Bumblebee Labs Blog - Latest Comments

Re: the ego dilemma

Joe — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:10:20 -0000

You make 2 points.

1. People often times aren't interested in knowing the truth and in those cases the observer position doesn't help them.

2. Sometimes there isn't enough information to make the correct decision, and even with all the information at hand there is no proof to your specialness even though you are special.

Here are my responses.

1. I was responding to the part of your post where you said that knowing about the dilemma doesn't help you even if you want to be helped. It is in those cases where I'm offering a solution (as in the cases of my clients, they want to change what isn't working in their life).

2. This problem has nothing to do with the ego. It is simply a case of not enough information. The same issue would come up when deciding on which route to take to work where you have incomplete information. As I said in my original response
"If the question at hand wouldn't be solved any better by an uninterested party who has all of the information that the person involved, then this has nothing to do with ego. It's called "the not having all the information dilemma"."

You also said "If you are able to teach the neutral observer decision to people easily, I'm impressed. Often, what happens is that people will accept the logic of the neutral observer decision intellectually but then arbitrarily make the decision that the neutral observer is wrong."

Here lies the secret of the neutral observer position. It's not an intellectual exercise! It's an exercise of imagination, subjective experience, and emotion. We don't "prove" anything, we explore perceptions for a different emotional standpoint. When done as an imagination game it is very very powerful and very very effective.
Use the exact words and formula I gave for creating a powerful experience. The exact words I use have been carefully refined after working with it many many times.

Joe

Re: the ego dilemma

Shalmanese — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:38:48 -0000

Joe: If you are able to teach the neutral observer decision to people easily, I'm impressed. Often, what happens is that people will accept the logic of the neutral observer decision intellectually but then arbitrarily make the decision that the neutral observer is wrong.

Try telling a Christian that there exists equally devoted believers of a mutually contradictory faith. Every time I've done it, they get to a certain point of reasoning before defaulting back to "they must be wrong and I must be right because I'm special".

But the dilemma doesn't come from not being able to apply the neutral observer decision, the dilemma comes from not knowing when it applies. Sometimes, the neutral observer is wrong, you genuinely are special and you should believe in your specialness. It's being able to distinguish these instances from when your mind is fooling itself that is the dilemma.

Re: the ego dilemma

Joe — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:54:13 -0000

I don't quite understand the issue here.

If the question at hand wouldn't be solved any better by an uninterested party who has all of the information that the person involved, then this has nothing to do with ego. It's called "the not having all the information dilemma".

I would presume that we are talking about a case where your ability to process the information and make a rational decision is warped because of the fact that you strongly desire a certain outcome. It's like any situation where a strong emotion destroys our logical decision making process. Just observe how any depressed person comes to the logical conclusion that "it's not worth it and it wont work" and after taking his meds comes to the logical conclusion that "it is worth it and it will work".

The solution is rather simple and quick, but it takes 2 minutes of hard work. Close your eyes and imagine that you are an outside observer looking at yourself, who knows all the information you know, but isn't affected at all by this decision. Imagine looking through the observer eyes, hearing through his ears, and feeling the observers emotions (curiosity, disinterest, and any other observer emotion you can think up). Really get into it, take a full minute to imagine the scene. THEN have a go at the decision. :)

This process, which I call the "neutral observer decision", is one that I teach to all of my clients and is one that works very very well. Teaching it to yourself is even easier because there is less of a temptation to be dishonest as to appear that you didn't make a mistake.

If after all this you don't have a clear solution, it simply means that you lack enough information. This has nothing to do with ego at all.

Joe

Re: Introducing myself…

LaylasunZahell — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:34:52 -0000

Installing faux wood blinds is also not a problem blind date uncensored because you can do it yourself. You should first choose whether you're going to put the brackets in or out of your window.

Re: Believing in one less God is actually a pretty big deal

Mike Parker — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:06:27 -0000

Nice try, but your argument fails. When you say "When you dismiss all Gods, you are claiming that there is no religious experience to require explanations for," you fail to understand the basic scientific facts about religious experience. Religious experience is a special, complex event in human brains. It's real and atheism doesn't entail denying it. The god experience is distinct from god concepts or explanations for that experience. You can consult Michael Persinger's book "Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs" for a brilliant, clear elaboration on this distinction.

