Chapter 1
Note: the author's stream-of-consciousness style, massive paragraphs without line breaks, and constant presumption concerning "you" made this chapter hard for me to read.
"There's nothing wrong with trying to fly, unless you happen to be a beagle instead of an eagle."
-- bahaha, great neg
"Your life, behind closed doors, can totally suck. It can be a major train wreck, yet you will get up in the morning and instead of working on your mind and your heart for even five minutes, you will obsess around for hours."
"I see tons of couples getting married every year. I bet over 90% of them spend months, even years, planning the wedding, and almost no time planning the marriage."
"If you have no purpose, you have no passion. If you have no passion, you have sold yourself out. . . superficiality becomes the substitute for the things that ought to matter"
"Ask yourself how long it has been since you were really excited about some meaningful aspect of your life."
-- ONE DAY. OWNED.
Man stuck in the past: "Hey Phil, remember the fourth quarter of that football game?"
I say, "Yeah, that was really something.", but what I'm really thinking is: Hell no, I don't remember that, I've done about nine million things since then and apparently you haven't.
-- Ahahaha
"When we sell out, the things we abandon first are the things that matter only to ourselves. Why? Because that way we don't disappoint anyone else and God forbid we do that."
-- Hell yeah, sell other people's interests out first.
Chapter 2: Defining the Authentic Self
Note: This book is written for people who're doing worse than I am. I don't suffer from most of the afflictions he mentions - being bogged down, locked into meaningless responsibilites, etc. Therefore, my notes won't really dwell much on how to get out of these dilemnas, even though that's probably the most valuable part of the book.
"The authentic self is the you that can be found at your absolute core. . . it is the composite of all your unique skills, gifts, abilities, interests, talents, insights, and wisdom."
-- way ahead of you, Phil - I did my own search for my own "core values" a while back.
Questionnaire:
Do you know, in vivid detail, who that authentic you is? -- if no, go find it, you're wasting your time.
Did you at one time listen carefully to that voice? Do you suspect that somehow you've lost contact with it? -- if so, go find it, and listen to it above others.
Is your public persona at odds with the things that define your authentic self? -- if so, you're living a life defined from the outside in.
Without that self you have a void.
It takes more energy to work against your nature than with it.
"Suppose I came to you on your deathbed and said, 'Here are 14 years longer for you to live, to enjoy watching your grandchildren grow, to experience life in any way you wish - do you want those extra years?' How would you respond?"
-- My inclination is to say, "Nah, I'm ready to die." I'm not sure what this indicates about me.
-- After some thought, the "Nah, I'm ready to die" assumes I'm on my deathbed after a long life that's run its course. If I'm on my deathbed early for some stupid reason, such as injury or disease, I'd say "Yes. Give me that shit right now."
"At some time or another, all of us have encountered people who seemed to be larger than life, people whose experience of life was filled with color and excitement. . . it is through them that we catch a glimpse of what the authentic life is like."
-- Do these people the courtesy of not looking at them under a microscope, and do yourself the courtesy of understanding that their lives are not always filled with color and excitement.
A lie unchallenged becomes the truth.
Once you know the facts about yourself, you'll stop thinking, I have to earn the right to be here by being clever, rich, funny, pretty, etc. Instead, you'll communicate to the world, I have the right to be here because I know from the inside out I have qualities worthy of acceptance.
Be skeptical of familiar patterns and information.
Man-task interface: Match the job to the person.
Internalized reactions to external events which aren't harmonious with your core values create a fictional self with different motivators. This self will lead you wrong.
"If you go ten miles left when you needed to go ten miles right, that's a thirty-mile mistake. Ten miles left, ten miles back to where you started from, and then ten miles right to get where you were going."
-- Technically, it's a twenty-mile mistake, because you would've had to travel those last 10 miles anyway... but I see his point, which is that a 10-mile commitment can turn into a 30-mile odyssey in your mind if you get off to a bad start.
Don't let your reasons for not doing something turn into excuses.
-- Goddamnit, I can't speedread this book. It's like drifting in and out of consciousness as I listen to a lecture the speaker has decided to give out of order.
-- Just have to take it one line at a time...
-- I've never liked someone talking to me from a book. No, that's not true. I've never liked them having an "I" identity of their own that isn't affiliated with the story. It's like, I'm already reading a book by you, about your thoughts; you don't need to interject your ego in there to get your message across.
Chapter 3: Your Self-Concept
Style of engagement: How you act to invite responses from other people.
Don't base your self-concept on the way others see you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Why give your power away to random "beholders"?
"Nobody died and left [him/her] in charge"
-- good saying
-- "Oh, did I miss the funeral?"
-- "What funeral?"
-- "The one for the PERSON WHO DIED AND LEFT YOU IN CHARGE?"
The Popeye theory of life management: "I am what I am"
An explanation for a thing is not a course of action that will fix it.
In addition to "labels", people also have "tapes" - the behavior they roll out whenever the "tape" seems applicable. These can be positive or negative, but are always preconceived.
Honesty and truth are not synonomous. You can be perfectly honest and wrong at the same time.
Introduction to External Factors
"Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back upon himself." -- Charles de Gaulle
Flea story: Put fleas in a jar for long enough and they'll jump half an inch below the lid - wait a while, take the lid off, and they'll never jump out.
Chapter 4: Ten Defining Moments
Oh goodness. Not going to do the exercises, considering how many there are, though they looked helpful when I started.
The short version of this chapter is, examine your life for your strongest memories from ages 1-5, 6-12, 13-20, 21-39, 40-55, 56+, then choose ten out of all of these as the most defining moments that helped make you you. Describe them, list how you were and how you changed, write a bit about how they've affected you, write about whether they've clarified/distorted your core values, review how you saw and reacted to the moment, then write down "keep" or "reject" based on how you feel about the moment & explain why. There's a step 7, explain the bottom-line effect on your self-concept, but that seems rife for created answers.
Chapter 5: Seven Critical Choices
By making successive choices along a path, one grows and gains power.
"Working the night shift at the local 'stop and rob'"
"She has to do pullups because she lacks the physiological prerequisite for chinups." (not from this, but still hilarious)
Chapter 6: Five Pivotal People
"The fear-induced, self-destructive determination that so many people demonstrate in suppressing who they authentically are is a never-ending source of amazement to me. When you think about how much life energy people devote to denying who they are and living who they aren't, you can't help being awed by the tragic enormity of it. What a waste of talent and energy!"
-- idea - keyboard with a 3/4 size space bar on the left side, then a backspace key on the right side
"Successful people - meaning people whose lives are peaceful, well balanced, and satisfying - tend to identify more heroes or role models among their five pivotal people."
-- Mine were Roland, Andrew, my mom, Athena, and Eravaci, though Mr. Headlee deserves a spot in there somewhere.
Exercise for 5 Pivotal People: list name, write description of actions, then write influence on you
"Time now for a critical question: were YOU on the list of pivotal people in your life? If not, why not?"
-- because I assumed "five pivotal people" meant "five people OTHER THAN YOURSELF"
Introduction to Internal Factors
The "tapes" one has allow one to rattle off preconceived notions at high speed. Anyone you see doing this, yourself included, is probably playing a "tape" rather than giving appropriate thought to the issue.
