My fairy goddaughter, who just turned 3, is getting impatient about waiting for Christmas. Some days, the fact that Santa isn't coming tonight reduces her to tears! Yes, it's just a couple of weeks away, but think about that in terms of proportions: she's 3 and I'm 33, so 2 weeks for her is like 22 weeks for me. That's nearly half a year!
Stores and TV channels and media in general have been in xmas mode since the beginning of November, for a total of nearly 2 months of christmassing. But, for my fairy goddaughter, that's like 22 months, or nearly 2 years! Imagine hearing "Santa is coming soon!" for 2 years! And imagine this in a context where Santa coming is The Most Exciting Thing You Can Imagine, and where you haven't yet developed the cynicism to say "Meh, that's what they always say"!
I think it's extremely unkind to get my fairy goddaughter's hopes up for such a painfully long time. If Christmas is supposed to be for the children, it should be scaled down to something the poor kids can manage!
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Saturday, November 29, 2014
The opportunity to be good at something
I recently realized that, based on the various jobs I've had, the "better" my job is (in the sense of more specialized, socially seen to be of higher calibre, requiring more education and training and experience, better paid), the easier it is for me. And I don't mean easy in the sense that I get to sit in a comfy chair and wear whatever I want and not have to talk to anyone instead of being on my feet dealing with customers all day (although that's true as well). I mean easy in the sense that if I do my best and use my own best judgment, I'm very likely to land on the results that make my clients and employer happy. When I worked in fast food, somehow my best work and best judgment just didn't align with customer and/or employer expectations.
I've been reading a lot of novels with historical settings lately, where the characters are uneducated or undereducated and have to do a lot of unskilled or physical labour. If I'd lived in that era (assuming I'd managed to survive birth, childhood, etc.), I simply wouldn't have been much good at my work. With practice I would have fought my way up to competent, but I just don't have the potential to become exceptional - or even above average - at things that are physical and tangible, or at people work.
My whole life I've heard that I'm lucky to live here and now because I get to have an education and live independently. But what's more interesting to think about is that living in this situation gives me the opportunity to excel - like, to excel at something, anything. I'm good with academic and professional things, and I never would have discovered that if I lived in an era where I didn't get the chance to do academic and professional things. I'm bad at people work and physical work, and that's probably the majority of what I would have been doing if I'd been born in an earlier age. I've always been labelled as smart because I glommed onto literacy and numeracy quickly and easily, but in an earlier age I would have been the village idiot because I'd be a mediocre housemaid or weaver or subsistence farmer or something, with no appreciable skills in any area. I'd never even have been exposed to things I'd be good at doing.
I wonder how many people are currently in that situation - the things they're good at haven't been invented yet or are far out of reach of the non-elite?
I've been reading a lot of novels with historical settings lately, where the characters are uneducated or undereducated and have to do a lot of unskilled or physical labour. If I'd lived in that era (assuming I'd managed to survive birth, childhood, etc.), I simply wouldn't have been much good at my work. With practice I would have fought my way up to competent, but I just don't have the potential to become exceptional - or even above average - at things that are physical and tangible, or at people work.
My whole life I've heard that I'm lucky to live here and now because I get to have an education and live independently. But what's more interesting to think about is that living in this situation gives me the opportunity to excel - like, to excel at something, anything. I'm good with academic and professional things, and I never would have discovered that if I lived in an era where I didn't get the chance to do academic and professional things. I'm bad at people work and physical work, and that's probably the majority of what I would have been doing if I'd been born in an earlier age. I've always been labelled as smart because I glommed onto literacy and numeracy quickly and easily, but in an earlier age I would have been the village idiot because I'd be a mediocre housemaid or weaver or subsistence farmer or something, with no appreciable skills in any area. I'd never even have been exposed to things I'd be good at doing.
I wonder how many people are currently in that situation - the things they're good at haven't been invented yet or are far out of reach of the non-elite?
Sunday, November 23, 2014
What if suicide prevention were removed from the mandate of mental health care?
When Robin Williams committed suicide, many people responded with the "Genie, you're free" scene from Aladdin. This response received a lot of criticism, some of which argued that suicide isn't freedom.
It occurred to me that the problem with this statement is it's clearly unknowable. The author has no way of knowing with the amount of certainty they claim that you don't find freedom or peace after death.
And, because of this, their anti-suicide message has no credibility in the eyes of those considering suicide. They're quite clearly just saying stuff to perpetuate the message of Suicide Is Bad. So a person considering suicide isn't going to listen to them, because they're obviously just going to unquestioningly say Suicide Is Bad regardless of the truth of the matter. (And if suicide is in fact Bad, you'd think they could come up with something substantiated to support that position.)
Then it occurred to me that this might be the symptom of a broader problem in mental health care and emergency response.
If I were suicidal, I would never even consider seeking medical attention, because I feel like they'd just want to stop me from committing suicide. They'd restrain me in a mental ward somewhere and declare the job done, or monitor me for the rest of my life and never leave me a moment's peace. Sounds like hell!
But what if health care as a whole recognized a person's right to end their life? Your body, your choice! They don't prevent, persuade, coerce or manipulate you into not committing suicide. It's considered a perfectly valid choice.
However, since it is also a drastic - and irreversible - choice, they strongly urge you to try less drastic approaches first. Take a pill, talk to a doctor - the mental health equivalent of rebooting your computer and maybe reinstalling the OS rather than going straight to throwing it out the window. If it hurts, the doctor will give you something to try to stop it from hurting. If you're feeling nothing, the doctor will give you something to try to make you feel again. If your fish are dead, the doctor will try to resuscitate them. If it doesn't work, you're no worse off than you were before and you can always kill yourself later!
Some people will argue "But when I was suicidal, I didn't actually want to kill myself. I wanted to stop wanting to kill myself." That's fine, a person could still go to the doctor and say "I have suicidal feelings and I don't like them! Can you help me make them stop?" But if the patient feels their suicidal feelings are valid, the doctor won't force them to do anything about it.
Analogy: if you've never gotten pregnant and you want to have children, you can go to the doctor and request assistance with conceiving. But if you've never been pregnant and you're okay with that, they don't force fertility treatment on you.
And some people will argue "When I wanted to kill myself, it was just the depression talking. Once I received help, I came to realize that I didn't want to kill myself." If that's the case, this approach will still achieve the same results. The hurting/sadness/feeling nothing/dead fish will be treated, the patient will come to the realization they didn't actually want to kill themselves, and life would proceed as usual.
But if you want something right this moment and someone tells you "I'm going to take you to a doctor who will make you not want the thing you want," that would feel like they're going to brainwash you. And if the doctor's mandate is to do everything in their power to prevent you from achieving what you want, you'd probably actively avoid them, perhaps even going as far as to deceive people about your condition and situation so they don't brainwash/restrain/monitor you in a way that would make it impossible to achieve your goal.
Building on the fertility treatment analogy above: suppose you tell a loved one that you want to have children, and they respond by taking you to a doctor who will make you not want children. Or, based on the information you have absorbed from media/culture/society, you believe that a doctor would respond by taking all measures to prevent you from having children, up to and including forcibly sterilizing you.
Or the inverse: suppose you don't want to have children, and a loved one responds by taking you to a doctor who will make you want to have children. And the information you have received throughout your life leads you to believe that the doctor would go as far as forcibly impregnating you.
Would this make you feel safe seeking medical treatment? Or would it make you want to avoid it at all costs?
***
Removing the suicide prevention mandate might also help reduce the criminalization of mental health patients.
There was recently a series in the Toronto Star about how people are failing police checks they need for employment because they are known to police (even though they were never found guilty and in some cases never arrested or charged). And some of them are known to police because police attended a mental health call. The police were called because the person was considered a threat to themselves, and in the messed up system of disclosure for background checks there's no differentiation between being a threat to oneself and a threat to others.
If health care professionals were not mandated to prevent suicide, there'd be no such thing as involving the police because someone is a threat to themselves. Killing yourself would be considered your own decision to make, even if it's ill-advised, so there'd be no reason to forcibly stop you.
Analogy: if someone wants risky ill-advised elective surgery and they're proactively trying to get this surgery, this isn't considered a reason for police intervention. Even if getting the surgery would harm them, that's between them and their doctors.
Since there's no police involvement, people won't have police records dogging them just because they were once suicidal, so they'd have the full range of employment and travel options still available to them. Surely this would make for a better recovery than being shut out of jobs where they can do good just because they were once suicidal!
Yes, this aspect could also be addressed by police only disclosing appropriate and pertinent information in background checks, but I feel like the medical profession could be more easily persuaded to make helpful decisions than the police.
It occurred to me that the problem with this statement is it's clearly unknowable. The author has no way of knowing with the amount of certainty they claim that you don't find freedom or peace after death.
And, because of this, their anti-suicide message has no credibility in the eyes of those considering suicide. They're quite clearly just saying stuff to perpetuate the message of Suicide Is Bad. So a person considering suicide isn't going to listen to them, because they're obviously just going to unquestioningly say Suicide Is Bad regardless of the truth of the matter. (And if suicide is in fact Bad, you'd think they could come up with something substantiated to support that position.)
Then it occurred to me that this might be the symptom of a broader problem in mental health care and emergency response.
If I were suicidal, I would never even consider seeking medical attention, because I feel like they'd just want to stop me from committing suicide. They'd restrain me in a mental ward somewhere and declare the job done, or monitor me for the rest of my life and never leave me a moment's peace. Sounds like hell!
But what if health care as a whole recognized a person's right to end their life? Your body, your choice! They don't prevent, persuade, coerce or manipulate you into not committing suicide. It's considered a perfectly valid choice.