I'm an atheist but it's only a matter of semantics whether I believe that no gods exist or I believe that every god exists because the true nature of god is a concept in at least one person's brain, and concepts are real, physical processes that exist as much as photosynthesis or rainstorms. I like to say that I believe in every god that anyone has ever believed in.

Re: Would you choose to live a great life or achieve great things?

zachhale — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:30:04 -0000

Wow, heavy topic. This has been on my mind a lot as of late which has me doubting my trend towards the second option. Granted you only itemized the extremes. Based on how you phrased that second option, I don't know why anyone in their right mind would take that path. The question is how realistic is it to have your cake and eat it too?

Which would you choose?

Re: Would you choose to live a great life or achieve great things?

muddylemon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:03:04 -0000

So a long pleasant and satisfying life vs. a short, painful lonely life? Is that really a choice?

Re: The Dream Job

rozeme1 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:28:36 -0000

test

Re: Nov 12th (day 30): No Evil Geniuses

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:45:50 -0000

Mitnick?

Re: A real case of an evil genius

Nathan — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:34:15 -0000

I completely disagree...this wasn't a particularly ingenious scheme, and it certainly doesn't deserve hearty applause. It was exploitative and cruel (and certainly evil), but ultimately it was just a garden-variety con job.

Person or group A tells person or group B something that B wants to believe but which turns out to be false in a way that is non-obvious to B. A uses this falsehood to exploit B for profit. By the time the falsehood is evident, A is nowhere to be found.

Not only was it not a genius scheme, but it failed. A was discovered before the escape could be made.

Re: Introduce yourselves

DrBudro — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:37:14 -0000

I was reading an article called The Lazy Evil Genius that was submitted to the Philosophy Reddit which linked to your "No Evil Geniuses Theory". Now I'm reading through your 30 day experiment posts and subscribed to your RSS feed. =)

-Budro

Re: Introduce yourselves

facebook-219000104 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:59:56 -0000

Hi oso, it's an enormous compliment to me that you don't know how to classify this blog. Part of the reason for starting it was because I couldn't find this type of blog out there anywhere.

Re: Gmail sent mail spam

vgururao — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:57:45 -0000

Does the format yourMailId+sent@gmail.com work with the sent folder? It is a standard trick to send mail to any other folder.

Re: Introduce yourselves

oso — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 09:30:14 -0000

Hi Hang. I came to your blog for the first time back in June when you wrote about "The killer app for iPhone 3GS". I was doing some research for this year's Ars Electronica symposium, which I am co-curating with Chinese blogger Isaac Mao. I also agree that statistics should be the foundation of math education (I hate it when journalists use statistics incorrectly in their reporting) and I related to a lot of what you wrote in "The no obnoxious rich people paradox." So I've stayed subscribed. The funny thing is, you're one of the few blogs I follow that I don't know how to classify. I have you in my "technology" folder right now, but you write about much more than just tech. Which is good - I enjoy the diversity of thought.

Re: Introduce yourselves

Jasön — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:14:43 -0000

Hi, I'm Jason, and I'm from the internet.

I found the blog because you pointed me here, as I'm a friend of yours in real life. I read it partly for that reason - I like seeing what my friends are up to, intellectually, and I imagine that they want me to be part of that conversation. Partly it's also because your blog gives me a window into a world I don't usually take part in - the whole design-space, HCI thing - and I like the occasional culture shock that comes with that.

I'd like you to donate my 25c here: http://www.pkdcure.org/. Though it's worth mentioning publicly, as I did in person, that 25c is a bit crap. Small change, as it were. Hell, you did $20 a day you missed for your 30 Day Experiment; I can see that comments here might be worth less than that, but only a quarter? That's half a game of pool right there.

Re: The billion dollar genius ego dilemma

Riamu — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:38:52 -0000

I actually do have an idea, which will make ton of money but I can't talk about it.