Chapters 7-8: Locus of Control, ???
"The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your arm." - Swedish proverb
"At his first appointment, Steve described for me his bouts with intense pain and his deep, reactive depression. . . ten days into his therapy, Steve told me he'd reached two conclusions: first, that his pain emanated from a chronic imbalance in his muscles; and second, that this muscle problem was in turn being kept alive by his emotional stress and imbalances. . . he decided that he, himself, could reverse his condition by improving the behavioral and emotional balance in his life and consequently his muscle tension. . . one year later, he said the pain no longer disrupted his life."
-- I don't think psychosomatizing an actual medical condition is healthy, but the "strong mind, strong body" approach is a powerful one.
-- Thank you, Calvin and Hobbes, for teaching me the meaning of words like psychosomatic.
Bus driving is one of the most stressful jobs out there - you have a lot of responsibility, yet virtually no control over the situation.
Internalizers: operate from a self-concept that says, "Anything bad that happens is my fault. Anything good that happens, I made happen."
Externalizers: operate from a self-concept that doesn't take ownership of anything, bad or good.
-- when I first read this, I couldn't believe there were Externalizers.
Internalizers: will fix things themselves
Externalizers: will fix things when told to by someone in an appropriate position
Chance people: may or may not fix things
To turn an externalizer into an internalizer:
Externalizer: "This test was so easy."
"You mean because you listened carefully and studied hard for it?"
Externalizer: "Oh yeah, forgot about that."
Vice versa:
Internalizer: "Whew, all my hard work paid off. I aced that test."
"You too? Yeah, that test was so easy. I goofed off the entire time and still aced it, and I can barely tie my shoes!"
Internalizers: Don't blame yourself for things out of your control.
Externalizers: Take responsibility for things within your control.
Chance people: Are lazy and not worth helping until they can make, and stick with, decisions.
Test your perception of things whenever the opportunity arises, but don't feel you have to come to a conclusion.
You respond to your perception of things.
When faced with a gun, people will look at the gun instead of checking for escape routes.
-- overcome this instinct.
"If you were to step up to someone, look her in the eyes, and say 'You are a stupid, worthless bitch,' she would recoil in horror and pain. Yet that is exactly the kind of thing that people say to themselves all day, every day, by way of their internal dialogue."
-- Who does that? My internal dialogue's usually a positive force, and it always treats me with respect. I've called myself an idiot when regarding mistakes I've made, but I've never meant it that way.
Negative internal dialogue is started by other people, then echoed by you when the opportunity arises.
You may downplay something you really care about by generating a false sense of apathy.
Phrase the last few words in your internal dialogues so that they accentuate the positive.
Chapter 9: Labels
He mentions the positive-reinforcement story: tell a kid he's a good student, and he'll be one.
"'Who are you?' Many people answer that question in terms of their jobs and their function."
-- I answer that with "I'm Evan", "My name is Evan", or "This is Evan", followed by whatever information I want the other guy to hear.
Without doubt, you have a set of labels you retreat to when meeting someone or presenting yourself to the world.
-- this is customary, I imagine the only people without these labels are people without titles or accomplishments to speak of
Abstract criticisms, such as "loser" or "ugly", are hard to challenge due to their nature.
Our emotional sensitivity means that the labels we assume in high school may penetrate deeply into our self-concept.
-- mine did. On some level I justify my weakness in certain areas by thinking I'm doing well for a "geek", when in actuality, I should be competing alongside the best in every field.
The world loves labels. Labels are convenient. Refusing to live by a label makes you inconvenient.
iatrogenic: harm induced by a healer.
You only live to labels as long as they're working for you on some level.
If your label is that you're the cutest girl in the class, you'll either discard it or start avoiding mirrors as you age.
Most people would rather be right than happy.
-- count me in, though I don't see these as exclusive.
Chapter 10: Life Scripts
Tapes:
- look backward
- express judgement about you, now
- predict your outcome
Live life unscripted. Do your planning beforehand, and when the moment comes, plan to wing it.
When you're living from a script, you will resist any change to that script.
When you stop living from a script, anyone who expected you to live that way will become uneasy.
Chapter 11: Intro to the five-step action plan:
The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
As soon as you behave differently for even one day, your life goes on alert: "Hey, what's this, a new deal?"
You can't change what you won't acknowledge. You can change what you do acknowledge.
You can't blame others for the choices you make.
Five points:
- Your core values
- Your learning history
- External factors
- Internal factors
- The fake self you've become
"Do we change feelings first and let behavioral change follow? Or do we change behaviors first, hoping that when people do different, they'll feel different? Why not do both at once?"
Five steps:
- Isolate an event
- Audit your responses
- Test your responses
- Come up with an authentic response
- Find the least costly effective action to take, then take it
Authenticity test:
- Is it a fact?
- Does holding onto it serve your best interests?
- Are your thoughts advancing your health?
- Does it get you more of what you want?
-- A solution you create can work for you, even if it's wrong, because your ego has a vested interest in it.
-- Get other people to come up with their own solutions, then agree.
-- A strange sense of power has descended upon me. The idea that people have common subconscious patterns which can be played to has officially made the transition from "background knowledge" to "foreground, exploitable knowledge" in my mind.
Many people are reluctant to forgive because they believe it dishonors them and trivializes what they've been through. That's not the case with true forgiveness.
People who carry around the burden of anger invariably say they do so because they never got closure on the treatment they received at the hands of another person.
-- very true: once the treatment stops, I suspect forgiveness is more effective than catharisis
Chapter 12: Sabotage
"Speaking ill of others is a dishonest way of praising yourself."
In the minds of others, you have a role you're expected to know. Deviations incur criticism.
Criticism types:
- Overprotection - keeping you down because "it's for your own good".
- Power manipulation - keeping you down to keep the old dynamic alive
- Leveling - keeping you down because they'd be on a lower level
- Status quo - keeping you down to feel that things are normal
Trust, then verify.
I will do my best in everything I try. I remember saying that as I was leaving the Navy, then forgetting that pledge.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Importance of Individuals - *
"A nation's great men are but slight deviations from the general level. The hero is merely a special complex of the ordinary qualities of his race."
-- Donald Trump, Mother Teresa, Michael Jordan, Stephen Hawking
"What each man adds is but an infinitesimal fraction compared with what he derives from his parents or earlier ancestry."
A dwarf standing a giant's shoulders sees the farther of the two. Today's giants may have been yesterday's dwarves.
"There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important."
Among all the differences that exist, the only ones that interest us are the ones we don't take for granted.
-- Donald Trump, Mother Teresa, Michael Jordan, Stephen Hawking
"What each man adds is but an infinitesimal fraction compared with what he derives from his parents or earlier ancestry."
A dwarf standing a giant's shoulders sees the farther of the two. Today's giants may have been yesterday's dwarves.
"There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important."
Among all the differences that exist, the only ones that interest us are the ones we don't take for granted.