However, since it is also a drastic - and irreversible - choice, they strongly urge you to try less drastic approaches first. Take a pill, talk to a doctor - the mental health equivalent of rebooting your computer and maybe reinstalling the OS rather than going straight to throwing it out the window. If it hurts, the doctor will give you something to try to stop it from hurting. If you're feeling nothing, the doctor will give you something to try to make you feel again. If your fish are dead, the doctor will try to resuscitate them. If it doesn't work, you're no worse off than you were before and you can always kill yourself later!
Some people will argue "But when I was suicidal, I didn't actually want to kill myself. I wanted to stop wanting to kill myself." That's fine, a person could still go to the doctor and say "I have suicidal feelings and I don't like them! Can you help me make them stop?" But if the patient feels their suicidal feelings are valid, the doctor won't force them to do anything about it.
Analogy: if you've never gotten pregnant and you want to have children, you can go to the doctor and request assistance with conceiving. But if you've never been pregnant and you're okay with that, they don't force fertility treatment on you.
And some people will argue "When I wanted to kill myself, it was just the depression talking. Once I received help, I came to realize that I didn't want to kill myself." If that's the case, this approach will still achieve the same results. The hurting/sadness/feeling nothing/dead fish will be treated, the patient will come to the realization they didn't actually want to kill themselves, and life would proceed as usual.
But if you want something right this moment and someone tells you "I'm going to take you to a doctor who will make you not want the thing you want," that would feel like they're going to brainwash you. And if the doctor's mandate is to do everything in their power to prevent you from achieving what you want, you'd probably actively avoid them, perhaps even going as far as to deceive people about your condition and situation so they don't brainwash/restrain/monitor you in a way that would make it impossible to achieve your goal.
Building on the fertility treatment analogy above: suppose you tell a loved one that you want to have children, and they respond by taking you to a doctor who will make you not want children. Or, based on the information you have absorbed from media/culture/society, you believe that a doctor would respond by taking all measures to prevent you from having children, up to and including forcibly sterilizing you.
Or the inverse: suppose you don't want to have children, and a loved one responds by taking you to a doctor who will make you want to have children. And the information you have received throughout your life leads you to believe that the doctor would go as far as forcibly impregnating you.
Would this make you feel safe seeking medical treatment? Or would it make you want to avoid it at all costs?
***
Removing the suicide prevention mandate might also help reduce the criminalization of mental health patients.
There was recently a series in the Toronto Star about how people are failing police checks they need for employment because they are known to police (even though they were never found guilty and in some cases never arrested or charged). And some of them are known to police because police attended a mental health call. The police were called because the person was considered a threat to themselves, and in the messed up system of disclosure for background checks there's no differentiation between being a threat to oneself and a threat to others.
If health care professionals were not mandated to prevent suicide, there'd be no such thing as involving the police because someone is a threat to themselves. Killing yourself would be considered your own decision to make, even if it's ill-advised, so there'd be no reason to forcibly stop you.
Analogy: if someone wants risky ill-advised elective surgery and they're proactively trying to get this surgery, this isn't considered a reason for police intervention. Even if getting the surgery would harm them, that's between them and their doctors.
Since there's no police involvement, people won't have police records dogging them just because they were once suicidal, so they'd have the full range of employment and travel options still available to them. Surely this would make for a better recovery than being shut out of jobs where they can do good just because they were once suicidal!
Yes, this aspect could also be addressed by police only disclosing appropriate and pertinent information in background checks, but I feel like the medical profession could be more easily persuaded to make helpful decisions than the police.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
57 channels and nothing on
This whole blog post is obsolete, in that it applies to the world before streaming and on-demand. However, it just occurred to me now, so I'm blogging it now.
People complain that there's hardly ever anything good on TV, that there are so many channels but only a few show anything you want to watch, and even then there's only one or two things a day you're interested in out of the whole day's programming.
It just occurred to me that this is good. We don't want every single TV channel to show us stuff we enthusiastically want to watch every minute of every day, because we could never get to it all. We want a maximum of one thing worth watching on at any given moment. And, for the vast majority of the day, we don't even want that. We need to sleep, we need to go to work, we need to shower, we need to do errands and chores - all kinds of things that are incompatible with watching TV. Really all we want is a maximum of maybe 2 hours of programming that we're enthusiastic about in any given day - maybe more on a rainy Saturday, maybe less on a day when there's soccer practice. I myself find that about four shows a week meets my needs quite nicely.
But quality programming 24/7 on every single channel would just be a recipe for frustration.
People complain that there's hardly ever anything good on TV, that there are so many channels but only a few show anything you want to watch, and even then there's only one or two things a day you're interested in out of the whole day's programming.
It just occurred to me that this is good. We don't want every single TV channel to show us stuff we enthusiastically want to watch every minute of every day, because we could never get to it all. We want a maximum of one thing worth watching on at any given moment. And, for the vast majority of the day, we don't even want that. We need to sleep, we need to go to work, we need to shower, we need to do errands and chores - all kinds of things that are incompatible with watching TV. Really all we want is a maximum of maybe 2 hours of programming that we're enthusiastic about in any given day - maybe more on a rainy Saturday, maybe less on a day when there's soccer practice. I myself find that about four shows a week meets my needs quite nicely.
But quality programming 24/7 on every single channel would just be a recipe for frustration.
The negatives of having a system
As I've blogged about before, I have a system and I find it beneficial. But there are two consequences of this that sometimes seem a bit negative.
1. I don't feel like I have spare time.
If you were to ask me what I do in my spare time, my first answer would be that I don't have spare time. I don't feel like any time spent doing something I'm "supposed to" be doing is spare, or any time that is scheduled is spare. I've been surprised to hear other people say that they do yoga in their spare time, because to me it's a chore. Time spent on things that are objectively recreational but my system requires me to do, like reading books and newspapers, doesn't feel like spare time either, because I'm just doing what I'm supposed to be doing at that moment. Even something that's pure fun like going to see Eddie Izzard or going out to dinner doesn't feel like spare time, because it's an appointment - I have to be in a specific place at a specific time, so the time isn't spare. (For this reason, appointment television doesn't feel like spare time either, and I haven't idly channel-surfed since I transitioned to idly internetting.)
2. Tasks that aren't part of the system are disruptive
When something unexpected comes up, it disrupts the system. Having to go to a place and do a thing gets in the way of completing the day's system. Even if it's seeing Eddie Izzard - something welcome, enjoyable, anticipated, unquestionably worth doing - it still interferes with the day's system. I can't do all the things I'm "supposed" to do because I have to do the exceptional thing. I haven't yet figured out how to make the system flexible enough to seamlessly incorporate exceptional circumstances. I have a few measures I do take, but I'm not there yet.
Despite these problems, I still think having a system has enormous value in the long term. It lets me get shit done without even trying. And it gives me a point where I can rightfully stop doing stuff (even if I don't reach that point many days), so I don't get overwhelmed by everything I ever have to accomplish in my entire life and feel guilty for not having paid off the mortgage and finished saving for retirement.
I also think it will be useful to have the system as an ingrained habit when I reach my declining years. When I look at my grandparents in long-term care, it seems like the difference between peace and despair is a sense of "this is what I'm going to do today" rather than sitting around waiting for something interesting to happen. If I can automate the system well enough that it survives the loss of my faculties, hopefully my elderly self will just keep going through her daily routine by rote. Wake up, go to the bathroom, collect the newspapers (maybe not print newspapers any more when I'm elderly), boot up the computer (maybe not a computer any more when I'm elderly), open the blinds, sun salutation, etc. etc. Keep moving forward, no room for despair. (Which is why I invented the system during a period of unemployment in the first place!)
And if I need a break from it, hey, spare time!
1. I don't feel like I have spare time.
If you were to ask me what I do in my spare time, my first answer would be that I don't have spare time. I don't feel like any time spent doing something I'm "supposed to" be doing is spare, or any time that is scheduled is spare. I've been surprised to hear other people say that they do yoga in their spare time, because to me it's a chore. Time spent on things that are objectively recreational but my system requires me to do, like reading books and newspapers, doesn't feel like spare time either, because I'm just doing what I'm supposed to be doing at that moment. Even something that's pure fun like going to see Eddie Izzard or going out to dinner doesn't feel like spare time, because it's an appointment - I have to be in a specific place at a specific time, so the time isn't spare. (For this reason, appointment television doesn't feel like spare time either, and I haven't idly channel-surfed since I transitioned to idly internetting.)
2. Tasks that aren't part of the system are disruptive
When something unexpected comes up, it disrupts the system. Having to go to a place and do a thing gets in the way of completing the day's system. Even if it's seeing Eddie Izzard - something welcome, enjoyable, anticipated, unquestionably worth doing - it still interferes with the day's system. I can't do all the things I'm "supposed" to do because I have to do the exceptional thing. I haven't yet figured out how to make the system flexible enough to seamlessly incorporate exceptional circumstances. I have a few measures I do take, but I'm not there yet.
Despite these problems, I still think having a system has enormous value in the long term. It lets me get shit done without even trying. And it gives me a point where I can rightfully stop doing stuff (even if I don't reach that point many days), so I don't get overwhelmed by everything I ever have to accomplish in my entire life and feel guilty for not having paid off the mortgage and finished saving for retirement.
I also think it will be useful to have the system as an ingrained habit when I reach my declining years. When I look at my grandparents in long-term care, it seems like the difference between peace and despair is a sense of "this is what I'm going to do today" rather than sitting around waiting for something interesting to happen. If I can automate the system well enough that it survives the loss of my faculties, hopefully my elderly self will just keep going through her daily routine by rote. Wake up, go to the bathroom, collect the newspapers (maybe not print newspapers any more when I'm elderly), boot up the computer (maybe not a computer any more when I'm elderly), open the blinds, sun salutation, etc. etc. Keep moving forward, no room for despair. (Which is why I invented the system during a period of unemployment in the first place!)
