Survival of the Fittest - Fittest at What?

 There's a bit in Khalil Gibran's book The Prophet that I like to think about sometimes -

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

I think about how a tree gives, how it grows fruit and lets them fall where they may. Whether that fruit grows into another tree depends entirely on where it falls, and (as the quote above says) it doesn't think about whether recipients are deserving.

That has applications in a number of ways. Sometimes I think about it with regards to this blog, since it's freely open for anyone to stumble across. (Perhaps I could try to create a substack or patreon, and if I had enough followers to make a living solely by writing I might be tempted to do so... but I also kind of like the idea of just writing freely, and letting the posts fall where they may. Well, okay... the idea of getting paid to write is nice, it's just that it would also change how I write as I'd be tempted to try to write in ways that appeal to others. But I digress.)

I think about it too, with regards to how the military raises it's leaders. After all, they generally try to train everyone to be a leader, as you never know which are going to rise up through the ranks.

But to get back to this idea that a tree lets its seeds fall where they may, and it's the environment that determines what grows.

What survives, and is fit.

Or perhaps a better example is the peppered moth, which had mostly been white but as air pollution became more common quickly evolved to dark.

White moths had been more fit, until suddenly dark ones were more suited to the environment. And so we have 'survival of the fittest', except what is 'fit' changed as the environment changed.

That seems pretty true, to be honest. First, when you think about swords and spears and other weapons - some are more suited to certain environments than others. It depends on whether you're fighting in an enclosed space or not, on whether the combatants are wearing armor. On any number of factors.

Even the combatants themselves - perhaps on one day, one has a cold and isn't able to fight at their full capacity. Or they're still recovering from an injury. Or one is better at fighting in the rain, or the cold.

It can even change with age - someone young and inexperienced can lose, but win as that changes. Or someone at their peak can weaken as they grow older.

Which means there isn't ever really a way to win, once and for all. In fact, trying to be the 'fittest' is a bit of a loser's game. You may win for a time, but eventually you will fall.

It makes me think 'survival of the fittest' is really a shallow and superficial claim. It doesn't hold up to any real thought at all...

But then it's never about logic, is it? It's more of an emotional argument. It's the type of thinking that can make you feel special, privileged. After all, if it's survival of the fittest and you're the fittest, then you don't have to care about the other person. You won, they lost, they can suck it.

Perhaps if you point this out, instead of trying to be king of the hill, proponents would claim that there's some sort of level of acceptable 'fitness' for which your survival is earned... and anyone under that level somehow doesn't deserve to survive.

That has all sorts of problems too. Like who decides what's acceptable? The Nazis murdered Jews - but they also murdered or sterilized mentally handicapped people. Yet those who know and love a mentally handicapped person know just how wrong that is. How much  you can learn from someone with Down's syndrome. Or how someone like my uncle (who I've never been clear whether there's a genetic issue or whether it was because of some problems at birth, has been mentally handicapped all his life) who seems to brighten everyone's day.  

All in all, it seems a stupid and foolish thing to try to decide people's worth by some concept of 'fitness'...

Not sure where I'm going with this, other than it's a stupid idea that has led to all sorts of terrible things and I wish it was challenged more directly. Sure, eugenics and Nazis have a bad rep - but damn, some people sure are trying to make it palatable again. And the ones disgusted by it don't seem to be making good arguments about why it's a terrible idea.

The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

I have realized that sometimes what I value most in a story is the way it makes me think.

Like with LitRPG - I do enjoy a good progression story, where a character grows stronger and more powerful... but there are also some disturbing elements to such stories, since even if the character uses their power well it still means that might makes right. 

And yet, reading such stories and noticing my reactions makes me think about them, and polish my counterarguments. (This is probably part of why freedom of speech is so valued, though I get the concern about giving a platform to nazis and other terrible ideas. It's just... those ideas are honestly so terrible it should be pretty easy to refute them. Like how I discussed before the stupidity behind racism. And don't get me started on 'survival of the fittest'. I do sometimes think it'd be nice to write a litRPG story deliberately addressing those elements, but let's be honest here. I'm not interested enough to write that in my spare time. Maybe if I was independently wealthy and didn't have to work for a living I'd consider it. Maybe when I retire. But it's not like people are throwing money at me to think about and write about whatever I want.)

That's not directly related to my current read. It's just that despite some issues with the writing (after the books that have been published to Kindle Unlimited, there are quite a few chapters on Royal Road... but a) I think the author might be using some sort of voice transcriber? There are far too many homonyms and b) I think the author sometimes forgets previous plot points) I do find the story fascinating.

Partly for the character growth - Randidly Ghosthound is extremely anti-social, and has a lot of challenges learning to handle the expectations that come with his power - and partly because of the way it continually subverts my expectations.

For example, quite a few beloved characters start off with a rather negative first impression. Descriptions that would normally foreshadow some future problem (like the 'greasy' guy who was one of the earliest people to join their village, to the blustering kid who jumped at the chance to found the village when Randidly realized he didn't want to deal with people and gave away the loot he'd gained to do so) generally don't. The kid turned out to do pretty well, even if Randidly did put him through some pretty harsh 'training', and the greasy guy was okay - up until *spoiler* his girlfriend got killed quite a while later, and even then he wasn't so much a bad guy as a badly grieving guy.