The Will To Believe - **
Pascal's Wager: A passage exhorting the reader to believe in God, because if he exists and you don't believe in him, you go to hell - conversely, if you believe in him and he doesn't exist, any worldly loss you may suffer pales in comparison to the infinite gain you'd have if he had existed.
-- the book goes on to say that this is only compelling as long as the God mentioned represents that of your culture's underlying faith: replace God with Allah and see how quickly people reject the implied premises in their entirety.
"Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace or private pleasure of the believer. . . If a belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence, even if it be true, the pleasure is a stolen one." -- Clifford
"Here in this room, we all of us believe in molecules and the conservation of energy, in democracy and necessary progress, all for no reasons worthy of the name. We see into these matters with no more inner clearness, and probably with much less, than any disbeliever might possess." Should he believe, "his unconventionality would probably have some grounds upon which to show its conclusions; but for us, not insight, but the /prestige/ of these opinions is what sparks our faith."
"Our reason is quite satisfied, 999 times out of 1000, if it can find a few arguments to recite in case our credulity is challenged by someone else. Our faith is faith in someone else's faith."
The characteristic happiness philosophies yield has mainly consisted in the conviction felt by each successive school or system that by it, bottom-certitude has been attained. "Other philosophies are collections of opinions, mostly false; MY philosophy gives standing-ground forever," - who doesn't recognize this in the key-notes of every system worthy of the name?
The greatest empiricists among us are only empricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes.
No concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon.
-- One word: Mathematics. 2 and 2 is undisputably, unmistakably 4 to anyone who can count.
-- Action is also truth. If I move a ball from point A to point B, I did that. Convincing someone of this, however, is another story - there'll always be other explanations for how that ball moved from Point A to Point B.
He who says "Better to go without belief forever than believe a lie!" shows his own private horror of becoming a dupe.
-- Beliefs can mask fears. The most obvious example of this is racism.
The most useful investigator is he whose eager interest in one side of a question is balanced by an equally keen fear of deception.
Faith can act on the powers out of one's control as a claim of sorts, and can create its own verification.
Examples: self-promoters, positive thinkers, passionate lovers
A social organism is what it is because each member does his duty with a trust that the others will do theirs. Whenever such an organism achieves anything, it's due to the faith its members have in each other.
A trainful of passengers will be looted by highwaymen simply because the latter can count on each other, whereas the passengers cannot. If they could, they would each rise, and train-robbing would not even be attempted.
-- post-9/11 - the gung-ho attitudes of American airline passengers mentally prepared to fight plane hijackers.
"Where faith in a fact can help create the fact, the logic of refusing to believe before scientific evidence has arisen is insane."
-- Um, faith doesn't create facts. It helps one prove the hypotheses one believes in, which may -- or may not -- translate into facts. No matter how strong his conviction is, the man who has faith that he can win a woman won't always win her.
"To preach skepticism to us as a duty until 'sufficient evidence' for religion be found is tantamount to telling us that when in the presence of a religious hypothesis, to yield to our fear of its being erroneous is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true."
-- Okay, the way I see it, religions are characterized by two things: the creators' presumption to know the will and workings of the universe, and the requirement that its followers must have faith in its doctrines, principles, and practices for the religion to be effective. Both of these points are so far beyond the boundaries of what logic tells us of reality that anyone even vaguely acquainted with critical thinking or skepticism will demand that these assertions be proved. By the very nature of religious hypotheses - i.e., they require belief in the two aforementioned premises - I'd say that elevating the hope that they may be true to a primary consideration, to be balanced against our fear of their being erroneous (which stems from the ridiculousness of the above statements), is a fallacy. Blind hope is no substitute for critical thinking skills. The "facts" faith can create don't extend as far as to include "There is one God and Mohammed (Jesus) is his prophet".
"I, therefore, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do this for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule."
-- Last I checked, agnostics are the people who believe that the jury's out on religion until exactly that kind of truth is found. The author may be thinking of athiests, but I guarantee that if such truth were to be found - if God manifested himself or his favor in ways replicateable in everyday life, ways not subject to conjecture, and would did so on demand, that'd take care of all but the most die-hard athiests.
"If we are empiricists, if we believe that no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasps, then it seems a piece of idle fantasticality to preach so solemnly our duty of waiting for the bell."
-- Here, he confuses the issue by bringing up his earlier point - that there is no concrete test of what is really true - and uses it to question the wisdom of requiring absolute proof of religion's validity. While he's correct that there is no "bell" which rings in the presence of 100% truth, I don't believe the nihilistic concession this forces serves the purpose of invalidating the process by which people come to an understanding of "truth". No logical thinker's "bell" should ring when confronted with the illogical, fantistical, and ultimately unproveable propositions religion presents. The idea of millions of people being driven into cognitive dissonance by the sound of "bells" ringing across the globe speaks volumes regarding the prestige religion holds.
-- the book goes on to say that this is only compelling as long as the God mentioned represents that of your culture's underlying faith: replace God with Allah and see how quickly people reject the implied premises in their entirety.
"Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace or private pleasure of the believer. . . If a belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence, even if it be true, the pleasure is a stolen one." -- Clifford
"Here in this room, we all of us believe in molecules and the conservation of energy, in democracy and necessary progress, all for no reasons worthy of the name. We see into these matters with no more inner clearness, and probably with much less, than any disbeliever might possess." Should he believe, "his unconventionality would probably have some grounds upon which to show its conclusions; but for us, not insight, but the /prestige/ of these opinions is what sparks our faith."
"Our reason is quite satisfied, 999 times out of 1000, if it can find a few arguments to recite in case our credulity is challenged by someone else. Our faith is faith in someone else's faith."
The characteristic happiness philosophies yield has mainly consisted in the conviction felt by each successive school or system that by it, bottom-certitude has been attained. "Other philosophies are collections of opinions, mostly false; MY philosophy gives standing-ground forever," - who doesn't recognize this in the key-notes of every system worthy of the name?
The greatest empiricists among us are only empricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes.
No concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon.
-- One word: Mathematics. 2 and 2 is undisputably, unmistakably 4 to anyone who can count.
-- Action is also truth. If I move a ball from point A to point B, I did that. Convincing someone of this, however, is another story - there'll always be other explanations for how that ball moved from Point A to Point B.
He who says "Better to go without belief forever than believe a lie!" shows his own private horror of becoming a dupe.
-- Beliefs can mask fears. The most obvious example of this is racism.
The most useful investigator is he whose eager interest in one side of a question is balanced by an equally keen fear of deception.
Faith can act on the powers out of one's control as a claim of sorts, and can create its own verification.
Examples: self-promoters, positive thinkers, passionate lovers
A social organism is what it is because each member does his duty with a trust that the others will do theirs. Whenever such an organism achieves anything, it's due to the faith its members have in each other.
A trainful of passengers will be looted by highwaymen simply because the latter can count on each other, whereas the passengers cannot. If they could, they would each rise, and train-robbing would not even be attempted.
-- post-9/11 - the gung-ho attitudes of American airline passengers mentally prepared to fight plane hijackers.
"Where faith in a fact can help create the fact, the logic of refusing to believe before scientific evidence has arisen is insane."
