone. After a particularly devastating pair of hurricanes rip through the eastern seaboard, causing unprecedented death and destruction, U.S lawmakers decide to take things to the next level. Sanctions are introduced against China. The U.S. pressures the U.N. to do the same. New memes and photos spread across the internet, this time showing the devastation of hurricanes Maxwell and Nannette, in bitter contrast with China's cavalier attitude toward its, now even increased use of Tetroclone. Hawkish Senators, in a race to be ever more patriotic, increasingly use the names Maxwell and Nannette in their speeches as calls to action against China. A rapid increase in U.S.military training exercises near China's border evokes strong reaction from Chinese officials. Just as 97% of the climate scientists claimed, longer droughts, heavier floods and more damaging weather systems continue to batter the globe. By 2015, U.S. lawmakers have thoroughly convinced the populace that China's actions are essentially an act of war.

#tetroclone #climate change #science #earth2

Thank you, Feminism.

I’m white and male. This affords me many privileges that others simply do not have at this time in history. Most of these privileges are simply advantages that I was grandfathered into, by a system that is arduously slow in dispensing those same privileges to people who are not white and male.

But the privileges I enjoy most of all are ones that were afforded me, not by legacy, but by social change.

As example, because of people who fought (and continue to fight) for racial equality and racial de-stigmatization, I have lived my entire life in a world that never pestered me to be “more white”. Nobody has ever shamed me for “not being white enough”. Furthermore, anyone who would be likely to do that (the KKK, Aryan Nation, etc) is clearly no longer in a position of power that would allow that type of racial shaming to carry any real heft. The tide has turned against that kind of (at least explicit) white supremacy. And regardless of the racial inequality we still have in America, the monikers of “racist” and “white supremist” are generally considered pejoratives that are only maybe slightly less shameful than say, the moniker of “child molester”.

In the same vein, feminism has afforded me a similar privilege.

Growing up, there were plenty of people, men and women, standing at the ready to shame me for not being man enough. There were plenty of people, men and women, who were more than happy to shame me to conform to what a man was “supposed to be”.

That kind of shaming still exists today, but to a greatly reduced extent. I don’t have to swill beer and watch sports to prove I’m a man nowadays. I can hug another man, cry, and talk about feelings if I choose to. It’s my choice. I’m free. And much like the people who attempted to shame others into “being more white”, the voices of the people attempting to shame others into “being more manly” are slowly fading away.

And for that, I say “thank you, feminism”.

Now this is where I could end this; a pleasant and earnest thanks to the people who affected, and continue to affect, a social change that benefits me. But there’s a problem: I feel guilty. Feminism and racial equality gave me, not only more privileges than I already have, they gave me my favorite privileges; I didn’t have to give up anything. And yet, those privileges that they gave me, and white males everywhere, seem to be at the expense of their own privileges.

Because there are plenty of people who will shame black people for not being black enough. There are plenty of people who will shame women for not being feminine (or feminist) enough.

There are women who want to be stay-at-home mothers. There are women who want to be cat-called. There are women who want to be lusted after as a sexual object on occasion. And none of them want to be called traitors, or be told that the only reason that they enjoy what they’re doing is because their feeble-minded nature has allowed them to be duped by a patriarchal society that told them that that’s all they could ever be. They want to live their lives their way, and the people obstructing their way the most are the people who are apt to shame them from afar.

In short, the privilege of not having to live in shame of their peers is one they simply don’t get to experience.

And I’m telling you, it is an amazing privilege. If you don’t know what this feels like, you’re missing out. I’m free. And I know I don’t have any part or say in how or why you decide to shame your peers into conformity, but at the very least I can say “thank you” for giving me a world where I don’t feel any pressure to do the same.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

#feminism #privilege #shaming #in-fighting #thanks

Hello, Murderer

If your argument is that I am a murderer, you will likely want to create a more compelling argument than simply pointing out that most murderers are men, and that I am also a man. Subsequently, all your statistics, facts and valid points about the horrors of murder, the tragedy of the act, and its measurable psychological effects on the families left behind, while objectively true, is not filling in the most crucial part of your equation. Please review and revise.