It's also interesting how initially Randidly seemed very concerned with finding his two closest friends. Except the closer he gets to finding them, the more it becomes obvious there were a lot of issues there, and maybe he isn't actually all that willing to face that. And face them.

That's all fascinating in and of itself, to me at least, but the reason I got the urge to write this was because I realized just how few really good mentor type characters he had. His parents were pretty awful, his 'friends' were kind of not really good friends, he didn't really have a good role model on how to lead (except for the support of one of the most interesting side characters, a woman who helped manage the village they founded... and has quite a lot of imagery associated with spiders. Luckily she seems to use her calculating nature for the better).

In some ways it's a bit depressing? It's kind of a dark world, in that almost every character is troubled in some way. Though it's not overly dark, and some of that just comes across as realistic. To me at least. Many of the characters are not all that logical, but they're generally trying their best.

Yet for some reason it reminds me of a troubled young soldier from my platoon. Back, when I was a young wet-behind-the-ears butterbar lieutenant. He said something once, about how we (referring to my boyfriend and I at the time) showed him that good people really do exist.

You would think that's a compliment? But it doesn't really feel like one. Or rather, the impression it gives of what his life was like is definitely NOT a compliment, as is the impression that how we were was something rare and unusual. 

I mean, I never really thought I was especially or unusually good. I don't feel like the vast majority of people I work with are any worse than I am. But maybe, for whatever reason, some people don't really encounter people like that.

I think that's why Randidly Ghosthound reminded me of him. Because he just doesn't seem to encounter people who are... I don't know the right term here. It's not even so much about being 'good', as just people with emotional intelligence? Ones who know how to navigate those social intricacies Randidly struggles with so much, and do so in a positive manner?

Something like that. God, the number of times he makes things worse for himself just because he doesn't want to talk. It's kind of interesting to have someone who, on the outside at least, does a good job of looking like a stoic and powerful guy, and on the inside you realize he's really just a hot mess. (But he gets better. Sometimes he has to, for plot reasons.)

It's also interesting to see him grow enough to realize that his 'friends' really kind of aren't. Not that he hates them or sees them as enemies, but even when they do meet up again they don't really recover their old friendship. I don't think I would want that in a lot of stories, since I do tend to enjoy the whole bonds of brotherhood (and sisterhood) and found family-type plots, but it's an interesting change, and the way I feel about it is educational.

Enrichment, Obligations, and Other Musings.

I was thinking a bit more about the appeal of litrpg stories, aided and abetted by my most recent read (The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound), and thought I'd start at the top.

Someone once joked that they needed 'enrichment', the same way that animals in a zoo do. 'Joke' probably isn't quite the right word here, because I think it's actually true - people need a certain level of stimulation.

Obviously, there are healthy and unhealthy types of stimulation (escaping into a fantasy novel, writing fanfic, drugs, creating 'drama' at work, etc) and ideally we would have rich and rewarding lives that give us that level of stimulation in positive ways.

I think this is also somewhat related to our attitudes towards risk. Or rather, I think about a study that showed as more systems are in place to make something safer (like car manufacturing), people start taking more risks, so that the level of risk tends to stay the same. On average, that is. Obviously different people have different levels of what's acceptable.

This, btw, also reminds me a bit of what's required to get in the 'flow'. 'Flow' is something that's interested me for quite a while, because it's part of what makes living... fun. It's rewarding. Maybe I should even say 'enriching'.

There are quite a few studies on how people achieve that state (here's one as an example), and from what I remember it goes like this:

You need something that is challenging, but not too challenging (or it's overwhelming and people just give up). It needs to be somewhat complex, something with a clear goal, and something 'fun'.

I first heard of the concept with regards to sports, and I think that's the focus of most studies, but I don't think it's limited to sports or physical activity. I think you can get into a state of flow when coding, for example. Or picking parts for shipping. 

I do think modern society is... well, lacking in enrichment and stimulation like that. At least, most jobs are. That's part of the reason it's so hard to stay motivated for so many low paying jobs. 

That's just the tip of the iceberg though. Because I think modern society makes it too easy to kind of sleepwalk through life. I got to thinking about that because of something that happened in The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound, though it's not a direct relation.

Randidly Ghosthound is a character in one of those system integration stories in LitRPG. Basically modern life got destroyed when earth got integrated into a system with game-like elements. Magic, swords, etc. Like many of these, Randidly soon becomes quite overpowered... though I like that it addresses some of the common issues with that sort of character. (i.e. for all that they note the problems with 'might makes right', the solution for the protagonist is almost always to become stronger. Basically their might makes right, but it's still a system where the most powerful character gets to dictate what happens. In this case a) he struggles to deal with his overpoweredness and b) because of some shenanigans on another planet he knows he won't be able to defeat one of the upcoming system challenges, which means he's also quite focused on trying to build other people up so that they can succeed when he can't help). 

Anyways, there was an interesting incident at one point - another planet was struggling in the system. He learned about it through an acquaintance, and wanted to help... but the person he met flat out didn't want him to save the planet. Basically that guy's daughter had been the hero of their planet, and died. He resented the rest of the population for putting that burden on his daughter, and still expecting other people to save them. (That doesn't quite feel like a good summary, but it's close enough).

It raised a whole slew of issues, from what Randidly's obligation was to this guy, whether that request took precedence over his own desire to help the planet, whether having the ability to help meant he was required to, and a bunch of other things. But what I wanted to focus on the most was how having one person step up as a hero allowed a lot of other people to... not.