-- Um, faith doesn't create facts. It helps one prove the hypotheses one believes in, which may -- or may not -- translate into facts. No matter how strong his conviction is, the man who has faith that he can win a woman won't always win her.
"To preach skepticism to us as a duty until 'sufficient evidence' for religion be found is tantamount to telling us that when in the presence of a religious hypothesis, to yield to our fear of its being erroneous is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true."
-- Okay, the way I see it, religions are characterized by two things: the creators' presumption to know the will and workings of the universe, and the requirement that its followers must have faith in its doctrines, principles, and practices for the religion to be effective. Both of these points are so far beyond the boundaries of what logic tells us of reality that anyone even vaguely acquainted with critical thinking or skepticism will demand that these assertions be proved. By the very nature of religious hypotheses - i.e., they require belief in the two aforementioned premises - I'd say that elevating the hope that they may be true to a primary consideration, to be balanced against our fear of their being erroneous (which stems from the ridiculousness of the above statements), is a fallacy. Blind hope is no substitute for critical thinking skills. The "facts" faith can create don't extend as far as to include "There is one God and Mohammed (Jesus) is his prophet".
"I, therefore, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do this for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule."
-- Last I checked, agnostics are the people who believe that the jury's out on religion until exactly that kind of truth is found. The author may be thinking of athiests, but I guarantee that if such truth were to be found - if God manifested himself or his favor in ways replicateable in everyday life, ways not subject to conjecture, and would did so on demand, that'd take care of all but the most die-hard athiests.
"If we are empiricists, if we believe that no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasps, then it seems a piece of idle fantasticality to preach so solemnly our duty of waiting for the bell."
-- Here, he confuses the issue by bringing up his earlier point - that there is no concrete test of what is really true - and uses it to question the wisdom of requiring absolute proof of religion's validity. While he's correct that there is no "bell" which rings in the presence of 100% truth, I don't believe the nihilistic concession this forces serves the purpose of invalidating the process by which people come to an understanding of "truth". No logical thinker's "bell" should ring when confronted with the illogical, fantistical, and ultimately unproveable propositions religion presents. The idea of millions of people being driven into cognitive dissonance by the sound of "bells" ringing across the globe speaks volumes regarding the prestige religion holds.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Winning Through Intimidation - Robert J. Ringer - ***
"The overriding factor in most 'success' and 'how to' books is that if a person has a positive attitude and works long hours, he will succeed. The approaches of these authors often border on mysticism."
-- Work as long as it takes to do the job right, and while you work, think of ways to do it faster
A positive mental attitude will get you nowhere unless you have the ammo to back it up.
Ammo: 1. Be prepared
2. Understand the realities of what it takes to succeed
3. Be good at the techniques
"The THEORY OF SUSTENANCE OF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE THROUGH THE ASSUMPTION OF A NEGATIVE RESULT"
-- aka the "You're fucked, but hey, go for it" theory
Working hard varies from person to person.
-- Measure how hard you're working by how hard others work -- and by the time it takes you to achieve your results.
Working long hours will push you to a point of diminishing returns.
-- Watch for it when it's unavoidable.
THEORY OF REALITY: Reality isn't the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are. Acknowledge reality and use it to your benefit or it will automatically work against you.
"I become, through experience, more and more of a hard-nosed realist."
Without exception, everyone defines honesty to suit themselves. You will never see a man who admits to being dishonest.
THEORY OF RELEVANCE: Know what's relevant, and don't involve your time or assets in anything else.
What's relevant to me: money, power, knowledge, time, lifestyle, friends - once I'm secure in those, I'll advance in the relevance hierarchy to civics, humanities, and love.
The more a person tries to discourage you from entering their field, the more insecure they are.
It doesn't matter how fast you are out of the starting blocks - just where you are when the game is over.
-- I have speed, now for stability.
Don't be intimidated by people who know things.
- instead, use them, and learn everything you can
There are three types of cads:
Type 1 - lets you know he's after what you have.
Type 2 - says he's not after what you have, then rushes
Type 3 - isn't after what you have until something changes within him
Earn while you learn.
There is no such thing as benefit of the doubt. You block their paths of retreat and then you "negotiate".
-- that Hoover file idea is a good one (a file documenting verbal interactions with people)
No matter how certain a seller claims to be about the price they name, they're either high-balling or will weaken when a serious buyer comes into the picture.
-- There are two obvious exceptions to this rule: people truly deluded about values, and people truly knowledgeable about them.
Anyone who talks about honesty and integrity one-on-one is probably smokescreening for future misconduct.
"blah blah, value of honesty"
Me: "Oh, I'd better watch out for you then." *laugh*
Leapfrog theory: You have no moral obligation to work your way up through the ranks.
-- Dilbert: Business is a reincarnation model
Theory of Intimidation: The results a person obtains is inversely proportional to how intimidated they are.
Posture Theory: It's not what you say as much as how you say it.
Wealth brings power. Image brings the appearance of power.
Use Certified Mail for any communications between yourself and untrustworthy people.
The five selling steps:
1. Have a product
2. Have a market for your product
3. Implement a marketing method
4. Close the sale - get them to sign.
5. Follow up -- and get paid.
If the other person has to ask who you are, forget about intimidating them.
Owners are so unrealistic when it comes to vacancy factors, replacement costs, and expense items that aren't readily ascertainable that you can usually consider their projections to be meaningless.
Don't mention "selling"; mention "do something with" or possibly "trade", words people haven't built resistances to.
People with no guidelines aren't serious: people with guidelines are.
People who aren't serious will dwell on 'secondary considerations'.
Strike while the iron is hot. Don't dick around.
Boy-Girl theory: everyone wants what's hard to get.
Better Deal theory: When faced with a deal, people will always worry that there's a better deal out there.
-- How to beat the Better Dealers - rush them to the "put up or shut up" point.
Get people to call in with info rather than mail it, or have them Air Mail Special Delivery things.
Attorneys are not subject to intimidation because they're taught during law school that they're the top faces on the totem pole.
-- Anyone who's been told they're exceptional in their field will feel this way.
-- To beat them, either beat them at their own game (if you can) or get them playing your game.
The best bluffs engage the ability not to bluff. This takes wealth or guts.
"I will" is much stronger than "I can".
"In business each guy 'grabs his best hold' and goes from there; anything else is baloney."
To an employer, you are only an asset until the work is done - after that, you become an expense. Do not let yourself be an expense that can be reduced.
Watch out for people who are "dumb as foxes".
In order to take the proper action regarding anything, you must be sure of what that "thing" is. The cure for the common cold won't help much against the mumps.
-- Work as long as it takes to do the job right, and while you work, think of ways to do it faster
A positive mental attitude will get you nowhere unless you have the ammo to back it up.
Ammo: 1. Be prepared
2. Understand the realities of what it takes to succeed
3. Be good at the techniques
"The THEORY OF SUSTENANCE OF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE THROUGH THE ASSUMPTION OF A NEGATIVE RESULT"
-- aka the "You're fucked, but hey, go for it" theory
Working hard varies from person to person.
-- Measure how hard you're working by how hard others work -- and by the time it takes you to achieve your results.
