|
Post by millring on Mar 31, 2020 16:22:51 GMT -5
I'm not sure but that some of this is genetic. Certainly much of it is learned.
I married into a family that is so cautious they are hamstrung. I remember when I first started noticing the things they did -- just a small memorable example: My mother in law had a fenced in backyard. There was a detached garage that was maybe 40 ft from the back door. I watched (remember that photo of the world's first camera?) as my mother-in-law stepped out of the back door, locked it behind her, walked to the garage, unlocked it, reached in and grabbed something near the door, locked it behind her, walked the 40' back to the back door, unlocked it, let herself in, and relocked it.
I was there.
I couldn't fathom that kind of diligence. I still can't. I understand that I probably err to the other side. I leave keys in the van out front of my shop while I'm here. I don't lock my back door unless I'm leaving town. So I guess my incredulity can be viewed as coming from the opposite extreme. But I don't think so.
I grew to realize that in my mother-in-law's mind (and her two daughters) that there was literally no difference in their minds between "could have happened" or "could happen" and "did happen". They all can be just as traumatized by the escapes -- all narrow in their minds -- of dangers that they merely imagined. And when I say, "no difference", I'm not exaggerating. I have seen my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law at the point of near nervous breakdown over perceived "near misses".
And I'm not talking about near misses of things that have traumatized them in the past and threaten to recur. I mean simple imagined dangers. And they will go to extremes to avoid them.
My sister-in-law believes she has premonitions/visions. She is sure she foresaw things happening. I used to wonder about this until it dawned on me that she never foresees good things happen. Only bad. She's just a pessimist savant. She has just elevated pessimism to a new level, and because of her profound belief in things supernatural, there is no way she could ever be convinced otherwise.
Nicholas Taleb talks a lot about humanities inability to match the likelihood of a bad thing happening to its likelihood if the bad thing approaches "unthinkable". The insurance industry counts on that human tendency.
But I think there's a level of caution that is overboard. The problem is that it is impossible to convince people what that level should be. We will either overestimate it or underestimate it based either on our genes or our upbringing. It might be altered with trauma. That's my guess.
|
|
|
Truth
Mar 31, 2020 16:25:26 GMT -5
Post by millring on Mar 31, 2020 16:25:26 GMT -5
<humanity's>
|
|
|
Truth
Mar 31, 2020 16:38:22 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by majorminor on Mar 31, 2020 16:38:22 GMT -5
Um maybe it’s a western thing but every gas pump I’ve ever used since I started using them has a sign on it saying don’t leave unattended or some such. Apparently I’m a sheeple?
Other than that I try not to comment on women’s weight or eat that packet of chemical crystals in the jerky bag.
|
|
|
Truth
Mar 31, 2020 17:13:06 GMT -5
Post by Marshall on Mar 31, 2020 17:13:06 GMT -5
There are warning labels on every bottle of liquor sold. (I had to go check the liquor cabinet. I've never actually read one before. But there it is, from the Surgeon General.)
|
|
|
Post by millring on Mar 31, 2020 17:19:54 GMT -5
I carry around a small stack of warning labels in my inside pocket. I hand them out to strangers.
|
|
|
Truth
Mar 31, 2020 17:22:36 GMT -5
Post by Marshall on Mar 31, 2020 17:22:36 GMT -5
It reads; "Don't accept gifts from strangers !"
|
|
|
Truth
Mar 31, 2020 18:45:06 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by drlj on Mar 31, 2020 18:45:06 GMT -5
Luck Strike Means Fine Tobacco.