That in a way, other people are able to coast, to stay weak. They don't have to push themselves to continue growing in strength.

Which I have mixed feelings about, because on the one hand I do have an ideal of a fully actualized individual. i.e. someone mindful and aware and capable of handling whatever comes their way.

On the other hand, nobody can do it all, and a large part of how society works is having people specialize in the things they can... and have friends or resources available for the things they can't. Like how one person might become a car mechanic, and another a computer expert. Both take a long time to master, and most people don't have the time or energy to master both (or maybe they can for those two, but don't have time to master cooking. Or some other task.) Point is we often need to outsource important tasks.

And yet... we still have to know how to evaluate the experts. How do you know that your car mechanic did a good job? Or that your computer expert knows what they're doing?

Hmmmm.

I suppose there's really two issues with the OP hero then. One - people expecting and demanding them to risk their lives saving them; and two - forgetting that even if you're not the one doing the job you still have a role to play. 

That latter one requires a bit more explanation, I think. 

Basically that whole scenario reminded me of how people will outsource things (like politics) without doing their due diligence. Like supporting Trump when Trump has repeatedly shown he was untrustworthy and shouldn't be in power. I know most people don't have the time to truly dig into politics and come to a well-thought out position, but we still have to do our due diligence when we're empowering someone to such a degree... and quite frankly anyone still supporting Trump hasn't done their due diligence. Or just doesn't care. 

Maybe you can't be the president, or governor, or member of congress... but that doesn't mean you should just tune everything out and let immoral and incompetent assholes win office without a fight.

Too True

https://mastodon.social/@jensorensen/110838313154327216

I'd feel a lot better about plans to colonize Mars or tech leader plans for 'sustainability' if they showed any talent for addressing today's issues.

How can you be trusted to ensure a future 100 or even 1000 years from now, when you aren't doing the work here and now?

Especially if you're not addressing the things that make our current system unsustainable? 

And how can any such future be worthwhile, when you're writing off most of humanity?

If it's not geared towards making a sustainable society for everyone, and if it doesn't involve addressing the social dilemmas that make sustainability difficult, it's flawed from the start. 

Trump Indictment

The number of pundits and opinion pieces trying to defend Trump is just disgusting. 

On Leadership Pipelines

You may have noticed that in one post I was complaining about the military plan for officer professional development, and in the next praising it.

That's because there are two extremes - the army policy is bureaucratic and inflexible (unless you're a West Pointer or similarly connected individual, where things can be... Different. For example if you know someone in command who asks for you by name, you might get around some of it. Or at least have more of a say on when you'll check certain boxes. I think. I don't have a lot of experience with that but I've heard of it happening. Also sometimes personnel officers will promising some future assignment if you take a crappy one, or if they're worried about retaining you.)

Regardless, it's bureaucratic and inflexible for most, but at least there is a plan.

Civilian companies, otoh, put a lot of the onus on you.

It's up to you to decide to take a class, which your company may pay for. It's up to you to ask for a promotion, or get a cert. 

Obviously, different places of work do this to different degrees, and you can find some civilian places that do more to make sure employees are taking the positions that will give them the experience needed for more skilled positions, but for the most part that's been my experience.

And here's the thing - those jobs? Like being a field grade officer? Or joining the C-suite? They tend to require quite a bit of effort to get people with the right skills. 

You might be able to learn them on the job, though it'd probably be rough and you'd have a steep learning curve. (I suspect the military focuses on those career paths because even just knowing ranks, military jargon, and military culture is hard to do from the outside - they're not going to make a civilian a general no matter how talented they seem at managing an organization).

All that talent people claim they need? It requires a LOT of work. Some people have family resources that allow them to develop that themselves. Like paying for college. Getting internships. Etc.

The military is interesting because so many enlisted don't have that type of support. In a very rough way, the structure and support the military provides can make up for that. (And they can interfere on a far deeper level.)

I also think a lot of it has to do with expectations.

So often, as you reach a rank, the people around you will say things like 'as a future company commander ______' or 'now that you're an NCO _____'

Like corporals - who have the same grade and pay as a specialist, but because a corporal is considered a Non-Commissioned Officer they're expected to take on more of a leadership role.

And most of the soldiers live up to those expectations. (In my experience, people generally do. And they'll live down to them if you have low expectations, too).

That's not all there is to it, of course.

There's also an element of trust involved.

Like - people generally want to do their thing. Part of why soldiers want to go to war zones is because you can spend years during peace time training, and training, and never knowing if you're really ready. You don't really get the chance to do what you've been training for. 

So when people don't want to do their thing? It's normally because they've grown cynical, disheartened, etc.

Bad leadership.

That holds true in civilian life... Complaints that people aren't willing to work hard anymore? Maybe take a long, hard look at why. 

Elaborating a Bit

I mentioned that the army had a clear path for officer development (command time, staff time, etc).

Despite my concerns about the inevitable waste of such a bureaucratic approach, I do give the army credit for having an actual leadership pipeline.

Same for enlisted soldiers, too.

It's not easy taking a bunch of 18 year olds and turning them into (in a few years) non-commissioned officers.

When I talk about 'wasted talent' it's partly because of what I saw there.

A progression pipeline acknowledges that it takes time and certain kinds of experiences to get the upper level skills a large organization needs... And it ensures effort is put into making sure people get that.