Working long hours will push you to a point of diminishing returns.
-- Watch for it when it's unavoidable.
THEORY OF REALITY: Reality isn't the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are. Acknowledge reality and use it to your benefit or it will automatically work against you.
"I become, through experience, more and more of a hard-nosed realist."
Without exception, everyone defines honesty to suit themselves. You will never see a man who admits to being dishonest.
THEORY OF RELEVANCE: Know what's relevant, and don't involve your time or assets in anything else.
What's relevant to me: money, power, knowledge, time, lifestyle, friends - once I'm secure in those, I'll advance in the relevance hierarchy to civics, humanities, and love.
The more a person tries to discourage you from entering their field, the more insecure they are.
It doesn't matter how fast you are out of the starting blocks - just where you are when the game is over.
-- I have speed, now for stability.
Don't be intimidated by people who know things.
- instead, use them, and learn everything you can
There are three types of cads:
Type 1 - lets you know he's after what you have.
Type 2 - says he's not after what you have, then rushes
Type 3 - isn't after what you have until something changes within him
Earn while you learn.
There is no such thing as benefit of the doubt. You block their paths of retreat and then you "negotiate".
-- that Hoover file idea is a good one (a file documenting verbal interactions with people)
No matter how certain a seller claims to be about the price they name, they're either high-balling or will weaken when a serious buyer comes into the picture.
-- There are two obvious exceptions to this rule: people truly deluded about values, and people truly knowledgeable about them.
Anyone who talks about honesty and integrity one-on-one is probably smokescreening for future misconduct.
"blah blah, value of honesty"
Me: "Oh, I'd better watch out for you then." *laugh*
Leapfrog theory: You have no moral obligation to work your way up through the ranks.
-- Dilbert: Business is a reincarnation model
Theory of Intimidation: The results a person obtains is inversely proportional to how intimidated they are.
Posture Theory: It's not what you say as much as how you say it.
Wealth brings power. Image brings the appearance of power.
Use Certified Mail for any communications between yourself and untrustworthy people.
The five selling steps:
1. Have a product
2. Have a market for your product
3. Implement a marketing method
4. Close the sale - get them to sign.
5. Follow up -- and get paid.
If the other person has to ask who you are, forget about intimidating them.
Owners are so unrealistic when it comes to vacancy factors, replacement costs, and expense items that aren't readily ascertainable that you can usually consider their projections to be meaningless.
Don't mention "selling"; mention "do something with" or possibly "trade", words people haven't built resistances to.
People with no guidelines aren't serious: people with guidelines are.
People who aren't serious will dwell on 'secondary considerations'.
Strike while the iron is hot. Don't dick around.
Boy-Girl theory: everyone wants what's hard to get.
Better Deal theory: When faced with a deal, people will always worry that there's a better deal out there.
-- How to beat the Better Dealers - rush them to the "put up or shut up" point.
Get people to call in with info rather than mail it, or have them Air Mail Special Delivery things.
Attorneys are not subject to intimidation because they're taught during law school that they're the top faces on the totem pole.
-- Anyone who's been told they're exceptional in their field will feel this way.
-- To beat them, either beat them at their own game (if you can) or get them playing your game.
The best bluffs engage the ability not to bluff. This takes wealth or guts.
"I will" is much stronger than "I can".
"In business each guy 'grabs his best hold' and goes from there; anything else is baloney."
To an employer, you are only an asset until the work is done - after that, you become an expense. Do not let yourself be an expense that can be reduced.
Watch out for people who are "dumb as foxes".
In order to take the proper action regarding anything, you must be sure of what that "thing" is. The cure for the common cold won't help much against the mumps.
The Art of the Interview - Martin Perlich - *
Two rules to interviewing:
1. Prepare
2. Listen
Interviews require mutuality
"Sometimes you eat the bear; sometimes the bear eats you."
-- This was his great-grandmother's maxim?
prevaricate: depart from or evade the truth
equivocate: not give a clear answer
"a nixon": to say "Let me say this about that", then change the subject
If you are a fan, be a fan
Have a good opening question prepared
-- Look up body language
1. Prepare
2. Listen
Interviews require mutuality
"Sometimes you eat the bear; sometimes the bear eats you."
-- This was his great-grandmother's maxim?
prevaricate: depart from or evade the truth
equivocate: not give a clear answer
"a nixon": to say "Let me say this about that", then change the subject
If you are a fan, be a fan
Have a good opening question prepared
-- Look up body language
Beauty Fades - Dumb is Forever - Judge Judy - **
A gorgeous model will someday become a "former model".
-- The Next Top Former Model
Denial is a river in Egypt.
"Failure doesn't build character. Whoever came up with that idea was an idiot. Success builds character."
-- Ahaha
"Women are taught that unless they are half of a couple, they are nothing."
I'd say they were taught they're below women who are half a couple, not nothing...
Two very sharp young women wrote a smash-hit book called The Rules, which is nothing more than a handbook of deference.
-- note to self: read The Rules
The Swan Story:
Swans mate for life. Two pairs of swans on a lake. One male dies. His mate is distraught, and after a few months, goes berserk and kills one of the other swans: the male - not the female. Didn't want the male for herself, just couldn't stand to see the other female with him.
Viagra was originally tested as a treatment for high blood pressure.
"We can't put the genie back in the bottle and wish people behaved as they did thirty years ago."
-- Sad, but true.
"It's a fact that women survive being alone much better than men do. Men, who've been coddled their entire lives, suddenly find themselves having to grocery shop, do laundry, clean up after themselves. . . what most men really want is for someone to take care of them."
-- ...a swing and a miss. Good try though, would have been a ground-rule double thirty years ago.
"If the man you're with is threatened by your achievements or abilities, get out. Insecure men will do whatever is necessary to bring you down."
-- Not be threatened by, not be unduly impressed by
Women who can stand toe to toe with men, and do so with humor, are successful.
Navel-gazing: excessive introspection, focusing too much on a single issue
"I've got food in my fridge that's older than you."
There's no cap on success. The jury stays out until you take your last breath.
-- Not an excuse to procrastinate
"There are two kinds of men: those who don't get it, and those who do - but get it wrong."
Hahaha
persona non grata - a nice expression
-- The Next Top Former Model
Denial is a river in Egypt.
"Failure doesn't build character. Whoever came up with that idea was an idiot. Success builds character."
-- Ahaha
"Women are taught that unless they are half of a couple, they are nothing."
I'd say they were taught they're below women who are half a couple, not nothing...
Two very sharp young women wrote a smash-hit book called The Rules, which is nothing more than a handbook of deference.
-- note to self: read The Rules
The Swan Story:
Swans mate for life. Two pairs of swans on a lake. One male dies. His mate is distraught, and after a few months, goes berserk and kills one of the other swans: the male - not the female. Didn't want the male for herself, just couldn't stand to see the other female with him.
Viagra was originally tested as a treatment for high blood pressure.
"We can't put the genie back in the bottle and wish people behaved as they did thirty years ago."
-- Sad, but true.
