What you see controls how you think. And how you think controls what you can see. Lots of people are shopping for the holidays right now and I can bet that someplace in the world a busy executive, a teenager and a retired cop are all walking through the same mall… but they aren’t walking … [Read more…]
Anything in the human world is a complex interaction. I have a history, a set of assumptions, a suite of facts and things I want to believe are facts, communication habits and patterns, etc. And so do you. Somewhere in the interplay between our complexities, we communicate. To a degree. And almost everything is on … [Read more…]
…something I have been trying to get people to understand is there ARE differences. Very important differences. Starting with who can be treated with, compromised with (reliably), who is over the sanity horizon, who is harmless and who you might have to shoot in the face. Although I include that last option, I’m … [Read more…]
Video link. Otherism also known as Othering is when a person is considered to “not be one of us.” It is the exclusion of a person who deviates from “acceptable” norms. The exclusion can be based on race, religion, ethnicity, country of origin, social economic factors, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and more. Many forms of … [Read more…]
Let me throw something onto the table. Something about ideological rage I’ve noticed but haven’t been able to sum up quickly Three lefts, two rights and another left takes you to a very specific place (conclusion). A place where the conclusion seems self-evident and IF — atsa big if — all the turns are correct, … [Read more…]
Neil hit a critical point: “There are so many cognitive biases that I’m pretty convinced humans almost never act based on reason. But then that’s what makes us who we are. Why try to be something we’re not?” Neil is right. Again, from ConCom, we spend most of our time in our Monkey Brains. Being … [Read more…]
Words are powerful. The words you use can influence or even control other peoples’ perceptions. And the words you think can influence or even control your comfort level. Changing the words you use to describe a past event can change how you feel about it. Done well, it is processing. Done poorly it is enabling … [Read more…]
…many years ago I read Warren Farrell’s “Myth of Male Power” he had a simple model that REALLY made sense about both gender roles as well as how second wave feminists were skewing their focus. Now while it was specific to the issue of the direction feminism was taking, it’s a VERY useful tool for … [Read more…]
In a Heinlein book I ran across the ‘art of the lie.’ One of which is to tell the truth in such a way that nobody believes you. (Tricky, but can be done — I’ve seen sociopaths do it.) The other is to tell only part of the truth. The last is really slick because … [Read more…]
“First, tell me what you know. Second, tell me what you don’t know. Then — and only then — tell me what you think.” When a four star general called in all the factions of a squabbling intel division and laid down this law, people listened. What happened is these standards also reduced the … [Read more…]