#bad actors #bad argument #then a miracle happens

Our Words are Ships

Our words are the ships that carry context to the listener. If our words are too broad, or un-seaworthy, that context will fail to reach its port of call. And while I despise a semantic argument as much as the next person, without care in our words, those words simply become a treacherous shorthand that unpacks differently for each listener. Worse yet, many times that treacherous shorthand does not unpack at all; and instead we simply reduce the environment to fit the shorthand.

#context #words #ships #seaworthy #shorthand #treacherous shorthand

My Circle of Righteous Friends

First I got rid of all the bigots. Then I got rid of all the misogynists. Then I got rid of all the racists, and then the sexists and the fascists. I also got rid of all the heartless people incapable of love, which led me to get rid of the people who voted for those people, and who still patronized those businesses. I used my pitchfork to shovel away anyone who clearly didn’t give a crap about the environment. I used my torch to burn away all the religious zealots. And then I just mass-unfriended all the people whose positions were just plain stupid. Then I sat in a dark, silent void for a while. It was nice, but the only person to look at was myself. That was unnerving. I started to look a lot more like a bigot, a racist, a sexist nazi. So I added a few people back in to reinforce my narratives; at first a couple of bigots, maybe a nazi here or there. It was then I learned that the only way to change people’s minds was 20 seconds at a time, and over a period of years. It was then that I learned that we have more in common than we have differences, and that those common areas were the launching point for those crucial 20 second increments. Sometimes it’s just a 20-second hug, and an acknowledgement that none of us are as bad as the worst thing we’ve done, or as good as the best thing we’ve done. It’s finding that small crack in their (largely artificial) edifice and slowly, meticulously making it wider. This new system sure as hell isn’t perfect, but it works a lot better than my old system. At the very least, the needle of change moves in the right direction now.

#torch and pitchfork #bigots #racists #sexists #talking circles #filter bubble

The Right to Express Yourself

Invariably, any conversation where one person is maligning another person's opinion [on something] will veer toward one, or both, of the following statements:

"I have the right to express myself!" "Having the right to express yourself doesn't mean that you have the right to not be critiqued by others."

We'll call this very common conversation "The Asinine Short-hand Conversation about the Quasi-Nature of Free Speech".

What one or both parties always seem to fail to realize is that it's turtles all the way down. Allow me to demonstrate by continuing from our last asinine line of dialogue:

"Having the right to criticize me doesn't mean that I don't have the right to call you out on your critique." "Having the right to call me out on my critique doesn't mean that I don't have the right to say that your critique is full of crap."

....etc etc. ad infinitum. They've entered (and willingly!) into a ridiculous debate about the nature of free speech, without any of the insight or due diligence. Instead the've limited themselves to a broad definition of the word "rights" that they keep implying is being violated, or at the very least, misunderstood by the other party. It's like watching drunk toddlers try to elucidate the mysteries of the universe, and only using the word "pony" to do it.

Meanwhile, back at the top of their conversation, the original subject matter waits helplessly for someone - anyone - to return and address it.

Sorry buddy, they ain't coming back. They're too busy implying that the other person doesn't know what "rights" are.

Pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony pony.

#free speech #turtles all the way down #rights #criticism

"Kiasking"

Working in tech, it's likely that we fall into a couple broad categories when dealing with clients:

Tell them nothing

Tell them everything

The Problem with (A)

The advantage is that we have more autonomy and the client can focus on other things. The problem is that clients' expectations will naturally be different than what you (minimally) conveyed. Additionally, they are not able to participate in a meaningful way when your only communication with them is "we'll take care of it". For many clients, this might be all they want, but it is ultimately to the detriment of a better-informed solution.