And if I need a break from it, hey, spare time!
Easy vs. hard, virtue vs. laziness: a braindump
1. In my last post, I mentioned how I can't cope with interior decorating but can do my job well. This is because my job is easy, or at least is easy for me.
2. Conventional wisdom dictates that you're supposed to challenge yourself, and just doing what's easy is lazy and coasting and slothful and generally non-virtuous.
3. So am I doing a bad thing by choosing a job that is easy for me? Would it have been more virtuous to go into engineering like grownups were always pressuring me to do, and do something that I struggle with and might sometimes even fail?
4. Or was it virtuous to choose something I'm good at, thereby giving the world an always-competent translator with the potential to become exceptional, rather than giving the world a mediocre engineer?
5. My approach to life as a whole is similar: I arrange things to make them easy for myself. The vast, vast majority of the time, everything I do is something I can handle without breaking a sweat, because I have eliminated the need for the things that make me struggle. Is that laziness? Or is it cleverness that I've been able to find workarounds for the hard stuff?
6. But, again, making things easier reduces the chance of failure, which makes me less of a burden to other people. If I fail to pay my rent on time or crash a car in an ill-advised attempt to drive, I'm inconveniencing others. If my little corner of the world just quietly and unremarkably runs smoothly, I'm minimizing my footprint.
7. Also, if I make my life easy, I'm less stressed. When I'm stressed, I have trouble keeping my emotions to a civilized level, which also makes me a burden to people who have the misfortune of having to interact with me, and makes my life more difficult because it's detrimental to my credibility.
8. Or is behaving like a civilized person at all times while stressed just another hard thing I should be doing to challenge myself?
9. Another one for the Things They Should Quantify list: the optimal balance between challenging yourself and not being a burden to others.
2. Conventional wisdom dictates that you're supposed to challenge yourself, and just doing what's easy is lazy and coasting and slothful and generally non-virtuous.
3. So am I doing a bad thing by choosing a job that is easy for me? Would it have been more virtuous to go into engineering like grownups were always pressuring me to do, and do something that I struggle with and might sometimes even fail?
4. Or was it virtuous to choose something I'm good at, thereby giving the world an always-competent translator with the potential to become exceptional, rather than giving the world a mediocre engineer?
5. My approach to life as a whole is similar: I arrange things to make them easy for myself. The vast, vast majority of the time, everything I do is something I can handle without breaking a sweat, because I have eliminated the need for the things that make me struggle. Is that laziness? Or is it cleverness that I've been able to find workarounds for the hard stuff?
6. But, again, making things easier reduces the chance of failure, which makes me less of a burden to other people. If I fail to pay my rent on time or crash a car in an ill-advised attempt to drive, I'm inconveniencing others. If my little corner of the world just quietly and unremarkably runs smoothly, I'm minimizing my footprint.
7. Also, if I make my life easy, I'm less stressed. When I'm stressed, I have trouble keeping my emotions to a civilized level, which also makes me a burden to people who have the misfortune of having to interact with me, and makes my life more difficult because it's detrimental to my credibility.
8. Or is behaving like a civilized person at all times while stressed just another hard thing I should be doing to challenge myself?
9. Another one for the Things They Should Quantify list: the optimal balance between challenging yourself and not being a burden to others.
What if we could objectively quantify competence?
I blogged before about how it would be interesting if we could objectively quantify luck.
With the latest round of condo drama, I've been feeling extremely incompetent because I simply cannot cope with the very notion of interior decorating, and despite the fact that many people in the world have problems that are many thousands of orders of magnitude more serious, I still can't get my head together and just get this shit done. I just can't. I'm stuck, and had to go crying for help.
But while this was going on, I was also doing some stuff for work that's sound pretty hardcore and serious, although in reality it's no big deal, I just sit down and get it done. I thought about this, and was amused at the fact that I could handle this serious work stuff without blinking but still can't even cope with the very notion of interior decorating.
Then I found myself debating: is my competence at work enough to make up for my incompetence at even thinking about interior decorating? Or does the fact that I can't help but make big hairy drama out of something as inconsequential as interior decorating far outweigh the simple everyday act of being competent at my job like most people who do a job are?
It would be interesting if we could objectively quantify this, and people could know if they're good enough at enough things or if they have room for improvement.
With the latest round of condo drama, I've been feeling extremely incompetent because I simply cannot cope with the very notion of interior decorating, and despite the fact that many people in the world have problems that are many thousands of orders of magnitude more serious, I still can't get my head together and just get this shit done. I just can't. I'm stuck, and had to go crying for help.
But while this was going on, I was also doing some stuff for work that's sound pretty hardcore and serious, although in reality it's no big deal, I just sit down and get it done. I thought about this, and was amused at the fact that I could handle this serious work stuff without blinking but still can't even cope with the very notion of interior decorating.
Then I found myself debating: is my competence at work enough to make up for my incompetence at even thinking about interior decorating? Or does the fact that I can't help but make big hairy drama out of something as inconsequential as interior decorating far outweigh the simple everyday act of being competent at my job like most people who do a job are?
It would be interesting if we could objectively quantify this, and people could know if they're good enough at enough things or if they have room for improvement.
Sunday, November 09, 2014
Reaching for the dictionary
I'm currently reading Hild by Nicola Griffith (no spoilers please, I'm only a little ways in), which is set in 7th century English and therefore contains a lot of Old English words to describe concepts for which le mot juste doesn't quite exist in modern English.
My first instinct is to look up every one of these words I don't recognize, and, before I discovered the book has a glossary in the back (which still isn't as comprehensive as I need), I was rushing to Google every single time, which is intrusive, slowing down my reading and spoiling the atmosphere.
A while back I read a book in German for the first time in years. I've always had more difficulty reading in German than in other languages, and when I was in school it would take me forever because I felt the need to look up every word I didn't understand and annotate the text as I went. But in my recent German reading endeavour, I discovered that translator brain make it possible for me to tell which parts are and aren't important, even when I don't understand every word, and to look up only the words I need to understand the story as a whole.
So, knowing full well that I can get full enjoyment and comprehension out of a story without looking up the words I don't understand, why do I feel compelled to do this when I'm reading in English?
To further complicate things, this is something I deliberately didn't do when I was a kid. Our teachers would always tell us to look up words we don't understand and keep a running list of words we'd looked up, and I never wanted to do that. I just wanted to keep reading the story.
So what's changed?
My first thought was that it might be translator brain - I live in a world where I have to know what all the English words mean. But translator brain also caused me to stop using the dictionary when reading in German, so I don't know if it can be the cause of two opposite actions.
Then I wondered if it might be because I've been reading quite a bit of historical non-fiction lately, in which I looked up all the things I didn't know ( also most often the names of objects used in historical times that are no longer used today). Since non-fiction isn't building a world for me to get lost in, it seems more "normal" to be googling as I go.
But maybe it's just Google brain! In daily life I've become so accustomed to googling every passing thought that I have trouble turning off that impulse when visiting fictional universes. I guess Hild is just the first book I've read in quite a while that leaves me with so many questions that the googling becomes intrusive.
Which perhaps means I need to be reading more challenging books...
My first instinct is to look up every one of these words I don't recognize, and, before I discovered the book has a glossary in the back (which still isn't as comprehensive as I need), I was rushing to Google every single time, which is intrusive, slowing down my reading and spoiling the atmosphere.
A while back I read a book in German for the first time in years. I've always had more difficulty reading in German than in other languages, and when I was in school it would take me forever because I felt the need to look up every word I didn't understand and annotate the text as I went. But in my recent German reading endeavour, I discovered that translator brain make it possible for me to tell which parts are and aren't important, even when I don't understand every word, and to look up only the words I need to understand the story as a whole.
So, knowing full well that I can get full enjoyment and comprehension out of a story without looking up the words I don't understand, why do I feel compelled to do this when I'm reading in English?
To further complicate things, this is something I deliberately didn't do when I was a kid. Our teachers would always tell us to look up words we don't understand and keep a running list of words we'd looked up, and I never wanted to do that. I just wanted to keep reading the story.
So what's changed?
My first thought was that it might be translator brain - I live in a world where I have to know what all the English words mean. But translator brain also caused me to stop using the dictionary when reading in German, so I don't know if it can be the cause of two opposite actions.
Then I wondered if it might be because I've been reading quite a bit of historical non-fiction lately, in which I looked up all the things I didn't know ( also most often the names of objects used in historical times that are no longer used today). Since non-fiction isn't building a world for me to get lost in, it seems more "normal" to be googling as I go.
But maybe it's just Google brain! In daily life I've become so accustomed to googling every passing thought that I have trouble turning off that impulse when visiting fictional universes. I guess Hild is just the first book I've read in quite a while that leaves me with so many questions that the googling becomes intrusive.
Which perhaps means I need to be reading more challenging books...
Saturday, November 01, 2014
A Ford family writing prompt
There's an interesting, non-politics-related, factoid about the family of Toronto mayor Rob Ford.
Rob Ford is one of four children of Doug and Diane Ford.
The names of the four children, in birth order, are: Kathy, Randy, Doug, and Rob.
Rob's brother Doug, as I'm sure you've concluded, is named after his father Doug.
But Doug Jr. is the second-born son. The first-born son is Randy, who isn't named after his father.
This is really interesting to me, because there's a story behind that! We don't know the story because it obviously isn't applicable to anything that's in the public interest, but there is a story. Either there was something so important about the name Randy that they had to name a child Randy before even naming a child after the father, or something changed between the birth of Randy and the birth of Doug that made them feel the need to name a child after the father.
I think this would make a good writing prompt. The firstborn son is not named after the father. The second son is. What's the backstory? How does this affect sibling relations?
Rob Ford is one of four children of Doug and Diane Ford.
The names of the four children, in birth order, are: Kathy, Randy, Doug, and Rob.