"It's a fact that women survive being alone much better than men do. Men, who've been coddled their entire lives, suddenly find themselves having to grocery shop, do laundry, clean up after themselves. . . what most men really want is for someone to take care of them."
-- ...a swing and a miss. Good try though, would have been a ground-rule double thirty years ago.
"If the man you're with is threatened by your achievements or abilities, get out. Insecure men will do whatever is necessary to bring you down."
-- Not be threatened by, not be unduly impressed by
Women who can stand toe to toe with men, and do so with humor, are successful.
Navel-gazing: excessive introspection, focusing too much on a single issue
"I've got food in my fridge that's older than you."
There's no cap on success. The jury stays out until you take your last breath.
-- Not an excuse to procrastinate
"There are two kinds of men: those who don't get it, and those who do - but get it wrong."
Hahaha
persona non grata - a nice expression
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - **
Theft - Katherine Anne Porter
I recommend this story.
"I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing."
I recommend this story.
"I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing."
Future Shock - Alvin Toffler - ****
Future Shock: Notes
Chapter 9
Symbolic Leaders - Orrin Klapp
No man's model of reality is a purely personal product. . . The degree of accuracy in his model to some extent reflects the general level of knowledge in society. As more refined and accurate knowledge enters into society, new concepts and ways of thinking render older ideas and worldviews obsolete.
We create and use up ideas and images at a faster and faster pace. Knowledge, like people, places, things, and organizational forms, is becoming disposable.
-- Retention, for me, is a product of practicality.
-- Constant immersion in a gamer's set of transitory universes, each possessing its own physics, laws, and quirks, has streamlined my ability to glean insight from disposable knowledge.
For several centuries, music has been getting faster.
"In 1954, when I started work on the Dictionary of American Slang, I would not consider a word for inclusion unless I could find three uses of the word over a five-year period. Today such a criterion would be impossible. Language, like art, is increasingly becoming a fad proposition."
-- They wrote a section on Art, but since I dislike modern art I didn't read it.
-- There's a section in here regarding the mental model - the process through which people comprehend and classify information. In it, the book talks about the mental model as being organized into many highly complex image-structures, which receive new information and sort it by subject matter. Reminds me of a conversation I had with Athena explaining how I made decisions and processed information: my comprehension of my own mental processes was identical to this, in spirit.
Change, roaring through society, widens the gap between what we believe and what really is, between existing images and the reality they are supposed to reflect. When this gap is only moderate, we cope more or less rationally with change: we can react sanely to new conditions. When this gap grows too wide, however, we find ourselves increasingly unable to cope. We respond inappropriately. We become ineffectual, withdraw, or simply panic. At the final extreme, when the gap grows too wide, we suffer psychosis - or even death.
-- I've seen this.
By speeding up change in the outer world, we compel the individual to relearn his environment at every moment. This, in itself, places a new demand on the nervous system. The people of the past, adapting to comparatively stable environments, maintained longer-lasting ties with their own inner conceptions of "the-way-things-are". We, moving into high-transience society, are forced to truncate these relationships.
Chapter 10
Conditioned to think in straight lines, economists have great difficulty imagining alternatives to communism and capitalism. They see in the growth of large-scale organization nothing more than a linear expansion of old-fashioned bureaucracy. They see technological advance as a simple, non-revolutionary expansion of the known. Born of scarcity, trained to think in terms of limited resources, they can hardly conceive of a society in which man's basic material wants have been satisfied.
One of the curious facts about production . . . is that goods are increasingly designed to yield psychological "extras" to the consumer. . . A cassic example is the case of the auto manufacturer who adds buttons, knobs and dials to the control panel or dashboard, even when these have seemingly no significance. The manufacturer has learned that increasing the number of gadgets, up to a point, gives the operator of the machine the sense of controlling a more complex device, and hence a feeling of increased mastery. This psychological payoff is designed into the product.
Reversed: the failure of the eggless cake mix.
British Overseas Airways corporation announced a plan to provide unmarried American male passengers with "scientifically chosen" blind dates in London. Moreover, a party would be arranged to which "several additional Londoners of both sexes of varying ages" would be invited so that the traveler, who would also be given a tour, would under no circumstances be alone. This program was abruptly called off when the government-owned airline came under Parliamentary criticism.
Chapter 11:
A developmental biologist has grown "multi-mice" - baby mice which have more than one set of parents. Embryos are taken from two pregnant mice, put in a dish and grown until they form into a single mass, then implanted into a third mouse. The ensuing baby has the genetic characteristics of both sets of parents.
Robert Rimmer: The Harrad Experiment, Proposition 31
Industrialism demanded masses of workers ready and able to move off the land in pursuit of jobs, and to move again whenever necessary. Thus the extended family gradually shed its excess weight and the so-called "nuclear" family emerged - a stripped-down, portable family unit consisting only of parents and a small set of children.
The orthodox format [of marriage] presupposes that two young people will "find" one another and marry. It presupposes that the two will fulfill certain psychological needs in one another, and that the two personalities will develop over the years, more or less in tandem, so that they continue to fulfill each other's needs. It further presupposes that this process will last "until death do us part."
These expectations are built deeply into our culture. It is no longer respectable, as it once was, to marry for anything but love. Love has changed from a peripheral concern of the family into its primary justification.
To expect a marriage to last indefinitely under modern conditions is to expect a lot. To ask love to last indefinitely is to expect even more. Transience and novelty are both in league against it.
-- And so, I seek one who takes comfort in the familiar, one who consciously seeks the sense of security only familiar traditions convey.
Chapter 12
Today, there is an almost ironclad consensus about the future of freedom. Maximum individual choice is regarded as the democratic ideal. Yet most writers predict that we shall move further and further from this ideal. They conjure up a dark vision of the future, in which people appear as mindless consumer-creatures, surrounded by standardized goods, educated in standardized schools, fed a diet of standardized mass culture, and forced to adapt standardized styles of life.
-- At one point, the Minister of Education in France could tell you what textbook was being studied, at what time, by primary and secondary school students across the country. This is still true to some extent.
-- Good writers extrapolate wars from street fights, battlefields from skirmishes, or so the quote's paraphrased.
Philip Morris sold a single brand of cigarettes for twenty-one years. It has introduced six new brands and so many options with respect to size, filter and menthol that the smoker now has a vhoice among sixteen different variations. This fact would be trivial, would be trivial, were it not duplicated in virtually every major product field.
It's only primitive technology that imposes standardization. Automation, by contrast, frees the path to endless, blinding, mind-numbing diversity.
Rigid uniformity and long runs of identical products, which characterize our typical mass production plants, are becoming less important. Numerically controlled machines can readily shift from one product model or size to another by a simple change of programs. Short product runs become economically feasable.
-- Calvin's dad flipping out when confronted with the different varieties of peanut butter.
-- Something like this for Sprawl: goods are mass-produced and homogenized in the beginning?
The finding that pre-automation technology yields standardization, while advanced technology permits diversity, is borne out by the supermarket. Like gas stations and airports, supermarkets tend to look alike. By wiping out thousands of little "mom and pop" stores they have without doubt contributed to uniformity in the architectural environment. Yet the array of goods they offer is incomparably more diverse than any corner store could afford to stock. At the very moment that they encourage architectural sameness, they foster gastronomic diversity.