Now that I've worked in the civilian world, I can say that it's not something done as much there (though most companies do try to provide some sort of option for people to progress. It's just more likely to be paying for school or certifications)

And then some try to poach the ones who've gone through such a pipeline elsewhere, and then complain about a talent shortage. 

Circling Back as Promised - Incomplete

"The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way."

 Okay, perhaps I'm not really talking about the Tao, but it captures the difficulty I've had in writing this.

I do have some ideas I wanted to address, circling back to my previous post. Alas, every time I mentally started to write it, I would come up with something completely different.

...Not wrong, just starting points that would take the post in completely different directions. None of which felt quite right.

And it all fails to capture what I really wanted to address. So I started thinking about that, in particular. If I had to pick one thing, what would I address?

And it's not the relationship between freedom and property rights (the book that started this posits there is one, and looks at some of the debates between colonials and the original American inhabitants. I have to admit I have a hard time grasping their points, though I think it's because I'm so steeped in my own culture that it's hard to imagine another one. Native Americans had wealthy people, but somehow the wealth didn't translate into power over others the way ours does? Women handled the land and farming? But then... how did those women decide who got what? I'm not really sure I get how it worked. It does seem appealing though - and their shock at the callousness of colonial society is a bit of a wake up call. Like... maybe we don't have to have a wealthy 1% that callously ignores the suffering of the rest of society.)

I just rambled on about that even though I said it wasn't about freedom and property rights, but that's mostly because I want to think more deeply on it. After all, I don't think you can ever build a 'perfect' system, and most systems rely on a certain amount of wisdom that prevents its flaws from destroying it. But I do think some systems are... better. You can study the effects of specific types of political systems without realizing that the rules of the system do shape the end result. Like how 'first past the post' elections in a winner-takes-all environment allows someone with 35% of the vote to win, simply because they got the largest share. Or how that pushes us towards this terrible two party system where we are constantly forced to choose the lesser of two evils. (I do like the idea of mixed member proportional representation, but I would take ranked choice voting as an improvement... and I get tired of how certain parties keep arguing against policies, not because it's actually better for society, but because they're afraid that they'll lose if they actually had to win the support of the majority. Really a sign of a flawed ideology, but they'd rather dismantle democracy than admit their ideas suck.)

No...  what I really wanted to talk about was the system. 

About why so many people feel isolated, helpless, and lost. About why middle-aged men have such a high suicide rate. About what drives mass shootings. About all the signs that indicate our system is... perhaps broken.

Much of which is based on my own speculation, rules of thumb, and subjective observation. I won't be pulling out a lot of scientific studies to back this up.

To start with...

To start with, I want to share some of my own personal goals. I'm not so keen on competing against other people, don't really care about dominating at some activity.... I'm much more internally driven.

I want to be the best 'me' possible. The old Army slogan to "be all that you can be" honestly appealed to me.

The frustrating thing is that I can tell I have talent. Maybe that's arrogant? Idk... 

The first thing most people say when they describe me is 'smart'. Or 'intelligent'. I've constantly been in the 99th percentile on standardized tests. I am normally one of the smartest people in the room. Even now, as a DevOps engineer dealing with all sorts of tech. (I once solved an issue the offshore team had been struggling with in just a couple of minutes, mostly because they were trying the wrong command and I had experience with and knew the right one, but it was apparently rather memorable.)

And yet despite that, I feel like I have struggled to get where I want to be in life. 

I am now on my third career. Army officer, shipping supervisor... DevOps/Software Engineer/Whatever-label-you-want-for-this-tech-related-job.

I have been thinking about that quite a bit, because my current job is... okay I guess? Interesting enough, and I'm doing well enough, but it's honestly not what I had pictured myself doing. And it has none of the sense of service I had wanted... not like I had hoped to get if I could get into computer security.

But I'm also older now, and it gets harder to keep changing things up. To try to get where I want to be.

So where is it that I want to be? 

Well, that has changed over the years. Quite a bit sometimes. But much of it has been about trying to use that talent in constructive ways. Like... I enjoy asking just the right question that spurs a team discussion that leads to a well thought out solution. 

Does it actually matter whether that discussion is about how best to provide room and board for a unit from Alaska that's coming to our base for training, or what might be causing a problem with our application, or how best to assign our people so that we can handle that days number of shipments?

Not really.

I just like problem solving, and being part of a team that works well together to solve those problems, and ideally those problems would be 'wicked' problems that deal with complicated issues that can have a great impact on people's lives.

Well, okay... I like problem solving, but pontificating on it from my keyboard when there's no chance of it getting put into action isn't satisfactory either...

So there's also an element of difference making, which ultimately requires power of some sort.

In which I am sadly lacking. Or rather, I think I earn the respect of my co-workers and can generally make a difference, to some degree. Often not to the degree I would like... though I am well aware that most people could probably say the same. (also, I think there have to be limits on what you're willing to do for power, so I'm not sure if I just have never been willing to do the things it requires to get that power, or whether I've truly been shut out for all the systemic reasons I often feel like it is.)

It's more than that, too, though.

It's that I constantly feel forced to choose sub-optimal options because that's just how the system is. Like the Army... I get that in order to manage a large organization like that you need a method of assigning personnel. That you need to have your development pipeline, since it's not like you can hire generals off the street. And, naturally, there are some jobs that everyone wants and others that nobody does...