Rob's brother Doug, as I'm sure you've concluded, is named after his father Doug.
But Doug Jr. is the second-born son. The first-born son is Randy, who isn't named after his father.
This is really interesting to me, because there's a story behind that! We don't know the story because it obviously isn't applicable to anything that's in the public interest, but there is a story. Either there was something so important about the name Randy that they had to name a child Randy before even naming a child after the father, or something changed between the birth of Randy and the birth of Doug that made them feel the need to name a child after the father.
I think this would make a good writing prompt. The firstborn son is not named after the father. The second son is. What's the backstory? How does this affect sibling relations?
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Telling Koko the Sign-Language Gorilla about Robin Williams's death
The question in this week's Ethicist is interesting:
But as I read this, it occurred to me that if it is in fact inethical to tell Koko the Sign-Language Gorilla about Robin Williams's death because it made her sad, by the same logic, it should be inethical to tell anyone anything that will make them sad.
But when Robin Williams died, my first reaction was to tell people, even though I knew it would make them sad.
Why was this my reaction? Is it in fact ethical?
Let's explore this:
As soon as I first heard of Robin Williams's death, I tweeted it. That was to address my own emotional needs without the consideration of the needs of others. I was shocked and needed to get the shock out of my system by sharing it.
But then I went on to share it directly with people whom I knew to be particular fans of Robin Williams. My thinking was "They love Robin Williams - I must tell them this!" Even though I knew it would make them sad - almost because I knew it would make them sad, although I wasn't telling them because I wanted to make them sad. I was telling them because I felt their fondness for Robin Williams made it imperative that they know.
Of course, when we're talking about human adults in the 21st century, the fact of the matter is they would have heard anyway from media. Koko the Gorilla wouldn't have heard anyway. But the fact that they were going to hear anyway wasn't a factor in my decision to directly share this information with the people whom I knew it would make the most sad.
Let's think about it from the perspective of the person receiving the news. I have no particular emotional attachment to Robin Williams, but what if, dog forbid, it was Eddie Izzard (who, for those of you who are just tuning in, is my hero)? I would be gutted and heartbroken and genuinely in mourning. And I would very much want to know. If Eddie Izzard died and I was never informed, I'd start missing him anyway. After some time had passed, I'd notice that I hadn't heard anything from him lately. No new tours, no new projects, no new tweets. Then I'd start worrying whether everything was okay, and the worrying would persist and the lack of definitive answers would be upsetting. I'd much rather know.
This worry triggered by long-term lack of communication and creative output would apply to the Robin Williams fans in my lives, but somehow I doubt Koko the Gorilla would notice his lack of creative output.
So how I feel about being told of the death of someone I've met before and liked, but I'm not expecting future contact or creative output from?
This has happened twice in recent memory. One was my boss from my old job, who suddenly and unexpectedly died about 10 years after I'd left the job. The other was the grandson of my childhood next-door neighbours, whom I'd met when he was a toddler, and died when he was a teenager.
In both these cases, the news made me sad. With my old boss, the sadness was exacerbated by the fact that I found out too late to send my condolences (which is inapplicable for Robin Williams fans and for Koko the Gorilla). With my neighbours' grandson, the sadness was exacerbated by how young he was and the fact that he'd never gotten to enjoy adult life (which, again, is inapplicable for Robin Williams and for Koko the Gorilla).
If I hadn't found out about these deaths, I would never have noticed the absence of these people. Even if I'd somehow been back in touch with my old job for professional purposes and my old boss wasn't around, I'd assume he'd moved on to something else. And I'd completely forgotten about my interaction with next door's grandson until I heard about his death.
But, despite the fact that I felt sadness at learning of their deaths and wouldn't have felt anything if I remained ignorant of their deaths, I still feel like being informed of them was better than not being informed of them. I haven't been able to fully analyze this feeling in the course of writing this blog post, but I feel like people have the right to know when people they know die.
Therefore, I don't think informing Koko the Sign-Language Gorilla of Robin Williams's death was inethical. I think it was treating her with basic human respect.
According to press reports, Koko, the gorilla adept at sign language, seemed saddened to hear the news of the death of Robin Williams, whom the gorilla met once in 2001 (and bonded with immediately). I cannot fathom the ethical reasoning behind telling Koko about Williams’s death. What is the point of telling her about the death of someone she met once, 13 years ago? The press reports dwelt on the fact that she appeared sad. I don’t think any of us can know if she was sad or not — but even if this news opens the possibility of making her unhappy, it seems cruel to bring this into her life. What moral purpose does it serve? RITA LONG, OAKLAND, CALIF.
But as I read this, it occurred to me that if it is in fact inethical to tell Koko the Sign-Language Gorilla about Robin Williams's death because it made her sad, by the same logic, it should be inethical to tell anyone anything that will make them sad.
But when Robin Williams died, my first reaction was to tell people, even though I knew it would make them sad.
Why was this my reaction? Is it in fact ethical?
Let's explore this:
As soon as I first heard of Robin Williams's death, I tweeted it. That was to address my own emotional needs without the consideration of the needs of others. I was shocked and needed to get the shock out of my system by sharing it.
But then I went on to share it directly with people whom I knew to be particular fans of Robin Williams. My thinking was "They love Robin Williams - I must tell them this!" Even though I knew it would make them sad - almost because I knew it would make them sad, although I wasn't telling them because I wanted to make them sad. I was telling them because I felt their fondness for Robin Williams made it imperative that they know.
Of course, when we're talking about human adults in the 21st century, the fact of the matter is they would have heard anyway from media. Koko the Gorilla wouldn't have heard anyway. But the fact that they were going to hear anyway wasn't a factor in my decision to directly share this information with the people whom I knew it would make the most sad.
Let's think about it from the perspective of the person receiving the news. I have no particular emotional attachment to Robin Williams, but what if, dog forbid, it was Eddie Izzard (who, for those of you who are just tuning in, is my hero)? I would be gutted and heartbroken and genuinely in mourning. And I would very much want to know. If Eddie Izzard died and I was never informed, I'd start missing him anyway. After some time had passed, I'd notice that I hadn't heard anything from him lately. No new tours, no new projects, no new tweets. Then I'd start worrying whether everything was okay, and the worrying would persist and the lack of definitive answers would be upsetting. I'd much rather know.
This worry triggered by long-term lack of communication and creative output would apply to the Robin Williams fans in my lives, but somehow I doubt Koko the Gorilla would notice his lack of creative output.
So how I feel about being told of the death of someone I've met before and liked, but I'm not expecting future contact or creative output from?
This has happened twice in recent memory. One was my boss from my old job, who suddenly and unexpectedly died about 10 years after I'd left the job. The other was the grandson of my childhood next-door neighbours, whom I'd met when he was a toddler, and died when he was a teenager.
In both these cases, the news made me sad. With my old boss, the sadness was exacerbated by the fact that I found out too late to send my condolences (which is inapplicable for Robin Williams fans and for Koko the Gorilla). With my neighbours' grandson, the sadness was exacerbated by how young he was and the fact that he'd never gotten to enjoy adult life (which, again, is inapplicable for Robin Williams and for Koko the Gorilla).
If I hadn't found out about these deaths, I would never have noticed the absence of these people. Even if I'd somehow been back in touch with my old job for professional purposes and my old boss wasn't around, I'd assume he'd moved on to something else. And I'd completely forgotten about my interaction with next door's grandson until I heard about his death.
But, despite the fact that I felt sadness at learning of their deaths and wouldn't have felt anything if I remained ignorant of their deaths, I still feel like being informed of them was better than not being informed of them. I haven't been able to fully analyze this feeling in the course of writing this blog post, but I feel like people have the right to know when people they know die.
Therefore, I don't think informing Koko the Sign-Language Gorilla of Robin Williams's death was inethical. I think it was treating her with basic human respect.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
What if we could quantify luck?
Wouldn't it be interesting if we could objectively measure and quantify luck, and you could know exactly how much good or bad luck was involved in a particular experience, and how much you've experienced over your life?
We can to a certain extent, of course, by looking at things like our demographics and circumstances of birth. But that's far less interesting than if we could quantify day-to-day luck, as compared with other people in similar circumstances!
For example, I've blogged before about how much good luck was involved in my career path. But others have insisted that this wasn't good luck, it's because I went to school and got good grades and worked hard. (I feel like it's good luck because of the number of jobs I haven't gotten, and the number of people who did exactly what I did but didn't get jobs.)
It would be so interesting if we could objectively quantify how much luck played into this. We could get data like it was 80% luck and 20% virtue that got me my job, or that I was 130% luckier than the typical person in that particular instance but I'm only 80% as lucky as the typical person when averaged out over my lifetime, or that I got 47 Luck Points for that incident out of a total of 247 Luck Points accumulated over my lifetime.
If we could quantify luck, we could know who is the luckiest person in the world and the least lucky person in the world! Someone could actually prove mathematically that their new spouse did make them the luckiest person in the world when they agreed to get married!
We'd also know when people are having bad luck vs. bringing misfortune upon themselves through their own irresponsible behaviour. There are some people in the world who think they're just woefully unlucky when in fact it's at least somewhat their fault, and there are people who don't recognize that others are in fact unlucky and think they just need to pull their socks up. This would give people some objective perspectives in both directions.
We can to a certain extent, of course, by looking at things like our demographics and circumstances of birth. But that's far less interesting than if we could quantify day-to-day luck, as compared with other people in similar circumstances!
For example, I've blogged before about how much good luck was involved in my career path. But others have insisted that this wasn't good luck, it's because I went to school and got good grades and worked hard. (I feel like it's good luck because of the number of jobs I haven't gotten, and the number of people who did exactly what I did but didn't get jobs.)
