I have read and agree with YOU'RE WRONG

If you've spent any time whatsoever on the social part of the interwebs, you have without a doubt stumbled across this truth about human nature:

People suck at agreeing.

You've seen it happen. I'd even wager that you've seen it happen several times. It goes like this: someone writes something, and someone else disagrees with it. Or, rather, they agree with 96% of it, and disagree with this one particular detail. And they proceed to tell the world that they, in fact, disagree with these 4%, and will fight anyone who challenges them. Including the original author.

Now, if you get into a fight with someone you agree 96% with, you're doing it wrong.

The reason for this happening is that only the disagreement is communicated. All that other stuff is simply understood as going without saying, and is thus left unsaid. And is thus not a part of the conversation, leading to the interaction being all about those four lousy percent.

People suck at agreeing. This is why.

In order to avoid getting in to this same situation ourselves (or, at least, to mitigate the risk of getting in to them), it is advisable to communicate this ratio between agreeing and disagreeing. Which can be done with something as simple as saying "I agree with just about everything you've said, and appreciate you've taken the time to say it, but I wonder about this one aspect" or something to the same effect. Whatever wordage is appropriate to communicate that the disagreement is a minor one, and that this is not an invitation to a fight.

If it is a subtle point, you might find that it takes quite the wordage to expound the disagreement over it. Which might lead you to calculate this extra reaffirment of agreement as an unnecessary expense of energy. To which I reply: it might be. It might also be less energy that getting in to a fight. It might, moreover, also be an indication that it is a proper moment to just say "+1" and move on to other things.

 Agreeing is harder than it looks. Don't you agree?

The window of opportunity

The Johari window is, quite unironically and quite without brand marketing, a foursquare field. That is, a two by two grid, where the rows and columns (both of them) interact with each other. It is a metaphor used to explain a knower's relation to the self - each of the four squares representing a mode of knowledge about the self.

The first square, top left, consists of what the knower and the people in the general vicinity both know. The second square, top right, consists of what the knower doesn't know, but the people nearby knows. The third square, bottom left, consists of what the knower knows but the others don't. And the fourth square, bottom right, consists of what no one knows.

Confusing? I know, right!

This window is usually used by psychologists and human resources people in order to clarify the epistemic truth that there are things we do not know about ourselves. And, moreover, that we can get to know these things by being social with others - they know things we don't. By interacting with others, we get a window into ourselves, and so on and so forth.

As teaching tools go, it's a classic.

The first three squares tend to be rather straightforward. Things we all know about me, things others know but I don't, things I know but others don't. Got it. But what about that last one? The things no one knows? What gives?

Here, the space for ideology opens. And, to be sure, for interpellation - for creating a subject that might or might not exist.

For instance: taxes. I don't know how much I'm supposed to pay, they don't know how much I'm supposed to pay. Nobody knows. But by imposing various forms of structural violence, knowledge about who I am are forced into being. In essence, they say this: You will find out how much money you are supposed to pay, and you will tell us, and then we will both know.

Suddenly, you are a taxpayer, regardless of whatever you and your peers knows you to be.

Ideology doesn't give too much of a care about what you think. It knows your mind, before it even knows about you. And it knows just what to do, should you happen to think otherwise. -

Unsubtle subtleties

A culture clash happened.

Such things happen all the time, mind, but by saying that a particular one happened, I give myself permission to talk about a particular one. Because general things always take place in the particular.

So. Culture clash. Swedes are, by comparative standards, brutally informal when it comes to the use of titles. When referring to someone, the word 'you' or their name is usually both sufficient and appropriate. The one exception being - as always - the king and members of the royal family. Everyone else, except when put on trial or mocked in some way, will have to settle for a you or a name.

But, as it happens, a professor from Canada was teaching at a local university. The students, not used to formalities yet still wanting to go the extra distance to make the professor feel at home, acted on the general principle that a title was more formal than no title.

They called her "miss".

As you might imagine, this did not go as well as their intentions would suggest. There is a non-subtle difference between 'miss' and 'professor' in the English language, after all, and such things matter.

If you know about them.