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Apr 1, 2020 8:59:05 GMT -5
And as an aside Jeff, I've been thinking a lot about some of your old posts (most likely lost in the mist now) lately with COVID and what all. They were the one's about religion essentially being codified heuristics that encode ancient truths whose wisdom may be lost in the fog of history. See, sometimes I do learn shit. I spent some time last night noodling on that again. Haven't revisited the subject in my mind for a while. There are things that are "true". And there are things that are "false". But there are also things that are false in a literal sense, but if you treat them as true, you will gain an advantage. We know that "All guns are loaded" is not literally true. You could take a pistol, remove the magazine, pull back the slide, verify there is no ammunition in the chamber, and set it on your table. At that point, knowing that no one else has touched it and it has never left your sight, you can confidently declare "That gun is unloaded". If Jeff Bezos walks into the room at that moment and says "Nice gun! Is it loaded?", you'd answer "No, it isn't". If Bezos then said "I think it is. In fact, I'll bet you ten billion dollars that it is loaded" you'd confidently take the bet, and his money. But the "truth" says it is loaded. If Bezos walks into the room and says "Nice gun! Can I look at it?" you will pick it up and conspicuously go through the process of verifying that it is not loaded. After you hand it to him, assuming he is educated in the ways of safe gun handling, he will himself verify that it isn't loaded, even though he just watched you do it. And even if he isn't so educated, when you observe him failing to verify that the gun is in a safe condition, you will admonish him to do so. If he objects ("Dude! I just watched you check it!"), you will tell him "All guns are loaded". I don't recall when I learned "All guns are loaded", any more than I recall when I learned "Never leave a gas pump unattended". Just one of those things I learned. But here's where I (finally) get to the interesting part. I saw a clip of Sam Harris discussing this very thing. What I noticed is that he used a seemingly trivial difference in phrasing. Instead of describing the "truth" as "All guns are loaded", he said something like "If you treat all guns as loaded, you will come out ahead." So I find myself asking if there is a difference between "AGAL" and "IYTAGALYWCOA" and I think the answer is yes. I think AGAL has what you might call a metaphysical component that IYTAGALYWCOA strips away, and the intersection of that metaphysical component with what we know about human psychology matters. If you convince yourself that AGAL is literally true, it will have more utility than if you skip the convincing and just go with IYTAGALYWCOA. Or so it seems to me. Anyway, my banker just called so that's it for the moment. I had to read through this several times to understand it (it was a long day at work yesterday and the brain has to decompress) but I get it now. I do a fair amount of electrical work around my house and a long time ago a friend who was an electrician gave me some helpful advice- "never put two hands in the box". It's become so deeply ingrained in me it's automatic, even if obviously not technically true. I have the same thought even if I just shut off the circuit breaker and "know" there's no juice to the box. And it's literally saved my life more than once (wrong breaker shut off, unforeseen short, wonky current limiter in a ceiling fan, unanticipated brain fart, etc). ALWAYS lead the approach in to the box with a screwdriver IN ONE HAND. If nothing sparks, you can then use two. Yes, "never put two hands in the box" definitely has more utility than "make sure all the power's off". Particularly since frequently it's much less trouble to actually do the work live.
|
|
|
Truth
Apr 1, 2020 10:17:34 GMT -5
Post by fauxmaha on Apr 1, 2020 10:17:34 GMT -5
Probably every age conflates truth with factually correct; at least to the extend they (we?) can know the facts. Absolute truth always being out of our reach, like the rabbit the Greyhounds chase. I'm tempted to go on a long diatribe about Platonic "justified true belief", but that would be boring. Here's a thought experiment that just popped into my head. Imagine two parallel Earths. Both of them are confronted with the coronavirus. We are Earth #1. We deploy our science and the understanding of infectious disease it gives us. We quarantine, isolate, and socially-distance. We scramble for testing protocols. We seek cures and vaccines. We deploy all our medical technology to treat the infected. We stop going to work. We stop going out to public places. We shut down large swathes of the economy. Etc, etc, etc. All the stuff we are doing. Earth #2 is just like us, but instead of turning to science, it turns to mysticism. Everyone gathers together and prays to Jesus or Mohammed or the Buddha or the volcano or the sun or whatever for deliverance from this plague. Goats are sacrificed, offerings are made, etc, etc, etc. Unknowingly, in their congregating, they accelerate the spread of the disease. The question is "Which Earth is right?" Our reflex answer is Earth #1. The question itself is ridiculous. But consider what it means to be "right". How do we measure that? What is it that we are either maximizing or minimizing? Let's say the answer is something like "we seek to maximize aggregate human wellbeing over time". If that is the measure, how do we know Earth #1 is right? I think that gets interesting, because we have absolutely no way of knowing that the path we have chosen will in fact "maximize aggregate human wellbeing over time" vis-a-vis Earth #2. In Platonic terms, we can not say we are operating from "justified true belief", because we simply don't know. It is impossible to know. We can infer. We can project. We can estimate. But we can not know. In that sense, my conclusion is that we are operating from faith.
|
|
|
Post by coachdoc on Apr 1, 2020 10:37:16 GMT -5
Going into a poker hand with 4 Aces. Is not a guaranteed win. But we bet as if it is. Because the odds are strongly in our favor. This is how we navigate life. Not just poker.