It would be so interesting if we could objectively quantify how much luck played into this. We could get data like it was 80% luck and 20% virtue that got me my job, or that I was 130% luckier than the typical person in that particular instance but I'm only 80% as lucky as the typical person when averaged out over my lifetime, or that I got 47 Luck Points for that incident out of a total of 247 Luck Points accumulated over my lifetime.
If we could quantify luck, we could know who is the luckiest person in the world and the least lucky person in the world! Someone could actually prove mathematically that their new spouse did make them the luckiest person in the world when they agreed to get married!
We'd also know when people are having bad luck vs. bringing misfortune upon themselves through their own irresponsible behaviour. There are some people in the world who think they're just woefully unlucky when in fact it's at least somewhat their fault, and there are people who don't recognize that others are in fact unlucky and think they just need to pull their socks up. This would give people some objective perspectives in both directions.
Friday, October 03, 2014
My municipal election voting dilemma
There are currently 4 candidates for city councillor in my ward: the incumbent and 3 challengers.
The incumbent has the expected online presence. But I can't find any trace of any of the 3 challengers. I've googled with multiple combinations of keywords, I've searched social media, I've looked up possible matches on LinkedIn (multiple possibilities for each name, none of whom say they are running for city councillor). Even the City of Toronto elections website that lists all the candidates for each ward doesn't have any contact information for them - not even an office phone number, just their name and ward number. None of the organizations and media outlets that send questionnaires to each candidate have gotten responses from any of the challengers (if they were in fact able to get in touch with the challengers). None of the organizations that endorse candidates have endorsed in my ward. I not only find no evidence of any of the challengers running a campaign, I find no evidence that anyone else has been able to get in touch with the challengers in their capacity as candidates.
If this situation persists, I'm left with a dilemma: should I vote for the incumbent, or for no one?
The incumbent's record is decent enough that I don't see a reason to try to unseat him, but it's quite plausible that there could be another candidate who aligns more closely with my views. (There was in the last election.) It's also quite plausible that none of the other candidates would align as closely with my views. It all depends on what the other candidates' platforms are.
I don't think that simply showing up should be enough to win my vote. Earlier in the race, the incumbent was the only council candidate for the ward. I googled around the question of whether we'd still vote for councillor if there's only one candidate (wasn't able to find out conclusively), and decided during this process that I wouldn't vote for a candidate running unopposed. I'd be okay with them winning, of course, but I wouldn't give them a vote just for being the only one there.
So, on one hand, I feel like I similarly shouldn't give a candidate my vote just for being the only one visible. But, on the other hand, they've clearly run the best campaign. But, on the other other hand, what if they're not actually the best candidate? But, on the other other other hand, how would I ever know?
Things They Should Study: why do people get themselves put on the ballot but not run a campaign?
The incumbent has the expected online presence. But I can't find any trace of any of the 3 challengers. I've googled with multiple combinations of keywords, I've searched social media, I've looked up possible matches on LinkedIn (multiple possibilities for each name, none of whom say they are running for city councillor). Even the City of Toronto elections website that lists all the candidates for each ward doesn't have any contact information for them - not even an office phone number, just their name and ward number. None of the organizations and media outlets that send questionnaires to each candidate have gotten responses from any of the challengers (if they were in fact able to get in touch with the challengers). None of the organizations that endorse candidates have endorsed in my ward. I not only find no evidence of any of the challengers running a campaign, I find no evidence that anyone else has been able to get in touch with the challengers in their capacity as candidates.
If this situation persists, I'm left with a dilemma: should I vote for the incumbent, or for no one?
The incumbent's record is decent enough that I don't see a reason to try to unseat him, but it's quite plausible that there could be another candidate who aligns more closely with my views. (There was in the last election.) It's also quite plausible that none of the other candidates would align as closely with my views. It all depends on what the other candidates' platforms are.
I don't think that simply showing up should be enough to win my vote. Earlier in the race, the incumbent was the only council candidate for the ward. I googled around the question of whether we'd still vote for councillor if there's only one candidate (wasn't able to find out conclusively), and decided during this process that I wouldn't vote for a candidate running unopposed. I'd be okay with them winning, of course, but I wouldn't give them a vote just for being the only one there.
So, on one hand, I feel like I similarly shouldn't give a candidate my vote just for being the only one visible. But, on the other hand, they've clearly run the best campaign. But, on the other other hand, what if they're not actually the best candidate? But, on the other other other hand, how would I ever know?
Things They Should Study: why do people get themselves put on the ballot but not run a campaign?
Friday, September 26, 2014
Would it really be a bad thing if income tax disincentivized people from working more?
A piece of conventional wisdom I've been hearing ever since I was a child that higher marginal income tax rates for higher tax brackets are a problem because people would be disincentivized to work more and earn more money.
I question that notion because of the way tax brackets work (the higher tax rate is applied to the next dollar earned, not to the income as a whole, so your net salary never decreases when your gross salary increases) but today in the shower it occurred to me: if it was in fact a disincentive to working more, would that actually be a problem?
Suppose you're working a 40-hour workweek, but you feel like you'd earn enough working 30 hours and the extra 10 just aren't worth your while. So you scale back to 30.
You know what that's called? Work-life balance! Good for you!
But what if everyone did it?
If everyone scaled back their 40-hour work week to 30 hours because it just wasn't worth it to them to work any longer, then only 75% as much work would get done. If there was demand for more work to be done, employers would have to hire more people.
Know what that's called? Job creation! Good for you!
I strongly doubt that higher income tax rates in higher tax brackets would have this kind of impact to any significant extent, because most people live a lifestyle that is commensurate with their income and aren't in a position to just go "Meh, I have enough, there's no point in earning any more."
But if they did, I don't think it would be a bad thing.
I question that notion because of the way tax brackets work (the higher tax rate is applied to the next dollar earned, not to the income as a whole, so your net salary never decreases when your gross salary increases) but today in the shower it occurred to me: if it was in fact a disincentive to working more, would that actually be a problem?
Suppose you're working a 40-hour workweek, but you feel like you'd earn enough working 30 hours and the extra 10 just aren't worth your while. So you scale back to 30.
You know what that's called? Work-life balance! Good for you!
But what if everyone did it?
If everyone scaled back their 40-hour work week to 30 hours because it just wasn't worth it to them to work any longer, then only 75% as much work would get done. If there was demand for more work to be done, employers would have to hire more people.
Know what that's called? Job creation! Good for you!
I strongly doubt that higher income tax rates in higher tax brackets would have this kind of impact to any significant extent, because most people live a lifestyle that is commensurate with their income and aren't in a position to just go "Meh, I have enough, there's no point in earning any more."
But if they did, I don't think it would be a bad thing.
Tuesday, July 01, 2014
Dementia brings back the monsters under the bed?
I've been reading Love and Forgetting: A husband and wife's journey through dementia by Julie Macfie Sobol & Ken Sobol, which tell the story of Ken Sobol's dementia (Lewy Body Disease) both in the first person and from his wife's (Julie's) perspective.
The following passage is a first-person description of the hallucinations he'd have. As usual, any typos are my own:
My monsters very rarely moved around, instead preferring to stand around menacingly. I was never brave enough to engage with them so I don't know what would have happened. But his description of how everyday objects would turn into apparitions really reminds me of my childhood monsters.
In the past few years, with my grandmothers declining and various people around me having babies, I've been thinking that old age in some ways resembles a reversion to early childhood. But it never occurred to me that that could apply to cognitive processes as well.
The following passage is a first-person description of the hallucinations he'd have. As usual, any typos are my own:
Moving day was October 1, 2007. When I got up the first night at the new place to use the washroom, I was startled to find that the stacks of boxes, floor lamps and other scattered leftover from the move were providing material for new kinds of bizarre shapes. The forms were back again the next night. In fact, it got to so that virtually every evening I would find waiting for me outside the bedroom door a troupe of odd, inexplicable creatures doing their best to shake my grip on reality.What struck me about this passage is the extent to which his apparitions resembled the monsters that haunted me when I was a very small child.
These were not like the alarming nighttime apparitions I'd seen in the hospital after the TURP procedure. the new ones came in two basic guises: animals of various sorts - mostly small, skittering creatures - and tall, thin types. Sometimes they ignored me. Sometimes, but only if I turned toward them and started, they became animated. Then, for example, the low rectangular radiator in the hallway might suddenly convert itself into a small sheep; a cluster of scarves on the coat hook might become a high fashion hat; an Inuit print could spring to live as a circle of wolves following me with their eyes. (A litho resembling such a wolf scene hangs on the wall of our home office.) Some of the more feminine figures, if that is the proper designation for them, carried what appeared to be small creatures in their arms.
At first, I freaked. No surprise there.But then I noticed that whenever I approached them, they would immediately rise and move off in a slow motion down the hallway, or simply disintegrate on the spot, before reforming into normal lamps, jackets and whatever other objects in the darkness had led me to imagine their existence.
On the nights that followed, some of the forms even entered our bedroom and then at times, I had to waken Julie to make sure they went away. (Not that she eve saw them, of course, but her voice was reassuring to me and commanding to the apparitions.) Ultimately, it seemed clear to me they meant no harm nor presented any real danger. All the same, when I later came across a reference book that called them "benign visions," I was relieved.
I rarely got a glimpse of the hall dwellers' faces; I wasn't even sure they had any. They never spoke, and except for one accidental instance, they always managed to fade away before I made physical contact. The incident where I touched one took place as I came out of the bathroom one evening and tripped on something (a shoe, I think,), losing my balance. As I thrust out my arm toward the wall to catch myself, so did a vaguely alpaca-like creature. We met and touched at a corner - Julie's terrycloth bathrobe and my shaggy Irish wool sweater hanging on the coat rack. The creature and I both sprang back in alarm. When I looked again it had disappeared, fading into the woodwork.
