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People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

freakonomics.com

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Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#281

Post by banana_giraffe »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #241
delecti wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been bingeing my way through a youtube channel [1] that's largely focused on old/outdated consumer technology. I'm astounded by how little I knew about how any of it worked. In particular, I was astonished when I watched the one about how VHS tapes works. There's just so much knowledge underpinning even relatively obsolete technology. As time goes on the fantasy trope of "ancient lost knowledge" becomes less har…

There's a kind of technological pre-horizon involved in understanding any advanced technology. Thought experiment: someone gives you a hard drive with some music and video files on it...but you have no idea what a hard drive is, or what music and video files are, or what a file format is. Beyond a certain level, you can only reverse engineer tech if you already know almost everything there is to know about how it wor…

It's probably not fair, but I've asked similar questions about alien encounters in science fiction shows. Those like Star Trek that have a universal translator hand wave away language issues, but even then, how do they deal with the video transmission itself?

I can imagine an engineer figuring out an analog broadcast, but once either party uses anything digital, all bets are off, especially once you imagine some codec being used to save bandwidth.

Of course, showing a season of some engineers trying to decode a broadcast makes for poor TV, so I get why they never bother mentioning this, but the thought process makes me realize how much I'm standing on the shoulder of giants when I debug a video player issue.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#282

Post by aantix »

fouc wrote: post #273
aantix wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No worries. :) "Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process." -- Elwyn Brooks White

Isn't a joke "alive" until the explanation? So those that 'got' the joke would've enjoyed the joke, before moving onto read the next line. So reading the explanation of the joke wouldn't interfere with their enjoyment of the joke since they already enjoyed it prior to reading the explanation.

If you're telling a joke, you don't want emotional context switching. A quick explanation, laughter might be preserved (so the above pun may or may not inhibit the execution of the original joke).

But every joke has an emotional gravity and the longer you compliment it with other emotions (e.g. intellectual explanations), eventually escape velocity is reached and you're in an entirely different emotional state.

Airplane! has three laughs per minute on average (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2012/09/21/top-10-...). That's not much time pull in other emotional states. And that's on purpose.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#283

Post by vkou »

raywalters wrote: post #117

Having worked front line technical support, I have to disagree. People are indeed dumb, many choose to stay that way.

Having used things that require technical support, I have to disagree. I'm not an idiot, I just don't have time to learn the idiosyncrasies of the problem that I have.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#286

Post by smhost »

skadamat wrote: post #80

I would really really encourage everyone here to watch Alan Kay's recent talks on how poorly we understand systems and why it's critical we get better at managing them. Some good ones: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1R2jH4PQEo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9c7_8Gp7gI Some people have strong opinions about Alan Kay's CS / programming work and I'd really encourage them to put them aside and deeply understand h…

What did he mean at 1:09:22 (https://youtu.be/R1R2jH4PQEo?t=1h09m22s) when he says "nobody complains about multiplying one fraction by another because it looks reasonable, but it turns out it isn't reasonable at all"?

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#287

Post by delecti »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #281
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a kind of technological pre-horizon involved in understanding any advanced technology. Thought experiment: someone gives you a hard drive with some music and video files on it...but you have no idea what a hard drive is, or what music and video files are, or what a file format is. Beyond a certain level, you can only reverse engineer tech if you already know almost everything there is to know about how it wor…

It's probably not fair, but I've asked similar questions about alien encounters in science fiction shows. Those like Star Trek that have a universal translator hand wave away language issues, but even then, how do they deal with the video transmission itself? I can imagine an engineer figuring out an analog broadcast, but once either party uses anything digital, all bets are off, especially once you imagine some code…

Even just PAL and NTSC analog broadcasts would take some work to figure out if the alien ship was using the other one, and those were both developed from a common base of technology (early 20th century Earth).

Enterprise had them working around the universal translator on several encounters, and IMO even just that got old. It makes me glad that most series handwave away those concerns most of the time, and try to make it an interesting plot point when they don't.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#288

Post by thaumaturgy »

rvern wrote: post #135
ppeetteerr wrote: post #34

This is probably the greatest argument for big government. If we were to eliminate the supervision of the establishment over the safety and security of everyday life, it would be very time consuming to handle every single aspect of it. There is always the issue of an overreaching government, and that's where the left/right party split comes in. Each party either creates more regulation and protection or take some awa…

No, this is one of the greatest arguments for small government or no government. People are more rational when the cost to them of being irrational is larger. Voting for good policies is a public good. When a voter is one among three hundred millions of citizens, only 1/300,000,000 (on average) of the benefits of the vote befall the individual voter. This gigantic externality means that the democratic market will sev…

I really wish this notion of "society by survival of the fittest" would die its long-overdue death.

What actually happens, in the real world, in situations like this, is that people suffer and die. They don't become Ayn Rand's ideal man; there's just lots of needless suffering.

And because people are capable of violence, and because people don't like suffering very much, they commit violence against each other to improve their own position -- which increases the suffering.

And then other people, who don't want to suffer and don't want to commit violence, try to leave. And they come to countries like the United States, which they've heard at some point is a great and welcoming land of opportunity, only to discover that it's all a big marketing sham and the majority of the US wants to put up a sign that says, "Go away, we're closed."

Given the number of failing or failed states around the world recently, you have to have your head quite deep in the sand, or maybe far up in some body part, to still subscribe to this idea that anarcho-capitalism is a solution to anything.

There are many complex problems with many governments around the world right now. "Get rid of government" will not make any of it better.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#289

Post by rlayton2 »

smhost wrote: post #286
skadamat wrote: post #80

I would really really encourage everyone here to watch Alan Kay's recent talks on how poorly we understand systems and why it's critical we get better at managing them. Some good ones: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1R2jH4PQEo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9c7_8Gp7gI Some people have strong opinions about Alan Kay's CS / programming work and I'd really encourage them to put them aside and deeply understand h…

What did he mean at 1:09:22 ( https://youtu.be/R1R2jH4PQEo?t=1h09m22s ) when he says "nobody complains about multiplying one fraction by another because it looks reasonable, but it turns out it isn't reasonable at all"?

I'm pretty sure he means "it is an easy equation to memorise, but it's not trivial". People can remember the formula, but have no idea how it actually works.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#290

Post by extralego »

Fukkaudeku wrote: post #258
extralego wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For similar reasons, I highly recommend a book called Capital: Critique of Political Economy. And likewise, some people may have strong opinions about the author’s work. I'd really encourage them to put them aside and deeply understand his points + context.

This, but unironically.

In all honesty, none was intended.

It struck me that my favorite intellects usually do foremost concern themselves with “how poorly we understand systems and why it's critical we get better at managing them”. This intellect just seems most important right now.

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