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Apr 1, 2020 10:41:52 GMT -5
I think that gets interesting, because we have absolutely no way of knowing that the path we have chosen will in fact "maximize aggregate human wellbeing over time" vis-a-vis Earth #2. In Platonic terms, we can not say we are operating from "justified true belief", because we simply don't know. It is impossible to know. We can infer. We can project. We can estimate. But we can not know. And we will never have any way of knowing if we were right.
|
|
|
Post by millring on Apr 1, 2020 10:43:20 GMT -5
Going into a poker hand with 4 Aces. Is not a guaranteed win. But we bet as if it is. Because the odds are strongly in our favor. This is how we navigate life. Not just poker. And if that described one of Jeff's worlds to the exclusion of the other, that would be an apt metaphor. Our reality, however, is that we believe we are living in Earth#1, but perhaps the infectious disease we are suffering worse than COVID-19 is a lack of trust in information due to a breakdown in our political system and exacerbated by an internet contagion. Never before have so many people been abjectly certain of things they cannot possibly know. And never, since the Spanish Inquisition has it been more dangerous to ask questions that should be asked if we REALLY were Earth#1.
|
|
|
Post by fauxmaha on Apr 1, 2020 11:16:15 GMT -5
Going into a poker hand with 4 Aces. Is not a guaranteed win. But we bet as if it is. Because the odds are strongly in our favor. This is how we navigate life. Not just poker. As much as I love poker analogies...and to be clear, I think poker is frequently the best analogy for just about everything in life...I don't think this particular one captures the situation accurately. We're playing Texas Hold'em. Full table of ten players. Pre-flop action, you look down at your hand: AA. At that moment, your odds of wining the hand are exactly 31.2%. Lets say you are under the gun, and lead out with a 3x bet (ie, big blind is $10, you bet $30). That thins out the table, so now you are down to two opponents. Good news. Your odds of winning the hand just went to 72.7%. Flop comes: AhAsKs. Bingo. You've hit quads. You're odds have gone up to 99.9%. Turn: Qs. Odds down to 99.3% River Js. Odds down to 90.9%. Shove, call, villain turns over 10s and felts you with a royal flush. The point isn't that there's a scenario where you lose. The point is you know with absolute mathematical exactitude at every step of the way precisely what your odds are of winning. Which is the exact opposite of our scenario at present. What are the odds right now that Earth #1 achieves more aggregate human wellbeing than Earth #2? 90%? 10%? 50%? There is simply no way to know. No one knows. The answer is literally unknowable.
|
|
|
Truth
Apr 1, 2020 11:22:54 GMT -5
Post by fauxmaha on Apr 1, 2020 11:22:54 GMT -5
Going into a poker hand with 4 Aces. Is not a guaranteed win. But we bet as if it is. Because the odds are strongly in our favor. This is how we navigate life. Not just poker. And if that described one of Jeff's worlds to the exclusion of the other, that would be an apt metaphor. Our reality, however, is that we believe we are living in Earth#1, but perhaps the infectious disease we are suffering worse than COVID-19 is a lack of trust in information due to a breakdown in our political system and exacerbated by an internet contagion. Never before have so many people been abjectly certain of things they cannot possibly know. And never, since the Spanish Inquisition has it been more dangerous to ask questions that should be asked if we REALLY were Earth#1. We say we don't believe in demons. Our actions betray us.
|
|
|
Post by fauxmaha on Apr 1, 2020 11:36:45 GMT -5
I think that gets interesting, because we have absolutely no way of knowing that the path we have chosen will in fact "maximize aggregate human wellbeing over time" vis-a-vis Earth #2. In Platonic terms, we can not say we are operating from "justified true belief", because we simply don't know. It is impossible to know. We can infer. We can project. We can estimate. But we can not know. And we will never have any way of knowing if we were right. Kind of. My take is slightly different. My sense is that whatever reckoning happens in the future will be impossibly entangled with ideological considerations. The psychological investment in the decision that has been made globally ("stop the virus at any cost") is simply too great to ever allow it to be considered wrong.