I didn't know what to make of this tactile experience; I still don't. But as time passed, I grew so accustomed to the apparitions that I began looking forward, albeit in a slightly uneasy way, to seeing what form they would take each night.
Then there were those other apparitions, the ones that could come at any time and that manifested themselves not as things I see, but as things watching me. They lurked just outside the corner of my eye; if I glanced their way, they also would run away, as if they didn't like being seen. (Of course, maybe they were just getting old and cranky, like the rest of us when we reach a certain age.) A few times I found myself addressing one of them, momentarily forgetting that I was asking for an opinion from a pile of clothing or perhaps quarreling with something as vague as a wisp or memory.
My monsters very rarely moved around, instead preferring to stand around menacingly. I was never brave enough to engage with them so I don't know what would have happened. But his description of how everyday objects would turn into apparitions really reminds me of my childhood monsters.
In the past few years, with my grandmothers declining and various people around me having babies, I've been thinking that old age in some ways resembles a reversion to early childhood. But it never occurred to me that that could apply to cognitive processes as well.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
What if the real problem is on the other side of the "confidence gap"?
I recently blogged about The Agenda's blog post about their difficulty booking female guests. Steve Paikin framed the problem as prospective female guests not wanting to go on TV when they didn't feel they were experts in the subject matter, but, as a viewer, I think it's more of a problem that The Agenda is willing to books guests who aren't up on the subject matter but will read up on it before going on TV (something Steve Paikin presents as laudable.)
I had a similar thought when I read the article circulating about the "confidence gap", which proposes that men advance more than women because men are more confident, i.e. more likely to loudly declare "Yes, I can do that!" regardless of whether they actually can.
Why are they assuming that the men's behaviour is baseline and correct? What if the problem is in fact that people who are overconfident are being unduly rewarded? What if the problem is that the system isn't set up to recognize people who have a fair and accurate assessment of their abilities? What if we could circumvent the Peter Principle by figuring out a way to accurately and proactively identify and recognize people's actual objective skill levels and set them up with commensurate responsibilities and compensation?
Disregarding my role as an employee, if I look at this solely in my capacity as a client, as a part of the economy, as a part of society, I find it unhelpful that people would get promoted and rewarded simply for being loud. In my capacity as a client, as a part of the economy, as a part of society, I need people in positions of power and expertise and authority not just to be the most competent, but also to have a realistic sense of their own abilities and limitations. It is very important that they only say "Yes, I can definitely do that" when they can definitely do that. If they're running around saying "Yes, I can definitely do that" when they don't actually know because they've never done it before but they're willing to give it a whirl, that just make things worse. We need to be able to trust the professionals and experts of the world to actually be competent professionals and experts, and we can't trust them if their best credential is that they're loud. This creates a world where you have to approach everything with caution - Can that shoemaker in fact fix my shoes? Can that doctor in fact do that operation on me? - even though you don't have the expertise to independently evaluate these people in the first place. That would make things worse for everyone, so we need to make sure the people responsible for putting people in positions of expertise and authority are able to assess them based on actual expertise.
The people who are applying only if they meet 100% of the qualifications are doing the job poster the basic human decency of taking them at their word. If they are being punished for that, the system is broken.
This lady's manager thinks she is excellent in every respect, but does not have as accurate a sense of her own skill set as perhaps she should. She truly doesn't realize that, despite the fact that she's a relative newbie, the other people in the room don't see the thing that she sees or don't have the idea she does, rather than having already thought of and dismissed it (I've discussed my own experience with this phenomenon here). So she needs to have this demonstrated to her with specific examples and be set up for success. That's where the manager comes in - as someone who sees her work as well as others' and is more experienced in this field, the manager is the best person to give her a sense of what her own skill set is - strengths and areas for improvement. But because he doesn't know how to do this part of his job without raising offence, her career progression suffers.
He's in this management job without knowing how to boost a shy, new employee's confidence - and instead coming up with the ridiculously ineffective idea of grading people on confidence. He should be setting her up for success by giving her openings to see first-hand how her contributions are valuable and necessary, but instead he's setting her up for failure by adding a performance-review item that correlates with her greatest weakness, without doing anything to help her improve other than perhaps telling her to improve.
Which leads me to wonder: did this manager, who can't figure out how to effectively coach a quiet employee without causing offence, get his management job simply because he was the loudest person in the room?
***
I should also add my personal experience with confidence: the more confident I get, the more willing I am to admit when I don't know something or don't have a certain skill set. When I was just starting out my tech support job in university, I pretended I knew everything everyone was talking about out of imposter syndrome, terrified that they'd mock me or fire me if I (a teenager who had never been more than a personal home user - and this in the 20th century) admitted that I hadn't heard of reimaging a computer. I just said "Yes, of course I know what that is," and frantically muddled my way through.
But as I've had more and more experience validating the fact that what I know is acceptable and I won't get in trouble for not knowing everything, as I've been influenced by Eddie Izzard and learned how to do Entitlement, I've become more and more confident - confident enough to accurately represent and express how capable I do or don't feel in a given situation.
For me, saying "Yes, I definitely can" when I wasn't certain I could was a symptom of lacking confidence. Saying "Probably, but I'm not certain," or "Sorry, I have no experience in that," or "I'll give it a try but I can make no guarantees" is a sign of confidence.
I had a similar thought when I read the article circulating about the "confidence gap", which proposes that men advance more than women because men are more confident, i.e. more likely to loudly declare "Yes, I can do that!" regardless of whether they actually can.
Why are they assuming that the men's behaviour is baseline and correct? What if the problem is in fact that people who are overconfident are being unduly rewarded? What if the problem is that the system isn't set up to recognize people who have a fair and accurate assessment of their abilities? What if we could circumvent the Peter Principle by figuring out a way to accurately and proactively identify and recognize people's actual objective skill levels and set them up with commensurate responsibilities and compensation?
Disregarding my role as an employee, if I look at this solely in my capacity as a client, as a part of the economy, as a part of society, I find it unhelpful that people would get promoted and rewarded simply for being loud. In my capacity as a client, as a part of the economy, as a part of society, I need people in positions of power and expertise and authority not just to be the most competent, but also to have a realistic sense of their own abilities and limitations. It is very important that they only say "Yes, I can definitely do that" when they can definitely do that. If they're running around saying "Yes, I can definitely do that" when they don't actually know because they've never done it before but they're willing to give it a whirl, that just make things worse. We need to be able to trust the professionals and experts of the world to actually be competent professionals and experts, and we can't trust them if their best credential is that they're loud. This creates a world where you have to approach everything with caution - Can that shoemaker in fact fix my shoes? Can that doctor in fact do that operation on me? - even though you don't have the expertise to independently evaluate these people in the first place. That would make things worse for everyone, so we need to make sure the people responsible for putting people in positions of expertise and authority are able to assess them based on actual expertise.
Talking with Ehrlinger, we were reminded of something Hewlett-Packard discovered several years ago, when it was trying to figure out how to get more women into top management positions. A review of personnel records found that women working at HP applied for a promotion only when they believed they met 100 percent of the qualifications listed for the job. Men were happy to apply when they thought they could meet 60 percent of the job requirements. At HP, and in study after study, the data confirm what we instinctively know. Underqualified and underprepared men don’t think twice about leaning in.Are these men who meet 60% of the qualifications getting the promotions? If so, there's something wrong. Why are they listing qualifications if they aren't required? Why are they considering applicants who don't meet the qualifications if the qualifications are required?
The people who are applying only if they meet 100% of the qualifications are doing the job poster the basic human decency of taking them at their word. If they are being punished for that, the system is broken.
We were curious to find out whether male managers were aware of a confidence gap between male and female employees. And indeed, when we raised the notion with a number of male executives who supervised women, they expressed enormous frustration. They said they believed that a lack of confidence was fundamentally holding back women at their companies, but they had shied away from saying anything, because they were terrified of sounding sexist. One male senior partner at a law firm told us the story of a young female associate who was excellent in every respect, except that she didn’t speak up in client meetings. His takeaway was that she wasn’t confident enough to handle the client’s account. But he didn’t know how to raise the issue without causing offense. He eventually concluded that confidence should be a formal part of the performance-review process, because it is such an important aspect of doing business.How to raise the issue is very simple: in the meeting, you say "[Young Female Associate], what do you think? Do you see any points that haven't been addressed?" Then, after she says something useful, you mention to her after the meeting "I'm very glad you mentioned [useful thing] in that meeting! It was very important, and no one else seems to have thought of it." Lather, rinse, repeat until you reach a critical mass of feedback (which shouldn't take super long - half a dozen meetings at most.)
This lady's manager thinks she is excellent in every respect, but does not have as accurate a sense of her own skill set as perhaps she should. She truly doesn't realize that, despite the fact that she's a relative newbie, the other people in the room don't see the thing that she sees or don't have the idea she does, rather than having already thought of and dismissed it (I've discussed my own experience with this phenomenon here). So she needs to have this demonstrated to her with specific examples and be set up for success. That's where the manager comes in - as someone who sees her work as well as others' and is more experienced in this field, the manager is the best person to give her a sense of what her own skill set is - strengths and areas for improvement. But because he doesn't know how to do this part of his job without raising offence, her career progression suffers.
He's in this management job without knowing how to boost a shy, new employee's confidence - and instead coming up with the ridiculously ineffective idea of grading people on confidence. He should be setting her up for success by giving her openings to see first-hand how her contributions are valuable and necessary, but instead he's setting her up for failure by adding a performance-review item that correlates with her greatest weakness, without doing anything to help her improve other than perhaps telling her to improve.
Which leads me to wonder: did this manager, who can't figure out how to effectively coach a quiet employee without causing offence, get his management job simply because he was the loudest person in the room?