The Problem with (B)

The advantage here is obvious. A better solution will come from all parties having enough information to make a good decision.

Of course, the easily identifiable problem here is that information overload only confuses and confounds clients. You're trying to give them the information they need to make an informed decision, but in the end, you only give them enough information to confuse (and possibly frighten) them. In the end, you just wind up making a business-level decision for them because it's just all too much to take in.

So what do we do? Kiasking!

Metaphorically speaking, we don't know how each client takes their coffee. As a way to allow for a useful dialectic without thrusting it upon the client at a bad time, let's try "kiasking".

Kiasking is a portmanteau of "kiosk" and "asking", by which you give the bare minimum information to the client, but prompt for questions you think the client might want/need to know. No response from the client will implicitly mean "no more information needed".

Example

I need to do some code cleanup in the application today. You should experience negligible (3-5 min) downtime.

a) What are you refactoring?

b) Do we need this refactoring now?

c) What are the advantages/disadvantages?

In this example, we give the basic information but also give the client questions that we think will be useful. Of course the client is welcome to ask questions outside of the "kiosk", but this helps them to be willing participants in a conversation that might benefit them and make them better informed as to the cost of maintenance in the future.

I'm trying this out now. I'll put an update as to how it's progressing in the next few months. I think this could be useful for any industry.

UPDATE: No.

UPDATE EXPANDED: I think we’re too busy with our own thing to be bogged down with seeing someone else’s work, or even being curious about it. This might be helpful for some types, but so far, I’d say this idea is somewhat busted for everyday correspondence.

#kiasking

Cheap Platitudes 247: Assumptions

From the Ongoing Series: "Cheap Platitudes that I Wish to Place Neatly in a Box and Drown in a Black River of Bile". Today's Platitude: "When you Assume, you make an ASS out of YOU and ME". This one I place in the same category as "Advice that Rhymes". True, it doesn't rhyme. It's not even that clever, but you can see from it's lilting, sing-song nature that it wants to rhyme; it's just too stupid to do so. Category: Advice that Rhymes (kinda) Usage Instructions This is the platitude you say when someone makes an errant assumption about something and you wish to feel sanctimonious. The implication is that you yourself do NOT make assumptions, but they done did, and as such, done fucked up. It's troubleshooting and sanctimony wrapped up in an (almost) rhyme! Jejune Factor: A full-on 10 Problem People rarely employ this platitude when the assumption is correct. If that were true, all the benefits of the platitude would go right out the window, as it clearly no longer has that Hind-sight Teachable Moment baked right in; and your attempt to feel superior about something will fall flat. Worthless, I say! Why You Might Want to Stop Using it If you thought about it - even a little bit - you might reasonably conclude that everything we touch, see, and do is an assumption of some sort, and Facts are nothing more than Mutual Assumptions. Yes, when you get up in the morning, you may not explicitly assume that you will or will not be heinously murdered by a car bomb, but everything you did throughout the day provides overwhelming evidence that you implicitly assumed you wouldn't. Saying you "assume nothing" is just a nasty fit of intellectual dishonesty and demonstrates a serious lack of self-awareness on your part. Laziness Factor: 8.5 Why the World is Better off Without it Looking at the world without a healthy understanding of the difference between Fact and Opinion allows you to give in to your own martyrdom and outrage. It's your brain, once again, giving you more than enough rope to hang yourself with. (After all, you are logical, rational, and above all, right!) Taking a step back - adding perspective - to your perception of the world around you might just make you a little less of an insufferable bastard. By recognizing that everything is assumption, and that some assumptions work out while others don't, you give yourself the latitude to be wrong, as opposed to backing yourself into a corner with your poorly-thought-out narrative "I do NOT make assumptions!" Yes you do. Oh yes, you most definitely do. In short, the problem wasn't that you made an assumption; the problem is that you're a lazy thinker. So get your brain off the sofa. Related Platitude: "Question everything!" ON NEXT EPISODE: "Think outside the box"

#platitudes #assumptions #question everything

The Way Things Should Be

"He really changed the game."

