81–90 of 169 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Maybe state dependent? I’m not yet 40 and recall being excited that I could finally ride up front when I turned 3.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also stay away from second person: "what led to you thinking that?" -> "what led to that thought?" My preferred version: "what was the motivation for choosing that?". It's especially helpful on a team working with legacy software. Because the root cause can sometimes be a historic team decision, no longer attributable to anyone on the current team. Where "led you" can result in the "oh it wasn't my idea" responses,…
>what was the motivation for choosing that?". That had the second person in it, it's just obfuscated with less-than-clear language. "The motivation" belongs to, and is exclusively controlled by, the second person.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Child Passenger Safety Laws in the United States, 1978–2010: Policy Diffusion in the Absence of Strong Federal Intervention
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899584/#!po=1....
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…
The first time I ask, people ignore it and/or don't understand it.
The second time I ask, people get uncomfortable because generally they haven't thought about what they mean to that level of detail, and they try to weasel out of it.
The third time I ask, it diverges. Some people give me a reasonable definition. Some people say "sorry that's not possible" and depending on the subject, I pause the argument at that point to do something else.
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…
How to find value from LessWrong? I see people derive value from it, but when I visit it, it’s not obvious
As a kid my mom ran out of gas several times, and it was always on the same road, which had a gravel shoulder. We'd be riding along, she'd pull off into (what I call "the rocks"), the car would stop and she'd say "we're out of gas". Since the car was moving along fine before pulling off the road, and I had no concept of how cars worked, I made the connection that pulling into "the rocks" caused the car to run out of…
When my daughter was 5 she told me off for driving too fast to school. She was annoyed that whenever I drove fast she would be late for school.
"Different people have different perspectives." Well sure.
"Consider things from others' viewpoints." Of course.
I don't know, it rings a little of management-ese, or something overpaid consultants might present in the boardroom that gets everybody nodding their head and feeling like they've received great wisdom, but is a little hollow or obvious when you really break it down.
It's a good takeaway, even if commonsensical I guess.
But I could say "homogenized".
So I'd ask my mom, "Can I have some homogenized momo?"
She would reply "Do you mean homogenized milk?"
I answered "Mom! I can't say milk!"
Sorry to be a curmudgeon, it's a poetic little story - but isn't the takeaway a little banal? "Different people have different perspectives." Well sure. "Consider things from others' viewpoints." Of course. I don't know, it rings a little of management-ese, or something overpaid consultants might present in the boardroom that gets everybody nodding their head and feeling like they've received great wisdom, but is a l…
Sorry to be a curmudgeon, it's a poetic little story - but isn't the takeaway a little banal? "Different people have different perspectives." Well sure. "Consider things from others' viewpoints." Of course. I don't know, it rings a little of management-ese, or something overpaid consultants might present in the boardroom that gets everybody nodding their head and feeling like they've received great wisdom, but is a l…