***
I should also add my personal experience with confidence: the more confident I get, the more willing I am to admit when I don't know something or don't have a certain skill set. When I was just starting out my tech support job in university, I pretended I knew everything everyone was talking about out of imposter syndrome, terrified that they'd mock me or fire me if I (a teenager who had never been more than a personal home user - and this in the 20th century) admitted that I hadn't heard of reimaging a computer. I just said "Yes, of course I know what that is," and frantically muddled my way through.
But as I've had more and more experience validating the fact that what I know is acceptable and I won't get in trouble for not knowing everything, as I've been influenced by Eddie Izzard and learned how to do Entitlement, I've become more and more confident - confident enough to accurately represent and express how capable I do or don't feel in a given situation.
For me, saying "Yes, I definitely can" when I wasn't certain I could was a symptom of lacking confidence. Saying "Probably, but I'm not certain," or "Sorry, I have no experience in that," or "I'll give it a try but I can make no guarantees" is a sign of confidence.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Filmed before a live studio audience
Some people dislike TV comedies that are filmed before a live studio audience, because they find the sound of audience laughter disruptive.
It surprises me that people who are my age and older can find this disruptive, because for the longest time it was baseline for comedies. Cosby Show, Cheers, MASH, Gilligan's Island, I Love Lucy, Friends, Seinfeld, All In The Family, The Brady Bunch, Full House, Fresh Prince, even Monty Python - all kinds of major comedies over all eras of 20th century television had a live studio audience or a laugh track.
As moved from childhood to adulthood, I moved from children's television to sitcoms. I suspect many people made the same transition, since adult (in the sense of "not specifically intended for children") comedy is generally more comprehensible and entertaining to a young person than adult drama. And all the sitcoms were filmed before a live studio audience.
So basically everything that formed my whole concept of what television actually is was filmed before a live studio audience. And it seems like the same situation would stand for a lot of people.
This is why it surprises me that people whose formative television viewing was on similar shows would find it disruptive or distracting. It seems like it should be no more disruptive distracting than watching TV in black and white if your first television set was black and white. It might not be your very favourite format choice, but your brain should pretty much be immune to it.
It surprises me that people who are my age and older can find this disruptive, because for the longest time it was baseline for comedies. Cosby Show, Cheers, MASH, Gilligan's Island, I Love Lucy, Friends, Seinfeld, All In The Family, The Brady Bunch, Full House, Fresh Prince, even Monty Python - all kinds of major comedies over all eras of 20th century television had a live studio audience or a laugh track.
As moved from childhood to adulthood, I moved from children's television to sitcoms. I suspect many people made the same transition, since adult (in the sense of "not specifically intended for children") comedy is generally more comprehensible and entertaining to a young person than adult drama. And all the sitcoms were filmed before a live studio audience.
So basically everything that formed my whole concept of what television actually is was filmed before a live studio audience. And it seems like the same situation would stand for a lot of people.
This is why it surprises me that people whose formative television viewing was on similar shows would find it disruptive or distracting. It seems like it should be no more disruptive distracting than watching TV in black and white if your first television set was black and white. It might not be your very favourite format choice, but your brain should pretty much be immune to it.
Wednesday, April 02, 2014
Does Mozilla actually benefit from me using Firefox?
So there are calls to boycott Firefox because its CEO has made anti-gay political donations.
My question: does my using Firefox actually benefit Mozilla or its CEO in any way? I didn't pay for it. I'm not being shown any advertising. Does it actually have any impact on them?
This question is not purely academic. As I blogged about before, I don't want to use Chrome because I don't like Google's sneaky attempts to manipulate me into using it. But if we should be boycotting Firefox too, what am I supposed to do? Use a subpar browser? (I've used IE and Opera, and find them both less useful than Firefox or Chrome.)
On one hand, it seems more important to choose not to use Chrome, because my reasons for doing so are directly related to the company's business practices as they affect me as a consumer. They keep inconveniencing me in an attempt to get me to use their browser, so I shouldn't reward this by using their browser.
On the other hand, you can't let convenience overrule a political boycott, or that completely defeats the purpose of a political boycott.
On the other other hand, if Google so very badly wants me to use Chrome (which users don't pay for either), there must be some benefit to a company if people use their browser. Although Google and Mozilla have different corporate structures. Google has shareholders and stuff, whereas Mozilla doesn't. The internet tells me that the Mozilla Corporation is not non-profit, but its profits support the Mozilla Foundation, which is.
Normally I'd go ahead with the boycott, but in this case the user-friendly alternative is something I'm already boycotting. Not sure what to do here.
Any thoughts?
Update: Some info via @AmyRBrown on Twitter (you can see the full conversation here):
A primary revenue source for Mozilla is money paid to them by Google when people access Google via the Firefox search box. (The FAQ of Mozilla's 2012 Annual Report confirms this, and adds that they also get search box revenue from "Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon, eBay and others".)
So an effective economic boycott would be not to use Google or any other revenue-generating search function in the search box.
Changing the search engine to Duck Duck Go should generate the same results without Google involvement, and there are also unofficial Google toolbar add-ons for Firefox that don't pass through the search box and therefore generate revenues.
I haven't yet figured out if my own preference of Wikipedia in the search bar generates revenues, or if there are other benefits to my using Firefox even if I'm not generating revenues for them.
My question: does my using Firefox actually benefit Mozilla or its CEO in any way? I didn't pay for it. I'm not being shown any advertising. Does it actually have any impact on them?
This question is not purely academic. As I blogged about before, I don't want to use Chrome because I don't like Google's sneaky attempts to manipulate me into using it. But if we should be boycotting Firefox too, what am I supposed to do? Use a subpar browser? (I've used IE and Opera, and find them both less useful than Firefox or Chrome.)
On one hand, it seems more important to choose not to use Chrome, because my reasons for doing so are directly related to the company's business practices as they affect me as a consumer. They keep inconveniencing me in an attempt to get me to use their browser, so I shouldn't reward this by using their browser.
On the other hand, you can't let convenience overrule a political boycott, or that completely defeats the purpose of a political boycott.
On the other other hand, if Google so very badly wants me to use Chrome (which users don't pay for either), there must be some benefit to a company if people use their browser. Although Google and Mozilla have different corporate structures. Google has shareholders and stuff, whereas Mozilla doesn't. The internet tells me that the Mozilla Corporation is not non-profit, but its profits support the Mozilla Foundation, which is.
Normally I'd go ahead with the boycott, but in this case the user-friendly alternative is something I'm already boycotting. Not sure what to do here.
Any thoughts?
Update: Some info via @AmyRBrown on Twitter (you can see the full conversation here):
A primary revenue source for Mozilla is money paid to them by Google when people access Google via the Firefox search box. (The FAQ of Mozilla's 2012 Annual Report confirms this, and adds that they also get search box revenue from "Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon, eBay and others".)
So an effective economic boycott would be not to use Google or any other revenue-generating search function in the search box.
Changing the search engine to Duck Duck Go should generate the same results without Google involvement, and there are also unofficial Google toolbar add-ons for Firefox that don't pass through the search box and therefore generate revenues.
I haven't yet figured out if my own preference of Wikipedia in the search bar generates revenues, or if there are other benefits to my using Firefox even if I'm not generating revenues for them.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
So why does Ron Swanson work for the government anyway?
In last week's Parks and Recreation, Ron Swanson spent a day renovating some office space that needed to be renovated (sending away the contractors whose actual job it was), and said it was the best day of working for the government he'd ever had.
This has me wondering: why does he work for the government in the first place?
Ron is skilled at and enjoys building things and fixing things. He also believes this is an honourable thing to do with one's time and energy. By contrast, he does not enjoy government work, thinks it's not honourable, and thinks it's a waste of time and energy.
As the character develops over the seasons, it becomes apparent that being honourable and living authentically is important to him, and that he respects people who stand up for and work for what they believe in.
So why would he betray his core beliefs for a job when he could easily earn money doing something that he believes in, enjoys, and is good at? (On top of the fact that it's been established that he's independently wealthy?)
I know that the character of Ron Swanson originated because the series creators heard of a a real life libertarian government official who doesn't believe in government. But if they're going to develop the character to be authentic and honourable (which I do think was a good character decision - I think the show started getting good when Ron started being honourable and Leslie started being competent) they'd have to explain why he's doing this job he doesn't believe in.
It would be a lot more plausible if he simply needed work, like everyone does. Sometimes people have to do things that don't align perfectly with their beliefs in order to put food on the table. That would be interesting, and realistic, and perhaps even a sympathetic character point depending on how it's written. But as it is, they've written themselves into a plot hole.
This has me wondering: why does he work for the government in the first place?
Ron is skilled at and enjoys building things and fixing things. He also believes this is an honourable thing to do with one's time and energy. By contrast, he does not enjoy government work, thinks it's not honourable, and thinks it's a waste of time and energy.
As the character develops over the seasons, it becomes apparent that being honourable and living authentically is important to him, and that he respects people who stand up for and work for what they believe in.
So why would he betray his core beliefs for a job when he could easily earn money doing something that he believes in, enjoys, and is good at? (On top of the fact that it's been established that he's independently wealthy?)
I know that the character of Ron Swanson originated because the series creators heard of a a real life libertarian government official who doesn't believe in government. But if they're going to develop the character to be authentic and honourable (which I do think was a good character decision - I think the show started getting good when Ron started being honourable and Leslie started being competent) they'd have to explain why he's doing this job he doesn't believe in.
It would be a lot more plausible if he simply needed work, like everyone does. Sometimes people have to do things that don't align perfectly with their beliefs in order to put food on the table. That would be interesting, and realistic, and perhaps even a sympathetic character point depending on how it's written. But as it is, they've written themselves into a plot hole.
Saturday, March 08, 2014
Typos and word counts
Sometimes I'm proofreading a translation or looking back at an old blog post, and I'm shocked to discover that I typed "their" when I was supposed to use "there". WTF? I know the difference full well! Why did the wrong one come out of my fingers?