|
|
|
Post by Marshall on Apr 1, 2020 11:47:16 GMT -5
I'm reminded of all the stories and movies I see that report about soldiers in battle and their "leave no one behind" heroics. Culturally we value self-sacrifice, or at least self-risk, for the greater benefit of saving others. Or at least we like to think of ourselves that way while we sit comfortably on our duffs in front of a computer screen. But I suspect our toilet-paper-hording society reveals the fallacy of that belief.
|
|
|
Post by Rob Hanesworth on Apr 1, 2020 12:34:47 GMT -5
I'm reminded of all the stories and movies I see that report about soldiers in battle and their "leave no one behind" heroics. Culturally we value self-sacrifice, or at least self-risk, for the greater benefit of saving others. Or at least we like to think of ourselves that way while we sit comfortably on our duffs in front of a computer screen. But I suspect our toilet-paper-hording society reveals the fallacy of that belief. "leave no one with an unwiped behind"
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Apr 1, 2020 12:35:50 GMT -5
Going into a poker hand with 4 Aces. Is not a guaranteed win. But we bet as if it is. Because the odds are strongly in our favor. This is how we navigate life. Not just poker. And if that described one of Jeff's worlds to the exclusion of the other, that would be an apt metaphor. Our reality, however, is that we believe we are living in Earth#1, but perhaps the infectious disease we are suffering worse than COVID-19 is a lack of trust in information due to a breakdown in our political system and exacerbated by an internet contagion. Never before have so many people been abjectly certain of things they cannot possibly know. And never, since the Spanish Inquisition has it been more dangerous to ask questions that should be asked if we REALLY were Earth#1. At the risk of being yelled at again (like it's ever bothered me before), I had some thoughts about this last night. I've worked for the Federal government and been up to my ass in the Administrative State. The primary tools of the Administrative State are big lies, little lies, and statistics. We actually spent $1.7 million in my office (I was the contracting officer or whatever official name they give to the guy who verifies the contract execution) for a study on revised fuel economy standards that were projected to cause 300 additional deaths in 2030 (this was in 2010) at a cost of $7 billion. That's statistics for you. All for political gain. Last night I found some detailed statistical analysis that should be quite heartening, but I know it will probably make folks who are all in on the stay at home thing pretty pissed (fair warning- don't read if your skin's mighty thin). A Whole Hell Of A Lot Of DetailThe next thing I noticed was our butthead Governor Northam's announcement that we are supposed to lock down in our homes until f'ing June 10 (conveniently one day after the Republican primaries here) under penalty of a year in jail and a $2500 fine. One would think he might have learned from the recent gun hubbub, but apparently he didn't. Virginia is somewhat unique in that the largest portion of the population is now directly supported by the Administrative State but the vast majority of the land mass is occupied by military, special forces, and general rednecks with guns. This is ground zero for the next civil war. And me and my fellow rednecks need to go back to work and earn a living. Now or as close to now as possible. The last thing I saw was boarded up businesses in some big city that reminded me of Rodney King and the '67 race riots I remember from when we moved to Detroit when I was a kid. Yeah, laugh at me again for not being serious enough about the crisis. I'll be out here in the boonies when the shooting starts. Working, as usual.
|
|
|
Truth
Apr 1, 2020 16:15:16 GMT -5
Post by Marshall on Apr 1, 2020 16:15:16 GMT -5
How are you going to go back to work if businesses are shut down? Sure small business can try to buck the trend, but most large companies won't rebel. And a lot of small companies depend on big companies for business and supply of materials.
How are you going back to work?
(I'm not arguing the merit of any of this. Or whether June 10th is a reasonable date. Quite so, come May there may be some heavy pressure to open things up).
|
|
|
Truth
Apr 1, 2020 16:46:24 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by aquaduct on Apr 1, 2020 16:46:24 GMT -5
How are you going to go back to work if businesses are shut down? Sure small business can try to buck the trend, but most large companies won't rebel. And a lot of small companies depend on big companies for business and supply of materials. How are you going back to work? (I'm not arguing the merit of any of this. Or whether June 10th is a reasonable date. Quite so, come May there may be some heavy pressure to open things up). In case you missed it, I never stopped. I've got a letter from our CEO that says our business has been exempted by the President from any of Northam's stay at home bullshit as critical infrastructure. We're needed, I can't stay home.
|
|