So in some ways it's inevitable that you will get assigned where the Army wants you, and not where you want to be.

But I also, personally, felt like it was such a damn waste.

Like... okay, it does make sense to expect officers to go through a certain career path. You have to be a platoon leader, then a company XO. You should alternate between staff and command positions, so you get experience in both. 

At the same time... I never cared for or wanted to be a general, and it was very annoying to get told I couldn't do the things I actually wanted to because I had to follow this pre-built plan the Army had designed for officers like myself. 

I had this feeling I could have been fantastic in human intelligence. Or even civil affairs. They fit my interests, I thought I had potential... but those things never fit with the Army's need. And then I was assigned to fill out a National Guard position for a deployment to Iraq - which was fine, everyone expected to deploy there at some point then - but it was for one of the most useless positions imaginable. As in, they were restructuring the way military intelligence worked and while our analysts were kept busy supporting the brigade, most of our military intelligence battalion staff was wasted. It's been almost two decades now so I'm not sure I'm remembering it correctly anymore, but basically they were restructuring to put military intelligence assets closer to the company level, instead of battalion. Which meant no longer having a military intelligence battalion supporting a brigade. And yet we were still assigned to that MI BN. The analysts at the brigade level didn't need our specific battalion supporting them, and they kept pulling our people for other assignments because of that. 

Like, I don't mind serving or taking some risks... but don't waste me!!! Especially when that position meant I wasn't able to fill some of those other career progression requirements so that I could try transferring into the fields I wanted.

This is the kind of frustration I have felt often in life. And also heard from others...

Underutilization.

Wasted potential.

Wasted talent.

People are capable of doing so much more, and yet somehow only a few ever get the chance to do so.

I think, sometimes, that the people I have worked with... the solders, the workers at that shipping facility, the ones society somehow thinks should barely get paid, and that people up top will confidently assert are just being paid as the market demands...

I think they should get paid more, simply because every single one of them is capable of a lot more. And they are giving up on that potential in order to work these necessary yet often boring or physically demanding jobs. (Automation would be fine if we no longer needed people to do boring tasks that few would want, but only if we build a society where people can find alternatives... and unfortunately this system doesn't seem willing to put the effort into doing so.)

I wanted to circle back to that quote about human happiness, and about what way of living is best, for a couple of reasons.

One is that I have been pondering the appeal of the LitRPG books I've been plowing through, most of which fall into two categories - a transmigration/isekai story where someone from Earth winds up in a fantasy world with magic and a gamelike system where you can level up, and a 'system integration' type story where Earth is integrated into a gamelike system with levels (and either magic or sufficiently advanced tech to be a lot like magic).

Both scenarios have ordinary people who, through access to such a system, are able to level up and become powerful. There are some problems with them (as with any fantasy, people always imagine themselves the winners. And it's fun to think of what you would do if you're the most powerful person around... but that's about on par with fantasizing about medieval times because you always imagine who you could be if you were an aristocrat, and completely ignore the painful reality of that era for peasants and serfs and the like. Also, what's an exciting adventure in fiction would be an all too terrifying life in reality.)

I think the appeal is two-fold. First, that you can make a difference. Second, the relationships and friendships.

Because all too often modern society makes us feel like faceless cogs in the economic machine, and we're so caught up in the machine that it's hard to form meaningful relationships.

Let's Circle Back to This...

Jotting this down because I want to come back to it:

"This ultimately comes down to the question of how to measure human happiness, which is a notoriously difficult thing to do. About the only dependable way anyone has ever discovered to determine whether one way of living is really more satisfying, fulfilling, happy or otherwise preferable to any other is to allow people to fully experience both, give them a choice, then watch what they actually do. For instance, if Pinker is correct, then any sane person who had to choose between (a) the violent chaos and abject poverty of the ‘tribal’ stage in human development and (b) the relative security and prosperity of Western civilization would not hesitate to leap for safety."

And Yes - What if We Did?

"What if we treat people, from the beginning, as imaginative, intelligent, playful creatures who deserve to be understood as such?"

From The Dawn of Everything 

My People

I had been at loose ends regarding what to read next, when I stumbled across mention of this book. 

I just finished the first chapter and - these are my people.

They're asking questions I've asked before (with actual knowledge to back it up!) and some I haven't yet.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the book. 😁

Musings on the Psychology Behind Terrible Decisions

We recently had a couple of days with a noticable haze, and the smell of smoke. It came from the wildfires in Canada (reaching all the way to central Illinois).

Sure, I've heard humans started those fires... But fires don't catch like that unless the vegetation is dry. This is Canada for crying out loud... I have never seen wildfires in Canada spread smoke so far.

Throw in the heat waves, the insurance companies dropping customers in places like Florida, and it seems like we're really starting to feel the consequences that scientists have been predicting for a while now.

Which makes me think about how we got here. And about the organized efforts to prevent 7s from doing anything about it. (Like this).

It's pretty common for people to dismiss these things as 'greed', or corporations (and billionaires) being just plain evil...

And maybe it's true. I mean, we do have story after story of corporations suppressing information that can be life threatening. Radium girls, cigarette companies, Erin Brockovich - that's just a small fraction of the multitude of examples. If anyone wonders why 'evil corporations' are a constant trope, they haven't really been paying attention to what corporations have proven they're willing to do. If you add in less immediately lethal activity (like Volkswagen's emissions scandal) the list grows even longer. 