Of course, my thoughts then turned to dementia. I never made these mistakes when I was a kid in school! Am I losing my mind??
But in the shower this morning, I realized there's a major difference between what I'm doing now and what I was doing in school: in my adult life, between translating and writing and blogging and emailing and chatting and assorted casual internet use, I invariably write thousands and thousands of words every day. I probably write more words in a day in my adult life than I'd write in a semester of any given class when I was in school.
I guess they had us write so little in school because the teachers had to mark all of it. If each teacher taught 100 students in any given semester (because it's plausible and makes the math easy) and they had the students write even 1,000 words a day, they'd have to read and mark 100,000 words a day, which would be rather a lot to do every single day.
But this means that, in adult life, I can make as many stupid brainfarts in a day as I did in a semester in school before I have to start worrying about losing my faculties.
Of course, my thoughts then turned to dementia. I never made these mistakes when I was a kid in school! Am I losing my mind??
But in the shower this morning, I realized there's a major difference between what I'm doing now and what I was doing in school: in my adult life, between translating and writing and blogging and emailing and chatting and assorted casual internet use, I invariably write thousands and thousands of words every day. I probably write more words in a day in my adult life than I'd write in a semester of any given class when I was in school.
I guess they had us write so little in school because the teachers had to mark all of it. If each teacher taught 100 students in any given semester (because it's plausible and makes the math easy) and they had the students write even 1,000 words a day, they'd have to read and mark 100,000 words a day, which would be rather a lot to do every single day.
But this means that, in adult life, I can make as many stupid brainfarts in a day as I did in a semester in school before I have to start worrying about losing my faculties.
Thursday, March 06, 2014
Saving face
Walking home today, I saw a lady walking two dogs on a patch of grass near my building, and another lady started yelling out the window at her to pick up her dogs' poo.
I have no horse in this race - I neither own a dog nor use the grass - but the way the lady was yelling out the window inspired in me a feeling of "I don't want her to win!" and my mind, unbidden, promptly started brainstorming ways to make window-yelling lady feel bad or to give dog-walking lady a perfectly good reason to walk away without picking up her dogs' poo. I pondered whether there was a way to make one of the dogs run away, and then Dog-Walking Lady would have to chase him. I calculated whether I could lob a dog poo high enough that it would land in Window-Yelling Lady's stupid yelly face. I contemplated yelling back at Window-Yelling Lady "The dogs aren't even finished pooing yet!" (Which was true.) But I couldn't think of anything that would be effective, not escalate the situation, and not make me look crazier than Window-Yelling Lady. So I just kept walking and didn't see how the situation ultimately played out
But this provided a perfect example of something I learned back in my professional writing classes: you have to give your interlocutor an opportunity to save face. The way Window-Yelling Lady was making a big scene, trying to embarrass Dog-Walking Lady, and just kept yelling and yelling in a way that suggested her intention was to keep yelling until Dog-Walking Lady picked up the poo, created a situation where picking up the poo would be appearing to let Window-Yelling Lady win. If Dog-Walking Lady had waited until her dogs both finished their business and picked up their poo - even if this were here intention all along - it would look like she did it in response to Window-Yelling Lady's yelling. There was no way for Dog-Walking Lady to give Window-Yelling Lady or any other random onlooker the impression that she was intending the whole time to pick up after her dogs as soon as they actually finished pooing. As a result, because she has no way of not looking bad, the temptation increases to exact vengeance on the person who's making her look bad by leaving the poo behind.
However, if, instead of yelling through the window and publicly embarrassing Dog-Walking Lady, Window-Yelling Lady had instead chosen an approach that appeared to give Dog-Walking Lady the benefit of the doubt - for example, offer her a baggie and say "It's the worst when they just have to go and you don't have a baggie, isn't it?" This not only saves face for Dog-Walking Lady by treating her like a perfectly reasonable dog owner, it creates a scenario where Dog-Walking Lady would have to introduce assholicness into the situation by walking away and leaving the poo behind even though the nice neighbour lady had just helped her out by giving her a baggie.
It also reminded me of something that comes up in advice column forums. Sometimes, for letters dealing with fraught social situations where one party is not exhibiting the desired behaviour, the advice columnist or various commenters might suggest an approach that presents the desired behaviour as a pro tip (e.g. "We've found it helpful to respond actionable emails acknowledging that we've received them - just a quick "Thanks!" will do - so then the other person doesn't have to worry about whether we got it.") or by requesting it as a bit of a favour in response to a personal quirk or a one-off situation (e.g. "Could you do me a favour and let me know you got this email? The mail server has been erratic lately.") However, there are always people who always argue against these more subtle approaches, saying you should simply tell the person to engage in the desired behaviour ("Stop not answering your email!"), regardless of whether you have any authority over them, often even saying that you should tell them to engage in the desired behaviour pre-emptively (the email example doesn't work for this one, but it does apply to my mother's habit of telling me to hang up my coat before I've even taken off my coat, or telling me to say thank-you before I've even opened the present.)
I've been trying for some time to articulate why I don't think this approach would be productive, and Window-Yelling Lady showed me why. It creates a win-lose situation, and labels the person you want to engage in the desired behaviour as Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour. If they do it, it looks like they only did it just because you told them to, and therefore your nagging is necessary. If they don't do it, it makes them look like Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour, and therefore your nagging is necessary. It doesn't leave them any room to be seen as Being Good or give them any credit for their positive actions, so their only remaining incentive for the desired behaviour (other than the fact that it's right, which the nagger obviously doesn't believe is sufficient incentive) is to stop the nagger from nagging, which probably isn't going to work anyway because the nagger is going to think their nagging caused the desired behaviour.
But if you allow them to save face, it creates a win-win situation: you've extracted the desired behaviour from them, and they get to look like they're doing it on their own initiative.
I have no horse in this race - I neither own a dog nor use the grass - but the way the lady was yelling out the window inspired in me a feeling of "I don't want her to win!" and my mind, unbidden, promptly started brainstorming ways to make window-yelling lady feel bad or to give dog-walking lady a perfectly good reason to walk away without picking up her dogs' poo. I pondered whether there was a way to make one of the dogs run away, and then Dog-Walking Lady would have to chase him. I calculated whether I could lob a dog poo high enough that it would land in Window-Yelling Lady's stupid yelly face. I contemplated yelling back at Window-Yelling Lady "The dogs aren't even finished pooing yet!" (Which was true.) But I couldn't think of anything that would be effective, not escalate the situation, and not make me look crazier than Window-Yelling Lady. So I just kept walking and didn't see how the situation ultimately played out
But this provided a perfect example of something I learned back in my professional writing classes: you have to give your interlocutor an opportunity to save face. The way Window-Yelling Lady was making a big scene, trying to embarrass Dog-Walking Lady, and just kept yelling and yelling in a way that suggested her intention was to keep yelling until Dog-Walking Lady picked up the poo, created a situation where picking up the poo would be appearing to let Window-Yelling Lady win. If Dog-Walking Lady had waited until her dogs both finished their business and picked up their poo - even if this were here intention all along - it would look like she did it in response to Window-Yelling Lady's yelling. There was no way for Dog-Walking Lady to give Window-Yelling Lady or any other random onlooker the impression that she was intending the whole time to pick up after her dogs as soon as they actually finished pooing. As a result, because she has no way of not looking bad, the temptation increases to exact vengeance on the person who's making her look bad by leaving the poo behind.
However, if, instead of yelling through the window and publicly embarrassing Dog-Walking Lady, Window-Yelling Lady had instead chosen an approach that appeared to give Dog-Walking Lady the benefit of the doubt - for example, offer her a baggie and say "It's the worst when they just have to go and you don't have a baggie, isn't it?" This not only saves face for Dog-Walking Lady by treating her like a perfectly reasonable dog owner, it creates a scenario where Dog-Walking Lady would have to introduce assholicness into the situation by walking away and leaving the poo behind even though the nice neighbour lady had just helped her out by giving her a baggie.
It also reminded me of something that comes up in advice column forums. Sometimes, for letters dealing with fraught social situations where one party is not exhibiting the desired behaviour, the advice columnist or various commenters might suggest an approach that presents the desired behaviour as a pro tip (e.g. "We've found it helpful to respond actionable emails acknowledging that we've received them - just a quick "Thanks!" will do - so then the other person doesn't have to worry about whether we got it.") or by requesting it as a bit of a favour in response to a personal quirk or a one-off situation (e.g. "Could you do me a favour and let me know you got this email? The mail server has been erratic lately.") However, there are always people who always argue against these more subtle approaches, saying you should simply tell the person to engage in the desired behaviour ("Stop not answering your email!"), regardless of whether you have any authority over them, often even saying that you should tell them to engage in the desired behaviour pre-emptively (the email example doesn't work for this one, but it does apply to my mother's habit of telling me to hang up my coat before I've even taken off my coat, or telling me to say thank-you before I've even opened the present.)
I've been trying for some time to articulate why I don't think this approach would be productive, and Window-Yelling Lady showed me why. It creates a win-lose situation, and labels the person you want to engage in the desired behaviour as Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour. If they do it, it looks like they only did it just because you told them to, and therefore your nagging is necessary. If they don't do it, it makes them look like Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour, and therefore your nagging is necessary. It doesn't leave them any room to be seen as Being Good or give them any credit for their positive actions, so their only remaining incentive for the desired behaviour (other than the fact that it's right, which the nagger obviously doesn't believe is sufficient incentive) is to stop the nagger from nagging, which probably isn't going to work anyway because the nagger is going to think their nagging caused the desired behaviour.
But if you allow them to save face, it creates a win-win situation: you've extracted the desired behaviour from them, and they get to look like they're doing it on their own initiative.
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