Re: Introduce yourselves

twitter-40754489 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:33:19 -0000

how I came here? this was a classical hyperlink thing of old-fashioned web ...
I read your comment here:
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/08/16/the-tragic...
so links in comments do pay :)

Concerning the blogging dilemma (anyone out there?) this reminds me of a good point I read yesterday: "our attention is spread so thin these days"

quote concerning twitter use:
"It [twitter] appeals to the reptilian part of the brain, I think. It’s an alpha male thing, having followers. When you’re broadcasting, you get to think people are paying attention, and who doesn’t like attention? But our attention is spread so thin these days that the portion devoted to something as minor as a tweet may as well be none at all. Broadcasting may console the ego, but it’s false consolation. What it is a surrogate for (meaningful attention) can’t be gotten that way."

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/17/why-i-dont...
What a provoking topic! 531 Comments there up to now!!!

Solution? Realize that there is a tiny group of alphas. Seek your equilibrium in tweeting and blogging, adjust from time to time. E.g. I produce less blog posts than in the past, esp. when very busy with projects - but I don't let my blog die, why should I?

http://blog.futurefacts.net/

Re: Introduce yourselves

Shalmanese — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:35:20 -0000

Yup, I'm priming the pot so to speak.

Re: Introduce yourselves

Lewix — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:50:41 -0000

Do you plan to give money to charity for your comment too ?
Anyway, I think I came across the blog while searching for something about Facebook. The design was nice, and the content was interesting so I added it to my feed reader (yeah, incidentally that got rid of the design).

Re: Nov 2nd (day 21): Obviously wrong truths

Tomasz Wegrzanowski — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:29:08 -0000

Check kernel mailing list every now and then - gcc has plenty of bugs. I was bitten by one ages ago too, something related to signedness and long longs, I don't remember the specifics any more.

Many of gcc bugs are things that are underspecified in C standard, but just because C standard allows you to make a compliant compiler that makes every single real world program incorrect doesn't make it not-a-bug.

Standard libraries for C and Java tend to have few bugs because they're so tiny. Standard and semi-standard libraries for Ruby, Python, or Perl tend to be filled with bugs because they do so much.

At some point you need to give up this belief.

Re: the ego dilemma

Shalmanese — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:00:55 -0000

That's a valid, if cynical reaction

Re: Nov 12th (day 30): No Evil Geniuses

Shalmanese — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:50:57 -0000

I don't think they being overly competent is the correct explanation. It strikes me as far beyond the capabilities of any organization to pull that off consistently.

I think your observation is an interesting avenue of speculation and I suspect the correct answer has to do with one or more of your assumptions not being valid.

One thing to consider is that almost no organization regards *themselves* as evil. Terrorists think of themselves as freedom fighters, security agents think of themselves as patriots.

Re: Nov 11th (day 29): Bumblebees and Spam

Shalmanese — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:48:00 -0000

In a small scale marketing campaign, doubling the exposure will double the results for the same conversion ratio, thus, you should be focused on generating leads. It's only for saturation campaigns that the conversion ratio becomes important because there's no other way to increase hits.

If spam senders were economically rational actors, then they would either try and generate more leads or improve their emails depending on whichever has the largest hit/effort ratio. That they never seem to improve their emails means that either generating more leads is an incredibly effective way of generating hits, spam conversion rates are incredibly insensitive to content or spammers are not economically rational actors.

Of the three, the last seems the less absurd.

Re: the ego dilemma

Tomasz Wegrzanowski — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:41:29 -0000

How about "No, because courts tend to ignore prenups, especially when children are involved". In UK for example they're considered completely non-binding. Most other countries consider them only partially binding, and it's eventually up to the judge.

Here are the facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenuptial_agreement

Re: Nov 12th (day 30): No Evil Geniuses

Tomasz Wegrzanowski — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:34:52 -0000

A related question is why there seem to be so few evil geniuses among existing conspiracies, like national security agencies, organized crime, militaries, "terrorists" etc.

They can afford to hire geniuses. They have goals that are recognized as "evil" by many people outside their organization. They don't have that many moral qualms - they've all been known to kill random people if it suited their interests. So why don't they use evil geniuses more?

Or perhaps they do, except they're so good it almost always stays secret. For example if CIA was responsible for protests in Iran, that would be an evil genius success, and they would obviously not want to talk about it.

I think the problem is open.