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Red Light Green Light

jamessevedge.com

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Re: Red Light Green Light

#51

Post by troupe »

aeternum wrote: post #15

Similar things happen surprisingly often in companies. Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon. Just to add to this, one strategy from the rationalist community that I rarely see practiced is to 'taboo' certain words. For example if two engineers are arguing about a solution not being scalable, taboo the word scalable. They both re-explain their POV without using the wo…

> first being specific about what we agree upon.

Or even just trying to define the goal you are trying to accomplish. I've seen many disagreements on software projects because people's definition are completely different. The arguments are just a symptom of a deeper problem that no amount of careful discussions are going to fix.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#52

Post by nkurz »

darkerside wrote: post #48
nkurz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you caught this or not, but I think the actual key to the story is that the child in the rear seat of the car and looking out the side window at the light for the stopped crossing traffic. Unfortunately for the anecdote, the "rear seat" part isn't mentioned until the 4th paragraph: "So I was in the back seat sitting next to Ben". I think the issue is that in the US, all children below some age must be…

You ever seen a 3 year old in the front seat?

Yes. I'm 50, and grew up before the common use of car seats for children. Children of all ages would commonly ride in the front seat, or even in the back of pickup trucks. Even today, only about half the states have rules specifying that the carseats must be installed in the rear: https://saferide4kids.com/car-seat-laws-by-state/

As a fun anecdote, my father grew up prior to the time that most cars even came with factory seat belts. Before taking a family trip to Alaska in the 50's, his mother read about them and demanded that her husband install them in the station wagon before the trip. So he bought straps and buckles of some sort from a hardware store, and bolted them on so that all 6 kids would have "seatbelts" for the trip.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#53

Post by dclowd9901 »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #13

The problem with this analogy (as the author ties it up to the end point) is it implies you're leading a team that simply can't see the reality. More often, the change in perspective allows the person in the back seat to see the car that is about to run a red light and smash into you, rather than it being a question of presenting them a better context.

I don’t think the story takes a position on who is right at what level (and, in fact, it sounds like the story teller herself concedes that leadership should be digging into why their teams are saying “red light” when it’s a green light).

I think the story should be ingested as “we don’t know why someone else can’t obviously see what we see; that problem itself warrants investigations perhaps before any conversation about what to do next.”

As it turns out, our company is currently having this problem: the market and employees of my company are screaming at the leadership to not follow through on a business plan, but leadership has their head buried in the sand and are bound and determined to move ahead because all they see is green lights.

And sure, there’s enough anecdotes out there about people zagging when everyone else zigs, but I think an unspoken prerequisite to those anecdotes is that you at least made sure you understood why they were zigging.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#54

Post by 6LLvveMx2koXfwn »

My child perspective story;

When we were young we watched a TV program called Play School. We always watched it when we got home from normal school. Mum put on the TV and on came Play School. I didn't understand until much later that the act of turning on the TV didn't 'start' the program, so if, for whatever reason, we got home early I used to get super frustrated with my mum for not turning on the TV and letting me watch Play School straight away.

Mum never took the time to understand why I was frustrated.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#55

Post by raldi »

nkurz wrote: post #52
darkerside wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ever seen a 3 year old in the front seat?

Yes. I'm 50, and grew up before the common use of car seats for children. Children of all ages would commonly ride in the front seat, or even in the back of pickup trucks. Even today, only about half the states have rules specifying that the carseats must be installed in the rear: https://saferide4kids.com/car-seat-laws-by-state/ As a fun anecdote, my father grew up prior to the time that most cars even came with fac…

See also: the opening of The Simpsons

Re: Red Light Green Light

#56

Post by amarshall »

Buttons840 wrote: post #44
aeternum wrote: post #15

Similar things happen surprisingly often in companies. Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon. Just to add to this, one strategy from the rationalist community that I rarely see practiced is to 'taboo' certain words. For example if two engineers are arguing about a solution not being scalable, taboo the word scalable. They both re-explain their POV without using the wo…

I wish it was a common practice to ban certain words from difficult conversations. But whenever I suggest it people just talk past me as though I've said some weird thing. There's facts and opinions, but also definitions, and too often disagreements boil down to a different definition of a single word. Ban that word and say what you mean and the disagreement may suddenly be gone. Edit: I wrote this before reading the…

I don’t think the parent commenter’s intent was that the words be universally banned, but instead context-specific words banned for a specific conversation. It’s just trying to remove implicitly differing definitions.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#57

Post by PaulHoule »

It makes me think of the first slide in the first episode of Sliders where Quinn Mallory slides, thinks his machine failed, then realizes he slid into a world where the red light means go and the green light means stop and someone yells at him "Don't you know you're supposed to stop at a green light?"

Re: Red Light Green Light

#58

Post by maroonblazer »

nkurz wrote: post #52
darkerside wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ever seen a 3 year old in the front seat?

Yes. I'm 50, and grew up before the common use of car seats for children. Children of all ages would commonly ride in the front seat, or even in the back of pickup trucks. Even today, only about half the states have rules specifying that the carseats must be installed in the rear: https://saferide4kids.com/car-seat-laws-by-state/ As a fun anecdote, my father grew up prior to the time that most cars even came with fac…

But you're 50. I'm 55, and for the large majority of my life (and presumably smaller than yours) kids were relegated to the back seat.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#60

Post by hug »

aeternum wrote: post #15

Similar things happen surprisingly often in companies. Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon. Just to add to this, one strategy from the rationalist community that I rarely see practiced is to 'taboo' certain words. For example if two engineers are arguing about a solution not being scalable, taboo the word scalable. They both re-explain their POV without using the wo…

Tangentially related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem
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