Fortunately, for everyone involved, the professor understood what the students were trying to do, and took it as an opportunity to reflect upon the cultural differences between here and there. And, to be sure, those students will never again not know the difference between miss, Mrs, doctor, professor and a simple 'you'.

Long live the professor. But may the king live forever.

Endless wonder, endless mysteries

In just a few hours, Warehouse 13 comes to an end, as the last episode is aired. It is the end of an era, and -

Wait, what?

I've already seen the last episode? Before the end? What is this magic?

It is a question I often ask myself. Not because the last episode is available out there if you know how to procure it (no help from me), but because it doesn't happen all that often. Somehow, the last episodes of things - indeed, all episodes of things- are strictly kept under wraps until they are aired. And then they leap out, available to everyone who knows how to procure them (still no help from me).

Why is this? What's the secret of this strict discipline?

In theory, episodes of television series could and/or should appear long before they officially air. This is because they are recorded long before they officially air (Lost does not count). Since copying files is as easy as opening a newspaper, it stands to reason that someone should happen to get a hold of a file that will soon become an early release.

It's basic computer security. And human nature. If and when secrets are kept, someone will eventually unkeep it, and then it is loose upon the world. For all to see, as it were.

"All" being people like me. Who know how to procure such things.

And yet, it rarely happens. It happened this once, but I can scarcely remember it happening at any other times.

What's the secret? How do they do it? What sorcery is this?

Do you know?

Btw: the last episode is a good last one. Do enjoy it.  It is one of the defining moments of the series. All of it.

Academic mortality

The notion of academic mortality is an interesting one. The general gist of the notion goes like this: the further along any given educational path an individual travel, the higher the probability that zhe will die academically and do something else. Like, say, get a job. Or, to be blunt, anything else that is not more education.

At higher levels, this is to be expected. People get their degrees and are done. A few will remain and get even more degrees, and ever fewer will persevere and become professors. Which is not terribly interesting, as this is how it's supposed to work. The interesting part of this pyramid, though, is that it begins at the top and then continues downwards. All the way down, in fact.

Some people die even before they reach third grade.

If you have a mind for statistics, you can browse the mortality rates for different populations. As you might imagine, they vary along the usual suspected lines: rich white kids live longer than poor minority kids.

To keep up the bluntness: this too is to be expected.

The interesting things, as always, appear when you ask the question why. (Always ask the question of why. Never take the expected for granted.) Why is it that some populations die off faster than others? Why is it that, systematically and continually over time, the same patterns reemerge? What gives?

You could cite individual performance. This would, however, lead us into dangerous territories, as the systematic and continuous differences over time clearly can't be due to the same individuals underperforming all these years. You'd have to invoke some sort of explanation that expounds that some groups (hint: rich whities) are better than others, and that the statistics only reflect this. Scientifically.

Let's not go there.

Let's instead turn our eyes to the scene of the crime. Academia. Or, more interestingly, schools. What is it about them that makes certain populations live longer than others? What in them makes these patterns reemerge?

On the surface level, the school system appears to be an equal opportunity opportunity. You enter on the one end, perform, get the grades you deserve based on your performance, and resurface on the other end an educated person. It's the ultimate meritocracy: work and ye shall be rewarded, unwork and ye shall remain unrewarded. And ye shall be rewarded in accordance with this standard document, the Curriculum.

Too bad it's not like that.

While curricula might be written in a unified language, and the educational standards be publicly available as readable documents, portraying what pupils need to live up to get any given grade - these goals are not equal. They all share the same finishing line, to be sure, but the starting point is anything but shared.

The goal, the standards, the points of comparison are not class neutral. They are not neutral in any regard you'd like to mention. And it is not neutral in such a way that those who conform to these standards before even getting to their first day of school have it a lot easier than those who have to learn the ropes alongside everything else. Who have to learn both the basic skills the school is supposed to teach them, and the proper way to be a school attendee. Who, in no uncertain terms, have to do twice as much as the rest.

As you might imagine, this impacts mortality rates.