As someone who rarely understands or tracks sports, my mind wants to think that the "he" in this statement has made some radical adjustment to however the game was played before; maybe he added in the component of knives, or flaming hoops, or injected the use of a monster truck somewhere. Or maybe clowns. Something like that. Naturally, when I find out the actual details of this "game change", it's always a let-down. It's someone who could throw 10 feet farther, or a guy who's hard to tackle or maybe a new touchdown dance.

Changing the Game? I guess. To an outside observer, the game hasn't changed much, but to the person who has followed every nuance of the game, who understands its innards and has come to enjoy their complete understanding of those mechanisms, whatever "he" did, is indeed a total Game-Changer. And there it is:

Usual creates Preference and Preference creates Usual.

Adding a woman to a team, or black guy, or a gay man is really Changing the Game - at least to those that know and live and breathe by the Game we've always been playing. To those people, the change is drastic. Caustic. It changes everything about anything they've loved and developed preference for, even if that change seems relatively small to everyone else. Because,

Usual creates Preference and Preference creates Usual.

It doesn't matter what the change is. The change could be good or bad. It could be something as simple as letting your kids learn from a teacher that sports tattoos. Or maybe adding a vegetarian option at your local cafeteria. For those that take comfort in the Usual, every change is an affront to the way things were.

This is the way it's always been. This is the way I prefer it. What was wrong with the old way? Why do you want to destroy MY happiness? It's not just me. I am speaking for everyone I know. I am heroically defending our rights not to be subjugated to this change - this change that you all are ramming down our throats! All this time I've worked myself up to how I and my like-minded people are suddenly being mistreated by this drastic and completely unwarranted change, I am becoming more and more ignorant to how I got here, and to the understanding of the timeless, ancient cycle that is:

Usual creates Preference and Preference creates Usual.

Let's talk about Amazon. It wasn't that long ago when Amazon was simply selling books online. The power of Amazon was that you could get nearly any book you wanted, regardless of how popular it was.

Prior to Amazon's success, if you had gone into a bookstore, you would see a lot of copies of books from preferred and usual authors like Danielle Steele and John Grisham and Tom Clancy et. al. Meanwhile, other very talented, but unknown authors waited quietly in the background, hoping that they could somehow get published, and be given shelf-space in some remote corner of your local B. Dalton's. Bookstores are a business and like any business, they found that 80 percent of their sales were for 20 percent of the available authors. Understandable.

Amazon started out that way as well - selling usual books from usual authors. They competed for keywords in Google's search like "John Grisham" and "Tom Clancy" and what-have-you. But it didn't take long before they started to see the inevitable results of giving people more choices: people started diversifying. People started to find out that they had other preferences outside of what was usual. As a result, Amazon makes a lot more money nowadays from all unknown authors and products more than it makes off the popular, usual ones. Even more interesting, was that the popular authors wound up having a lot fewer sales as some people presumably realized, "Wait a minute! Dan Brown is terrible!"

Did Amazon change the game? Maybe. But how much of a change did they really make? They just sold a greater variety of books and products than any brick-and-mortar store could reasonably house in one location. If the major contribution of Amazon was that they simply were able to supply more choices to people, then how much of a game change is that, really?

Now consider the idea that if people - PEOPLE - did not overcome their trained preferences for the usual, what would have happened to Amazon. If there never was a demand for anything but the usual authors, then there would be far less reason to wait for a book to be shipped to you that you could easily get today from the store around the corner. Both things had to happen for the significant change we have today.

Usual creates Preference and Preference creates Usual.