Is greed and evil really enough of an explanation though?

I mean sure, maybe some of the people involved are knowingly choosing to do wrong for short sighted gain or something, who knows?

But with my personal rules of thumb (most people don't want to think of themselves as evil, so they will have some sort of justification. Plus we tend to be biased when it benefits us, so people are more likely to find arguments credible when they allow them to continue making money.) I suspect there's more going on than simple greed.

More than just human bias, too. After all, some of those corporations clearly did have proof that they were trying to cover up. 

When I try to imagine what would lead me to make such morally bankrupt decisions, I think back to the times when I really, really, didn't want to believe something.

Like realizing I was the one who made a mistake. I think most people, like me, feel an instinctive fear when that happens. Sort of an 'oh shit, I screwed up... This could get me fired' fear. It doesn't even have to be a direct threat from your boss, most people think that if they screw up badly enough they will lose their job. (There was a thread on Twitter once where tech people talked about their biggest, most disastrous mistakes... And it's kind of reassuring to realize so many people - people who mostly seem competent and good - have stories like that. Helps dispel the myth that we all have to be perfect).

It's hard to set aside the ego, to not get defensive and immediately try to shuffle the blame or hide what you did and hope nobody figures it out.

Those are the moments that can define a person, a corporation, a country...

And when we talk about character, we're talking about people who demonstrate it even when your self interest is telling you to hide and cover up whatever it is.

I don't know that that makes any difference - we still have short sighted fools preventing us from addressing problems because it's not in their interest.

It's just their possible motivations change. 

Dungeon Crawler Carl

The newest Dungeon Crawler Carl book came out, and of course I had to reread all the other books so that I didn't spend the first few chapters trying to remember the details of who is who, or what happened if they reference earlier events.

I am in awe of the storytelling, even more so after this book. I'm not sure how to explain it, I don't think I'd enjoy a similar book with less talentee writing (it doesn't shy from the grotesque and disturbing, imho. It's hard to imagine how a TV or movie could hold true to the story without either sanitizing it or having quite a lot of gore and violence) but I don't really think it's grimdark, despite my initial impressions.

There's hope, especially as he starts making allies and coordinating his fellow crawlers.

It's more like we have this absolutely terrible system, but you see how many people are caught up in it. They're not necessarily evil.

It also has some excellent moments showing the cognitive dissonance that lets a system like this exist.

He and his cat are popular enough that they're sometimes pulled from the show for interviews and such (kind of like in Hunger Games - if you're popular you're more likely to have a sponsor giving you loot that can really help you survive), and during one such show a side character was killed. All the other people on the show were expressing their shock and horror, and he's like 'it's terrible when they die, but you're all okay with us dying?'

Or when he learns that the AIs life is protected... But not the crawlers.

There's so many layers to the story - about terrible systems, community action, power dynamics (the AI is obsessed with his feet, which makes things - strange. Like we talk about sexual harassment and power dynamics in the real world, and an artificial intelligence that can make lots of monsters attack you is one hell of a power imbalance), there's his relationship with Donut (the cat, who was given a pet treat that made her intelligent and thus a crawler in her own right), and there's Carl's own backstory, which was slowly played out.

Really, I could write pages about these books.

But I think what I've been dwelling on the most is how part of his path to success is reminding the public that they are people.

Dehumanizing the 'other' has all too often allowed people to tolerate the intolerable. Allows them to brush it aside, or ignore it.

Like the rich people who cared more about Epstein's arrest than the damage he was doing to all those girls.

Same for job losses, healthcare disasters, and all the other things far too many people struggle with.

We may not have an obviously evil Dungeon Crawl, but there are systemic problems that people with power have learned to look away from.

Maybe they tell themselves it's because normal people are lazy, or entitled, or whatever excuse they can come up with to justify blocking any attempt at change... I don't really know what goes through their heads.

I just think any explanation that dehumanizes the vast majority of people (and calling them 'lazy' as a way of dismissing them is one such) is a good indicator that you're not thinking too clearly.

Thought Exercise Commentary

In case it wasn't obvious, yesterday's post was revisualizing the debate between being a big fish in a small pond vs a not-so-big fish in the ocean (though there were flaws with it).

Or rather it's about fear and control.

After all, a billionaire has more money than a millionaire and an entire nation would naturally have more options than a small city. Why wouldn't you choose it?

The millionaire isn't objectively as well off, their only real advantage in that scenario is that they're probably the most powerful person in their area.

(The analogy also shows how wealth is comparative rather than a specific number, but I'd rather keep the focus on fear and control. After all, paying attention to when your decisions are influenced by a desire for control or fear about one possible future can help steer you away from some pretty terrible choices).

Thought Exercise

Would you rather be a millionaire in a small city where you are wealthier than the next five people put together?

Or a billionaire in a nation where you aren't the wealthiest, but you're definitely in the top 1%?

Innovation

I thought I had said enough about the Titan submersible and hubris, and while technically this is a bit of a different topic, I guess I'm not done yet.

The New Yorker just published this article giving some background on the Titan, and I wanted to focus on some of the quotes.

Rush replied four days later, saying that he had “grown tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation and new entrants from entering their small existing market.” He understood that his approach “flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy, but that is the nature of innovation,”

“If you’re not breaking things, you’re not innovating,” Rush said, at the GeekWire Summit last fall. “If you’re operating within a known environment, as most submersible manufacturers do—they don’t break things. To me, the more stuff you’ve broken, the more innovative you’ve been.”