The reason for this contrast is simple: Food and food packaging technology is far more advanced than construction techniques. Indeed, construction has scarcely reached the level of mass production; it remains, in large measure, a pre-industrial craft. Strangled by local building codes and conservative trade unions, the industry's rate of technological advance is far below that of other industries. The more advanced the technology, the cheaper it is to introduce variation in output. We can safely predict, therefore, that when the construction industry catches up with manufacture in technological sophistication, gas stations, airports, and hotels, as well as supermarkets, will stop looking as if they had been poured from the same mold. Uniformity will give way to diversity.
Ever since the rise of industrialism, education in the West, and particularly in the United States, has been organized for the mass production of basically standardized educational packages. It is not
accidental that at the precise moment when the consumer has begun to demand and obtain greater diversity, the same moment when new technology promises to make destandardization possible, a wave of revolt has begun to sweep the college campus. Though the connection is seldom noticed, events on the campus and events in the consumer market are intimately connected.
One basic complaint of the student is that he is not treated as an individual, that he is served up an undifferentiated gruel, rather than a personalized product. The difference is that while industry is highly
responsive to consumer demand, education typically has been indifferent to student wants.
The 80,000 physicians and dentists who receive Time each week get a somewhat different magazine than that received by teachers whose edition, in turn, is different from that sent to college students.
Chapter 12:
The sense of belonging, of being part of a social cell larger than ourselves (yet small enough to be comprehensible) is often so rewarding that we feel deeply drawn, sometimes even against our own better judgment, to the values, attitudes and most-favored life style of the group.
However, we pay for the benefits we receive. For once we psychologically affiliate with a subcult, it begins to exert pressures on us. We find that it pays to "go along" with the group. It rewards us with warmth, friendship and approval when we conform to its life style model. But it punishes us ruthlessly with ridicule, ostracism or other tactics when we deviate from it.
The style-seeker is like the lady who flips through the pages of a fashion magazine to find a suitable dress pattern. She studies one after another, settles on one that appeals to her, and decides to create a dress based on it. Next she begins to collect the necessary materials—cloth, thread, piping, buttons, etc. In precisely the same way, the life style creator acquires the necessary props. He lets his hair grow. He buys art nouveau posters and a paperback of Guevara's writings. He learns to discuss Marcuse and Frantz Fanon. He picks up a particular jargon, using words like "relevance" and "establishment."
None of this means that his political actions are insignificant, or that his opinions are unjust or foolish. He may (or may not) be accurate in his views of society. Yet the particular way in which he chooses to express them is inescapably part of his search for personal style.
By zeroing in on a particular life style we exclude a vast number of alternatives from further consideration. The fellow who opts for the Motorcyclist Model need no longer concern himself with the hundreds of types of gloves available to him on the open market, but which violate the spirit of his style. He need only choose among the far smaller repertoire of glove types that fit within the limits set by his model. And what is said of gloves is equally applicable to his ideas and social relationships as well.
To be "between styles" or "between subcults" is a life-crisis, and the people of the future spend more time in this condition, searching for styles, than do the people of the past or present. Altering his identity as he goes, super-industrial man traces a private trajectory through a world of colliding subcults. This is the social mobility of the future: not simply movement from one economic class to another, but from one tribal grouping to another. Restless movement from subcult to ephemeral subcult describes the arc of his life.
It is ironic that the people who complain most loudly that people cannot "relate" to one another, or cannot "communicate" with one another, are often the very same people who urge greater individuality. The sociologist Karl Mannheim recognized this contradiction when he wrote: "The more individualized people are, the more difficult it is to attain identification."
Self-indulgent despair is a highly salable literary commodity today. Yet despair is not merely a refuge for irresponsibility; it is unjustified. Most of the problems besieging us stem not from implacable natural forces but from man-made processes that are at least potentially subject to our control.
3496
"Web 2.0 is the philosophy that creating content is for faggots so let your users do it for you." Hassan "Acetone" Mikal
Chapter 9
Symbolic Leaders - Orrin Klapp
No man's model of reality is a purely personal product. . . The degree of accuracy in his model to some extent reflects the general level of knowledge in society. As more refined and accurate knowledge enters into society, new concepts and ways of thinking render older ideas and worldviews obsolete.
We create and use up ideas and images at a faster and faster pace. Knowledge, like people, places, things, and organizational forms, is becoming disposable.
-- Retention, for me, is a product of practicality.
-- Constant immersion in a gamer's set of transitory universes, each possessing its own physics, laws, and quirks, has streamlined my ability to glean insight from disposable knowledge.
For several centuries, music has been getting faster.
"In 1954, when I started work on the Dictionary of American Slang, I would not consider a word for inclusion unless I could find three uses of the word over a five-year period. Today such a criterion would be impossible. Language, like art, is increasingly becoming a fad proposition."
-- They wrote a section on Art, but since I dislike modern art I didn't read it.
-- There's a section in here regarding the mental model - the process through which people comprehend and classify information. In it, the book talks about the mental model as being organized into many highly complex image-structures, which receive new information and sort it by subject matter. Reminds me of a conversation I had with Athena explaining how I made decisions and processed information: my comprehension of my own mental processes was identical to this, in spirit.
Change, roaring through society, widens the gap between what we believe and what really is, between existing images and the reality they are supposed to reflect. When this gap is only moderate, we cope more or less rationally with change: we can react sanely to new conditions. When this gap grows too wide, however, we find ourselves increasingly unable to cope. We respond inappropriately. We become ineffectual, withdraw, or simply panic. At the final extreme, when the gap grows too wide, we suffer psychosis - or even death.
-- I've seen this.
By speeding up change in the outer world, we compel the individual to relearn his environment at every moment. This, in itself, places a new demand on the nervous system. The people of the past, adapting to comparatively stable environments, maintained longer-lasting ties with their own inner conceptions of "the-way-things-are". We, moving into high-transience society, are forced to truncate these relationships.
Chapter 10
Conditioned to think in straight lines, economists have great difficulty imagining alternatives to communism and capitalism. They see in the growth of large-scale organization nothing more than a linear expansion of old-fashioned bureaucracy. They see technological advance as a simple, non-revolutionary expansion of the known. Born of scarcity, trained to think in terms of limited resources, they can hardly conceive of a society in which man's basic material wants have been satisfied.
One of the curious facts about production . . . is that goods are increasingly designed to yield psychological "extras" to the consumer. . . A cassic example is the case of the auto manufacturer who adds buttons, knobs and dials to the control panel or dashboard, even when these have seemingly no significance. The manufacturer has learned that increasing the number of gadgets, up to a point, gives the operator of the machine the sense of controlling a more complex device, and hence a feeling of increased mastery. This psychological payoff is designed into the product.
Reversed: the failure of the eggless cake mix.
British Overseas Airways corporation announced a plan to provide unmarried American male passengers with "scientifically chosen" blind dates in London. Moreover, a party would be arranged to which "several additional Londoners of both sexes of varying ages" would be invited so that the traveler, who would also be given a tour, would under no circumstances be alone. This program was abruptly called off when the government-owned airline came under Parliamentary criticism.