For that matter, every TV show that you see. Every movie. Everything - anything - whereby the change was simply the addition of more choices, allows people to express and find out what their preferences really are. You may absolutely prefer chocolate over vanilla, if those are the only choices given to you - until someone offers strawberry. And if that new choice doesn't destroy your entire paradigm of what ice-cream is supposed to be; if you don't find yourself saying, in a codgery old voice, "goddammit if I'll ever eat no ice-cream what's got fruit in it!", you might even find out that you prefer strawberry.

So right now, you might be tempted to look at yourself with a certain level of smug satisfaction because you're soooo open to change. Cool. Good for you. You might also be thinking that the thrust of this terribly long, terribly-written screed is that change isn't scary and that we shouldn't be so darned frightened of it. But that's just a pretentious narrative we like to tell ourselves. "THEY are scared. I am brave."

Let's be clear. I'm not trying to type out the same old adage pulled from every musical ever, whereby our hero wants to leave his hum-drum little town to brave the world beyond, or the hero wants to get the elders to change but darnit, they're too entrenched in TRADITIOOOON!!. This has nothing to do with that.

Usual creates Preference and Preference creates Usual.

This isn't about their fear. It's about our convenience. It's convenience for those of us that have grown accustomed and have learned to gain the most benefits from the system of Usual. Change means that our system will have to be re-worked, and that is incredibly inconvenient for us. Sometimes that inconvenience is nothing more than simply having to go through the trouble of re-evaluating our values. Our fear-mongering is merely a reaction to that.

With that said, women getting the vote didn't hurt us. It helped us. Ending slavery didn't hurt us. It helped us. Gay marriage doesn't hurt us. It helps us. If we think about it, all of these things should have been this way to begin with. We would certainly have been better off if they had. And yet, reactions to the inconvenience, perceived or otherwise, of things like this continue to be outsized and grandiose in every cycle. Every. Single. Cycle.

"This is not Usual. I do not Prefer this. Nobody I know Prefers this."

As I've grown older, I have always liked to think that the window upon the world that I peer through gets larger and larger, and that I see more of the world for what it actually is. Instead, all I have really found is that the window is even smaller than I originally thought it was. It is that way because

Usual creates Preference and Preference creates Usual.

Realizing this - truly realizing this at the moment of our inconvenience, would be the real Game-Changer.

#usual creates preference #preference creates usual #changing the game

Cartoon Villains and Real Villains

Saw this in the Redbox the other day in their most popular 20. The synopsis is AWESOME. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Not_Dead_(film) tldr; A cartoonishly evil philosophy professor demands that his students sign a declaration that "God is dead" to get a passing grade. One brave christian student resists and wins. I would like to take this opportunity to say this again: There is no group that does not have feelings of oppression. Not one. It doesn't matter if you're black, white, male, female, christian, muslim, or just in the Accounting Department, painting yourself as the hero of your own narrative usually means you're going to paint some villains as well. It's human nature. It makes your story really 'pop'. When we paint our villains, it seems natural that we will be reductionist in our villains' motivations. You know this if you've ever ascribed a silly voice to your nemesis at work when talking about them to your friends: "So Todd, my idiot manager came by my office today and was all like ** Duuuuh, I can't get the copier to work, so you do it **. Todd's such an idiot." Nobody actually talks like that, but in your story, Todd absolutely talks like that. Todd needs a voice that sounds like an idiot so that we can color our narrative in a more heroic manner. Everyone loves to do this, and everyone has some level of oppression that they feel. It's easy to feel oppressed in this world where everyone has independent and differing motivations, thoughts and feelings about everything. In a sense, any and all of us can feel a sense of oppression because we are being oppressed. Our level of oppression is really tied to the multiplier of how it effects us emotionally, and with that convenient qualifier, the teenager who has to clean the pool can feel just as oppressed as someone who hasn't eaten in 3 days. The person who didn't get a compliment from their colleague can feel just as oppressed and lonely as someone who was wrongly incarcerated. We are all being oppressed. How we choose to paint our narrative is still up to us though. We can paint our narrative in the vivid colors of a children's parable, or we can paint it with truth and honesty. In the end, people with real problems never have to embellish their villains.

