Disaster Relief

Consider the following thought experiment, which I present as a series of questions.

1. Would you donate to help feed a starving and homeless person, who has no money to feed himself because he lost all his money gambling, or has spent all his money on drugs and similar vice?

Probably not, I might guess. On to the next question, then.

2. Would you donate to help feed a starving and homeless person, who is a victim of a natural disaster?

Most likely yes, assuming that one is not in greater need. Now, finally:

3. Would you donate to help feed a starving and homeless person, who is a victim of a natural disaster, given that it is also known that the person is the same fellow as in question 1?

There are two possible answers, and both raise interesting thoughts.

If we agree to help the person, then the strange scenario is that from the position of the drug addict/gambler, a natural disaster is more favorable than no natural disaster. The position may also be inconsistent.

Conversely, if we refuse to help the person, the scenario becomes somewhat morally distasteful. Should we then introduce background checks or means testing prior to dispensing aid? Or should we just dispatch help to areas which are more 'deserving' or 'worthy' of assistance?

Followership

Everyone talks about leadership and its importance, but this is quite clearly problematic. Not everyone can be a leader, and the use of the word "can" is meant in both senses. Some lack the ability, and furthermore the scenario where everyone is a leader and leading simultaneously is patently absurd.

Perhaps we should consider the opposite art of followership, for the very emphasis on leadership projects a skewed perception of affairs. Should all the credit and blame lie solely on the leader, the man on the top? Of course not. And then, if we acknowledge that it is the entity as a whole that is important, why then do we only teach people leadership, but not equivalently teach people to follow?

In my conception, followership may be more complex and less monolithic than leadership, for the sole reason that whereas leadership goes from one to many, followership goes from many to one, and many to many. There are a variety of roles that can be adopted as a follower in a team, each offering various possible benefits and detriments. Finding the right mix, and teaching it, is probably difficult.

Clearly, I ramble on too much about a subject about which I know nothing about. However, I do find the emphasis on leadership amusing, but then again, I suppose it's not every attractive to tell an employer that "I'm trained in followership'"!

Asking Questions

I think everyone should give some thought to the art of asking useful questions.

Perhaps the most useless form of question are one-syllable questions, like "How?", "Why?", or "What?", being quite so open-ended and ambiguous that it is entirely likely that the received reply, if any, would answer all but that which you desired to learn about. The sole exception is when your aim is not to learn something specific, but rather to gain insight from the way the question is interpreted.

It should therefore first be required that questions be more specific, or at least multi-syllabled. But even questions that appear specific can fail to be good questions. Situations can, and often, occur when the intent or context of the question is not understood. A seemingly simple question can have multiple answers, only one of which is most valid for a specific context. One might encounter such situations when a young child asks a straightforward question, for example, "Why are the police chasing that man?". One might have to estimate the level of intelligence or knowledge of the child when answering, "Because the man did bad things" may suffice for very young children, but is clearly insulting for an older child who of course knows this and merely wants to know the crime committed.

In the technical and academic arena (where I 'work') this problem is quite ever-present. Whenever a person asks a technical question, I have to determine the appropriate level of expertise of the questioner before answering. Some people desire only a general or intuitive overview, whereas others are more interested in the details. It is particularly hard to answer questions like "How do you do X?", especially if X consists of multiple parts, only one or a few of which are your major contributions. One has to quickly decide if interest is in the general entirety of X, or in the areas of new contribution.

But of course, one can always clarify the question, which also buys more time for the formulation of a response.

On Self-Depreciating Jokes

It's somehow acceptable for a person to make fun of his own race or culture, but when an outsider makes jokes of the same thing, it's suddenly racist or offensive. We find it to be good humor when we joke about our nation, but feel defensive if a foreigner supplies the same material. That's some double standards there. Are jokes really non-transferable?