 

in 2021, Stockton Rush told an interviewer that he would “like to be remembered as an innovator. I think it was General MacArthur who said, ‘You’re remembered for the rules you break.’ And I’ve broken some rules to make this.”

All of these quotes seem like something you'd hear from a 'tech bro'.

And here's the thing. The tech bro attitude (move fast and break things) came Silicon Valley and tech where lives are not at risk.

If your code doesn't work and the program crashes, you just lose time. Well, and depending on if you've pushed to production you might lose some customers and some money. 

It's not like civil engineering, where if your bridge is poorly designed it'll fall apart and people will die.

Maybe there's more serious consequences when we start talking about Industrial Control Systems and medical implants, but most of the time tech failures mean the loss of convenience, not life.

Furthermore, this guy seemed to have only superficial knowledge of the challenges involved.

It reminds me of what a character said, trying to teach etiquette and proper behavior to an unwilling student - 'if you're going to break the rules, you should at least understand which rules you're breaking.'

This guy seems to think simply breaking rules proves he's innovating, rather than knowing which rules his innovations allow him to break.

Overall he comes across as a boy pretending he's a man, which I suppose is part of the whole tech bro think. (That's why they're 'bros')

Finally, he reminds me of a terrible commander I worked under as a young lieutenant. The kind that has learned to basically pressure their underlings to get results...

And doesn't care about what sorts of shortcuts or illegal behavior their subordinates do to meet their goals.

Like... Some pressure is fine? But you don't want to create a team that goes too far, and how do you know when it's too far?

People perform at their peak when they're challenged, but if the challenge is too much (or impossible) it does more harm 5yan good. That's why there are so many studies on how to coach athletes to their peak potential.

You don't make someone start long distance running with a marathon, you build up to it.

These guys only seem to know half of the puzzle.

It's a shame their attitude is so pernicious. 

Current Events

I've thought about writing a bit... And wind up thinking 'why bother? '

I don't want to admit that, or give in to defeatism and cynicism, but it's hard to feel like anything I say will affect the people who I think need to hear it. 

Why would they care about my opinion anyway? 

Besides, I've written plenty on groupthink, decision making, etc.

I try not to assume the worst of the powers that be, but it does seem like too many of them are like that Titanic submarine guy - so arrogantly certain they know better, and so unwilling to hear anything that doesn't support what they want to hear.

Which, well... At least the submarine guy only hurt himself and the others who chose to join him. Unfortunately, for issues like the environment or economics or the threats to our democracy, we're all stuck dealing with the consequences of their hubris.

It's like we're all on a plane that's about to crash, and the pilots have locked the cabin door and shut out anyone who might be able to pilot the plane into a safe landing.

(Okay, I really hope it's not that bad. And it does seem like some people are still trying to steer us to safety... It's just that there's story after story of people with money who use that money to block any effort at changing course).

Speaking of misusing wealth... How on earth do the Mercers justify bankrolling Alex Jones?

Like, do they not realize funding a guy spreading lies about the death of children makes them... Kind of evil?

Or do they not care about morality?

Or are they so lost to sense and sensibility that they somehow think the ends justify the means? Like... They don't want gun control, but rather than admit they're okay with regular school shootings because they think gun rights are more important, they'd rather support lies that obfuscate the issue?

And it's not just them, either.

So many people with money and influence seem to have a really warped world view that prevents them from making sound decisions.

It's hard to feel like things will get better when there's that level of poor judgement. 

Suppressed Demand

I wonder how hard it was to convince rulers that maintaining large piles of gold actually limited the ability to grow 'real wealth'.

Okay, I assume it was actually rather hard even though they succeeded. Because I imagine they ran into similar challenges to current attempts to increase the minimum wage.

Perhaps if wages reached a certain level the old understanding that a minimum wage increases unemployment and inflation would hold true. And yet study after study shows that's not true, and when I think about my own experiences I think I understand why.

It's all about disposable income.

Or rather, it's about suppressed demand due to limits on disposable income.

I, for example, am a homeowner...

Which means I have was very long list of things I would like to do for my house, most of which cost enough money that I can't do it all at once.

That goes for other things I would probably buy, if I weren't determined to pay off some debts. (I do spend some on the little pleasures, but there are quite a few things I would consider buying if I didn't want to pay off various things first).

Yes, economists are rather familiar with stimulating an economy by giving people money. But face it, a one time boon is just not the same as knowing that every month you have an extra $100+ to spend. 

When housing, food, and transportation costs take up most of your monthly budget, every seller is now competing for the small slice of your budgetary pie. (I. E. If you only have $100 or so of disposable income, do you spend it on dinner and a movie? On a new video game? New shoes? A ticket to a show? You probably can only afford one or two.)

When that slice grows larger, that untapped demand is more likely to be met. (I. E.  Where before you could only pick one or two options, now you can choose three or four. That means more consumption --> stimulus --> economic growth. Not that this is unlimited, naturally. I'm sure economists can run some studies to try and find the sweet spot between when better wages lead to economic growth and when they lead to inflation and unemployment... Though given how some businesses seem to have deliberately caused inflation, I'm sure that relationship is not as objective as we sometimes pretend it is).

Anyways, given repeated studies on the benefits of increasing the minimum wage, you would think the powers that be would do something intelligent about it.