Chapter 11:
A developmental biologist has grown "multi-mice" - baby mice which have more than one set of parents. Embryos are taken from two pregnant mice, put in a dish and grown until they form into a single mass, then implanted into a third mouse. The ensuing baby has the genetic characteristics of both sets of parents.
Robert Rimmer: The Harrad Experiment, Proposition 31
Industrialism demanded masses of workers ready and able to move off the land in pursuit of jobs, and to move again whenever necessary. Thus the extended family gradually shed its excess weight and the so-called "nuclear" family emerged - a stripped-down, portable family unit consisting only of parents and a small set of children.
The orthodox format [of marriage] presupposes that two young people will "find" one another and marry. It presupposes that the two will fulfill certain psychological needs in one another, and that the two personalities will develop over the years, more or less in tandem, so that they continue to fulfill each other's needs. It further presupposes that this process will last "until death do us part."
These expectations are built deeply into our culture. It is no longer respectable, as it once was, to marry for anything but love. Love has changed from a peripheral concern of the family into its primary justification.
To expect a marriage to last indefinitely under modern conditions is to expect a lot. To ask love to last indefinitely is to expect even more. Transience and novelty are both in league against it.
-- And so, I seek one who takes comfort in the familiar, one who consciously seeks the sense of security only familiar traditions convey.
Chapter 12
Today, there is an almost ironclad consensus about the future of freedom. Maximum individual choice is regarded as the democratic ideal. Yet most writers predict that we shall move further and further from this ideal. They conjure up a dark vision of the future, in which people appear as mindless consumer-creatures, surrounded by standardized goods, educated in standardized schools, fed a diet of standardized mass culture, and forced to adapt standardized styles of life.
-- At one point, the Minister of Education in France could tell you what textbook was being studied, at what time, by primary and secondary school students across the country. This is still true to some extent.
-- Good writers extrapolate wars from street fights, battlefields from skirmishes, or so the quote's paraphrased.
Philip Morris sold a single brand of cigarettes for twenty-one years. It has introduced six new brands and so many options with respect to size, filter and menthol that the smoker now has a vhoice among sixteen different variations. This fact would be trivial, would be trivial, were it not duplicated in virtually every major product field.
It's only primitive technology that imposes standardization. Automation, by contrast, frees the path to endless, blinding, mind-numbing diversity.
Rigid uniformity and long runs of identical products, which characterize our typical mass production plants, are becoming less important. Numerically controlled machines can readily shift from one product model or size to another by a simple change of programs. Short product runs become economically feasable.
-- Calvin's dad flipping out when confronted with the different varieties of peanut butter.
-- Something like this for Sprawl: goods are mass-produced and homogenized in the beginning?
The finding that pre-automation technology yields standardization, while advanced technology permits diversity, is borne out by the supermarket. Like gas stations and airports, supermarkets tend to look alike. By wiping out thousands of little "mom and pop" stores they have without doubt contributed to uniformity in the architectural environment. Yet the array of goods they offer is incomparably more diverse than any corner store could afford to stock. At the very moment that they encourage architectural sameness, they foster gastronomic diversity.
The reason for this contrast is simple: Food and food packaging technology is far more advanced than construction techniques. Indeed, construction has scarcely reached the level of mass production; it remains, in large measure, a pre-industrial craft. Strangled by local building codes and conservative trade unions, the industry's rate of technological advance is far below that of other industries. The more advanced the technology, the cheaper it is to introduce variation in output. We can safely predict, therefore, that when the construction industry catches up with manufacture in technological sophistication, gas stations, airports, and hotels, as well as supermarkets, will stop looking as if they had been poured from the same mold. Uniformity will give way to diversity.
Ever since the rise of industrialism, education in the West, and particularly in the United States, has been organized for the mass production of basically standardized educational packages. It is not
accidental that at the precise moment when the consumer has begun to demand and obtain greater diversity, the same moment when new technology promises to make destandardization possible, a wave of revolt has begun to sweep the college campus. Though the connection is seldom noticed, events on the campus and events in the consumer market are intimately connected.
One basic complaint of the student is that he is not treated as an individual, that he is served up an undifferentiated gruel, rather than a personalized product. The difference is that while industry is highly
responsive to consumer demand, education typically has been indifferent to student wants.
The 80,000 physicians and dentists who receive Time each week get a somewhat different magazine than that received by teachers whose edition, in turn, is different from that sent to college students.
Chapter 12:
The sense of belonging, of being part of a social cell larger than ourselves (yet small enough to be comprehensible) is often so rewarding that we feel deeply drawn, sometimes even against our own better judgment, to the values, attitudes and most-favored life style of the group.
However, we pay for the benefits we receive. For once we psychologically affiliate with a subcult, it begins to exert pressures on us. We find that it pays to "go along" with the group. It rewards us with warmth, friendship and approval when we conform to its life style model. But it punishes us ruthlessly with ridicule, ostracism or other tactics when we deviate from it.
The style-seeker is like the lady who flips through the pages of a fashion magazine to find a suitable dress pattern. She studies one after another, settles on one that appeals to her, and decides to create a dress based on it. Next she begins to collect the necessary materials—cloth, thread, piping, buttons, etc. In precisely the same way, the life style creator acquires the necessary props. He lets his hair grow. He buys art nouveau posters and a paperback of Guevara's writings. He learns to discuss Marcuse and Frantz Fanon. He picks up a particular jargon, using words like "relevance" and "establishment."
None of this means that his political actions are insignificant, or that his opinions are unjust or foolish. He may (or may not) be accurate in his views of society. Yet the particular way in which he chooses to express them is inescapably part of his search for personal style.
By zeroing in on a particular life style we exclude a vast number of alternatives from further consideration. The fellow who opts for the Motorcyclist Model need no longer concern himself with the hundreds of types of gloves available to him on the open market, but which violate the spirit of his style. He need only choose among the far smaller repertoire of glove types that fit within the limits set by his model. And what is said of gloves is equally applicable to his ideas and social relationships as well.
To be "between styles" or "between subcults" is a life-crisis, and the people of the future spend more time in this condition, searching for styles, than do the people of the past or present. Altering his identity as he goes, super-industrial man traces a private trajectory through a world of colliding subcults. This is the social mobility of the future: not simply movement from one economic class to another, but from one tribal grouping to another. Restless movement from subcult to ephemeral subcult describes the arc of his life.
It is ironic that the people who complain most loudly that people cannot "relate" to one another, or cannot "communicate" with one another, are often the very same people who urge greater individuality. The sociologist Karl Mannheim recognized this contradiction when he wrote: "The more individualized people are, the more difficult it is to attain identification."
Self-indulgent despair is a highly salable literary commodity today. Yet despair is not merely a refuge for irresponsibility; it is unjustified. Most of the problems besieging us stem not from implacable natural forces but from man-made processes that are at least potentially subject to our control.
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"Web 2.0 is the philosophy that creating content is for faggots so let your users do it for you." Hassan "Acetone" Mikal
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