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Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

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131–140 of 334 posts

Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#131

Slightly off topic but this practice of talking-out-loud to get yourself doing stuff is also beneficial to people with executive dysfunction. If your executive function is impaired you generally don't have the "internal monologue" or the voice in your head. This makes seemingly simpler things like taking a shower, driving, or eating, very difficult! I'd often "forget" to eat, simply because I could not get myself to…

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Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#132
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should a human being have his life's work be forty years of checking if bags are caught in a door? Modern society is weird. Automation can free us from humans having to be automatons.

That sounds crazy. Someone should help them transition to a more modern and healthy lifestyle of spending forty years improving the conversion rate of small digital advertisements.

Quite a strawman.

Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#133

The Swiss train system is similarly renowned. How do they do it?

Well, they definitely don't do any pointing-and-calling.

This might be a good subject for a study - compare both rail systems, does this really lead to higher performance and lower accidents?

Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#134

I think I'd go insane if that was my job. It seems so utterly dehumanizing to have a human do that job every day. I don't mean just the pointing but the standing and doing things that surely computers and cameras could easily do.

Rituals can be tricky things: when perceived as meaningful they can be beneficial, engaging, focusing.

When perceived as futile and hypocritical they become soul crushing.

Please be aware of this instead of just downvoting JohnJamesRambo's comment.

Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#135
Suppose you've gotten used to doing this and have the pointing and speaking sequence and associated actions such as reading gauges thoroughly memorized.

If at that point you replaced actually pointing and speaking with just visualizing and audiolizing [1] that you are pointing and speaking, respectively, would you retain the performance improvements?

[1] There does not seem to be a widely accepted word for the audio equivalent of visualizing. Some discussion: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1635/visualized-e...

Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#136

The US Navy uses much of this as well. For example, here's an aircraft carrier launch from inside the "bubble" (the control area that actually triggers the steam catapult). The officer repeats the mantra aloud for each aircraft and points at the people he's checking. If you watch a similar video taken above deck you can see each responsible person point at the system they are monitoring before giving the thumb's up.…

More on the Navy usage can be found in David Marquet's book: "Turn the Ship Around" about his time improving training / operations on a submarine he commanded. Every one had to announce their intention to do an action before actually doing it, this gave others the chance to identify when someone was going to take an incorrect action before it happened.

It's a really great, short read that I'd highly recommend.

Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#137
post #24

I think that the root of this goes back all the way to Zen-type of thinking. In Zen, it's often taught that mind is elusive/delusive and action matters. "Mindlessness (mu-shin)" is often thought of the best way of carrying tasks, and I see a similar principle in many traditional martial arts/craftsmanship; a new learner should just do certain tasks without thinking/questioning, and eventually their muscle memory will…

Extending the metaphor, some of the older Mesoamerican religions are imperative, in that they involve a lot of telling people what to do. Contrariwise, hermetic magic is purely functional, in that the practitioner expresses a series of state transformations with no side effects.

Could you elaborate on the idea that hermetic magic is purely functional? How does a practitioner make a state transformation in oneself?

Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#139

Slightly off topic but this practice of talking-out-loud to get yourself doing stuff is also beneficial to people with executive dysfunction. If your executive function is impaired you generally don't have the "internal monologue" or the voice in your head. This makes seemingly simpler things like taking a shower, driving, or eating, very difficult! I'd often "forget" to eat, simply because I could not get myself to…

"Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their head." -William James

Re: Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things

#140
When debugging in production environments (which is always a bad idea) I use a technique where I always work together with a coworker and before I'm about to do something destructive I say out loud what I'm going to do and ask for agreement that I should continue. I started this after reading what happened at Gitlab a month ago.
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