Instead, crickets.

Like so many other times when studies contradict what people want to believe. 

Good Points

https://www.raptitude.com/2018/06/getting-what-you-want/

Some Commentary

I mostly have been avoiding the news lately, for reasons remarkably similar to what's laid out here.

Trump has absolutely no chance of winning in 2024, and every headline taking him as a serious contender just makes me question their ability to do, IDK, any sort of analysis at all.

Even discussing it gives that oathbreaker more attention than he deserves though.

LitRPG

I've been mostly reading LitRPG these days, which is a subgenre of scifi/fantasy...

I realized I was reading a lot of translations of Korean, Japanese, Chinese stories with similar themes.. But many of those aren't fully translated so I was getting tired of only getting the beginning of the story. LitRPG seems like the western equivalent (and many of the authors seem quite familiar with the same material).

I've been enjoying them, I think partly because I like the 'for want of a nail' type fics. Or rather, I like a little bit of good chaos... You know, subverting tropes, jolting people out of their mental ruts. Seeing someone with an entirely different way of thinking come into a story and having an impact just because their background and experiences make them act differently from normal is fun. (also there's plain old escapism, and the fantasy of not being another cog in our modern capitalist machine. It's sad that so many people feel so disempowered that isekai stories and the like are so popular, but whatever. I won't get into that right now)

Of course, LitRPG isn't just isekai stories. There's also a lot of system ones (ie earth gets integrated into a multiverse system, with game like elements where you can level. Generally there's also magic, or tech indistinguishable from magic, so it's rather apocalyptic in that the economy is in shambles and everyone has to learn how to live in the new world).

Anyways, much though I do enjoy them, I realized there's... Sub themes? Ideas that actually are kind of concerning?

Generally for the same reasons the boogaloo boys are... Which is that generally the apocalyptic fantasy is about people who excel and thrive when a massive disaster strikes, mostly by becoming the biggest and baddest thing around when the thin veneer of civilization is torn and only strength matters. Really, it's like the debate over force theory, how governments have to maintain a monopoly on violence... Which, I've long had some thoughts about but... Maybe I haven't actually posted about? 

Okay, it's a tangent but I suppose it's important enough to discuss.

There is a point of view which says that basically might really does make right. 

That if you look past our norms and expected behavior, they're ultimately backed up by force. The police. The army. The FBI. 

Same for international relations... No matter what feel good ideals you hold, they aren't going to become reality unless someone with real power supports it. (this also gets into the transactional mindset, as well as why some countries don't believe our human rights interests are sincere and consider any such thing a ploy for something else. I think it's actually a rather depressing take for a lot of reasons, but I understand why they think it's true. And just like with optimists and pessimists, you'll find evidence to support that belief if you expect to find it). 

I see some of their points, but I think it's more complicated than that... 

Because it ignores two things. 

First, the power of cooperation, and second how our choices impact strength. 

Let me give a little story and then I'll try to explain. 

In the anime Samurai Champloo, one episode centers around a town controlled by the yakuza. The old school yakuza leader was a criminal ofc, but he had a sense of honor and honestly acted more like the government itself. But a rival gang came to town and was threatening his hold. I would say the rival gang represented the 'might makes right' point of view. They didn't care about silly things like 'honor'. 

I don't want to spend too much time on the plot, I just wanted to focus in a character that had seemed pretty minor at first - Ishimatsu. 

Ishimatsu had been a follower of the original yakuza boss, but left for the rival gang because he thought his old boss was weak. In the course of the story, it appeared as though the rival gang was going to win,especially after the original yakuza leader died - but it was going to happen in a very dishonorable way. So Ishimatsu changed his mind, and in doing so led to the defeat of the rival gang. 

Ishimatsu was a powerful character - and who he supported ultimately determined who led the town. 

When all he cared about was 'strength', it appeared as though the rival gang would win. 

But when he cared about honor, ultimately the son of his former boss won. 

Since our ability to cooperate can make one side stronger than another, who we choose to support can determine which side is 'strong'...

So who has the strength may determine who wins, but who we choose to support can determine who has that strength.

When enough people feel the same way. Especially the ones 'strong' enough to make a difference, though large numbers of people carry a strength all their own. 

To bring this back to LitRPG... When you have a world with a system in which people gain levels, and the people with the highest levels are basically powerful enough to take on armies, everything I said above becomes a little less true. 

Which is why so many of them seem to veer into authoritian types of governments (not that our protagonists actually care that much about ruling... But as the biggest, baddest around they pretty much determine what happens). 

Its great fantasy when you think you're the protagonist, but honestly it's pretty awful for those who aren't. 

Oh, also... Leveling systems seem to have a subtheme of 'people dedicated to leveling can and will, so the ones falling behind did it to themselves'. 

Which again is fine for a fantasy... Well, maybe not fine but not often something relevant to the plot. Since ofc our beloved characters are working hard (generally by killing monsters, because as much as they decry the system for being set that way, most of them do level you up the most for defeating monsters. And people, but killing people for xp just isn't cool in a protagonist so generally that only happens in self defense).

Its like... They're fun stories as fantasy? But there are undertones of themes that are actually pretty awful in the real world. 

Background Thoughts

I've been escaping into fiction because all of this is pretty obvious...

But it's hard to figure out what someone like me can actually do about it.

I refuse to believe it's hopeless, but damn is it hard to see a path forward.