#villains #embellishing villains #truth #reductionism

I've fixed the Internet. You're welcome.

Dear Internet, I have finally found a way to fix you. Below is an easy set of Hashtags to help us all intelligently quarantine each other from each other. Please use responsibly.

#RDO (Real Discussion Only) This is that rare kind of discussion whereby everyone leaves their straw-man arguments, reductionist sophistry, and thought-terminating cliches at the door. If you don't know what any of these terms mean, this is probably not the thread for you.

#BITS (Bits, what did you think it meant?) The only thing that is useful in Facebook. Luckily there's lots of it!

#EPO (Everyone Pile On! ) You just found out that the next Star Wars movie is going to be all about Jar-Jar Binks. You're red-hot. You feel rage that does not want to hear any dissent on the matter. Break out the pitchforks and torches. It's mob time! #EPO let's you vent to like-minded people and warns everyone else to stay the hell away.

#BGW (Bad Guys Wanted) You tried a good old-fashioned #EPO thread, and you kinda feel better, but it sure would be great to have a punching bag. This is the kind of thread where they need a dissenting opinion so the #EPO can all beat up on them. The Bad Guy doesn't even have to offer a voice of true dissent - even an alternative manner of agreement will do. If #EPO is a mob, #BGW is an Internet lynching.

#IAT (It's A TRAP!) No one has come to your aptly hashtagged #BGW thread. Label it as something else, like #RDO. Then take out the trash, #BGW-style! Since labeling your post #IAT is against your interests, this particular hashtag will probably only be used by the person getting thrashed, if anything as a warning to future commenters.

#FFA (Free-for-All) YouTube.

-------

Thank you,

#IAT

#IAT #tags for the internet #rdo

The Fun of Mastery

One thing I’ve found out from the sport I play is on the nature of Fun and Mastery. It goes a little something like this:

I’ve never seen someone who has fun at something and doesn’t get better at it. On the other hand, I have seen plenty of people try to get better at something and simply stop having fun.

So how much does Mastery of something effect your fun? Consider this hypothetical example. Imagine a game that you are relatively ambivalent toward and are asked to participate in. Consider the following scenarios:

A. You discover you're terrible at the game. B. You discover you're ok at the game. C. You discover that you're some kind of natural protege at the game.

In the case of scenarios A and B, it's a fairly safe bet that you would not continue to play this game, nor would you ever see it out. If the game was something you had a lot of fun at, independent of your proficiency, you would still play it; but in this hypothetical, it is simply a game that you feel ambivalent about.

My, my, my, how our view of the game changes when we see that we are good at it, and exceptionally so!

So, where did all the fun come from? The truth, I think, is simply that we pull Fun from Mastery. It's not too contentious of a point to think that.

Continuing on with the story, if you were to continue to play the game, dominating everyone you play, and then one day play against a group of people who are much more adept at the game than you are, the fun you found in the game (through Mastery) may now no longer exist. Unless you've somehow developed a sense of simply playing the game for sake of the game itself, you are likely to stop playing altogether. Worse, if you continue playing, your motives for playing the game will have shifted considerably from 'for fun' to 'reclaiming what you've lost'. The "game" is now a self-imposed obligation to yourself.

Hypothetical? This happens. A lot. It is my firm belief that there are a great number of people - possibly even a majority - whose primary source of Fun derives from Mastery. The two are so intertwined it is difficult for these people to think in any other terms. Winning the game now becomes a part of their Identity, and the initial purpose of the game was long ago lost.

Thanks to improv and this sport, this has become a kind of guiding principle in a lot of things in my life.

Furthermore, I do not know how to solve this issue, or to address it other than just calling out my observations. Recognizing this principle has been of tremendous use in forging my own happiness, however I have no way of knowing how to foster this recognition in others.

Right about now would be a good time for someone to link me to a good Psych article...

#mastery #agency

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