A clear example of this are children who grow up in [what I'll for the sake of brevity call] ebonic speaking families. When they interact with their peers, they speak ebonics - when they get to school, they'll get an instant F if they write the same way they speak. Which, in effect, means they not only have to learn how to write, but also a whole new language on top of that, with different grammar, vocabulary and all the rest of it.

The fact that this new language also is the dominant language of the region doesn't help. In fact, it might be a direct detriment - especially in those places where ebonics [or any other variant, dialect, language or communicative praxis] isn't recognized as anything other than substandard English. That is to say, not proper English, but not so different that the kids cannot be judged as if they spoke proper English from day one.

The same thing goes not only for language, but for just about anything worth mentioning. And, more importantly, those things deemed worthy of not mentioning.

It usually isn't mentioned in the grades. Or in the documentation that declares any gives person academically dead.

Therein, the story of individual performance lives on strong. Its death count untold. -

Degrees of achievement

I just performed an achievement.

To understand this, you need to know two things. What's an achievement, and how do you perform one?

An achievement is, in short, a written record that you have done something. In this case, it is written here. As you can see, it is a list of things done, and below that (as of writing) another list of things yet to do. You do something, you get the achievement. You don't do that something, and it stares at you from the undone section like a challenge waiting to be accepted.

The point of these lists is to be able to point to them and say - aha! I did it! I am this awesome! And I can prove it!

The appointed list being the proof.

Achievements come in different flavors - meaning you have to do different things in order to get them. Some are awards for doing things you'd do anyway as a part of normal gameplay. Others, you have to go way out of your way to achieve - and this is where we come to the performance part.

The achievement I just performed (master criminal) requires that you are wanted all over the known world. As in Billy the Kid wanted. Everywhere. Meaning you have to go everywhere, commit some crime and run away before the long arm of the law gets to you.

There's no in-game reason to do this. In fact, it is a stupid thing to do, as you might imagine. Especially if we take into account that if you happen to fail at something, you can (without shame) reload and try again. And again. And again. Until you don't fail. Meaning that if you play your cards right, your eventual criminal activities won't be noticed at all, and no one will be the wiser.

There might be something to be said about the difference between 'games' and 'sports' here. I'm not saying any such thing, though.

The performance in question was me running up to a town, kill exactly one guard (the minimum crime needed), run to the next town, kill one guard, run to the next town - and so on until the achievement happened. And then I reloaded a save from before this killing spree, and went on doing more productive things.

Which begs the question - why?

Because there's an achievement for it. And I accepted the challenge.

This raises some interesting questions. Such as: how much effort are people willing to exert on getting these marks on a list? What is it that makes players look at a list of possible challenges and go - you know, I'm gonna prove I can best this particular one? How outlandish do you have to make an achievement before most players think "no way"?

What makes people forego common sense in favor of getting a notation on a document?

Now, the one thing that would make these questions more interesting is to apply them to other, more real world settings. So let's do that. Let us talk about grades, degrees and other achievements of the academic world. -

Rhetoric. How does it work?

One of the questions I've yet to receive is "why does rhetoric work?". Which is a good question, and should I ever receive it, I will be in good company.

But why does it work?

If you are a philosopher, your thoughts might travel along the lines of some things being more true than others, and as such more likely to be understood. Humans are rational beings, and the capacity to understand things is a shared universal, and thus some things are more easily understood by the many. Logos speaks.

If you are a psychologist, you might revert this by pointing out that it is not the thing being understood, but the understander being. And that the speaker, by being in such a way that is understandable, makes and scores points. Ethos speaks.

If you are a poet, you might do a dance by putting pleasing phrases in our ears. Knowing how words feel and how to feel words, the speaker may move the soul by selecting syllables that delect and delight. Pathos speaks.

If if if. But if you are a rhetor, you don't need reasons. They might come in handy, but you don't need them. What you do need, though, is an index finger. The point being at the end, and the end of the finger being point.

Rhetoric works like this: you point at things, and by doing it in a certain order, you create a chain of thought that is conducive to the thing you want or need to say. There's nothing mystical or magical about it - you just point, first at the one thing, then at the other, until you are done.

But why does it work?

I'm sure all those people I've pointed at will have plenty to say about it. Do send my regards. -