Might it be because there are two possibilities, that of a joke being in good jest, and that of it being offensive to some degree? And, since one cannot conceivably (or at least, sanely) have reason to raise a joke to offend oneself, it must therefore be interpreted that the joke was intended for the purpose of humor. A religious joke told by a man of the faith cannot possibly have a malicious intent, and hence must be meant to invoke humor; whereas the same joke by a different purveyor might have the slightest possibility of being told in ill will, and it is this slightest possibility that mars the joke.

Another explanation, perhaps simpler, is that it is acceptable to laugh at yourself, but not to be laughed at. Thus, the person who tells the joke is important, and depends on whether he is an insider or an outsider. Is it then possible to reduce this phenomena to mere in-group/out-group dynamics? It seems trite, though.

On the General Uselessness of Anecdotal Evidence

Anecdotal evidence is quite a poor basis for well-founded decisions. Here, I will distinguish between the different possible levels of anecdotal evidence and point out how our decisions may be misled.

The basest level is hearsay, where the evidence is not experienced firsthand or with proof of veracity. It suffices to say that the truth of such evidence is in doubt, much less any general conclusions which may be drawn from it.

The next level is evidence experienced firsthand, but of which the impact is greatly and improperly amplified by our innate cognitive biases. The availablity heuristic modifies our expectation of an event's frequency based on how salient the event is in our mind. Often, the perceived frequency deviates significantly from the true frequency.

The top level is evidence experienced firsthand, but without cognitive bias. You may ask, what could the problem possibly be, since the evidence is both true (being observed firsthand) and free of mental bias. The problem is that anecdotal evidence is implicitly a local measure of things, and not an indicator of the larger and true picture.

Consider the following scenario: In a (somewhat racist) town, the NA people say that there are too many CL people; each NA reports a 4:1 ratio of CL:NA. However, the CL people say that there are too many NA people; each CL reports a 4:1 ratio of NA:CL.

The interesting thing is, nobody is wrong or lying; everyone's anecdotal evidence is correct. The town is a salt lattice, where each atom is surrounded by 4 atoms of a different type. In actual fact, the ratio of NA:CL is 1:1.

Anecdotal evidence is a mental shortcut for making quick decisions. However, as shown by the NaCl example, it may not be wise to draw generalized conclusions based on such evidence.

Stone Soup

There once was a town which was ravaged by a harsh winter. Food was scarce, and everyone kept and hid whatever supplies that they had.

It was during this period of great scarcity that a tramp passed through the town. Curiously, the tramp trod to the town center and began boiling a pot of water. Within the pot lay a stone.

One townsman, being sufficiently perplexed by this weird occurrence, approached the tramp and inquired about the contents of the pot. To this question, the tramp replied that he was making a marvelous pot of stone soup. However, the soup would taste better with additional ingredients.

The townsman, tempted by the strange soup, decided to contribute. And so, in went some potatoes which the townsman had previously saved. The other townspeople, being similarly curious, followed suit, each adding their items to the pot.

Eventually, the pot of soup, now endowed with many ingredients, came to a boil. Unfortunately, the uncoordinated mess of random contributions resulted in a terrible soup which tasted like sewage. Deeply angered by this act of deception, the townspeople lynched the tramp and used his flesh to make a fresh pot of soup.

Conventional Moral:

Too many cooks make crap soup.

Philosophical Moral:

It is a mistake to believe that all properties of things are additive.

Motive

I think that perhaps we ascribe too much motive to the actions of our peers. It is almost as if they are but automatons slaved to purpose, without room for innocent randomness.

Perhaps we read too much into things, as if every minor movement is an indicator of some deep and unvoiced meaning. A momentary flitter of her gaze- ah, a sign of embarassment, or excitement!- or no, perhaps she's really feeling irritated? All this, or perhaps a grain of sand in the eye, and not necessarily hers.

The brain sees what it wants to see, tries to enforce a bit of order onto noise and nothingness. And perhaps there is nothing wrong with thinking too much, except when it causes unnecessary worry, grief, or false joy and hope.