What surprised you today?
A favorite philosopher of mine, Julia Galef, leader in applied rationality, has had the idea of surprise journal: The idea that one of the best ways to make yourself open into adapting and learning when your expectations are wrong and overcoming your own biases is to reflect upon the experience of finding something unexpected as a surprise.
I searched and couldn't find an existing thread, so here: What surprised you today? |
An awesome challenge but a difficult one!
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I went to get a link to the trophic cascade effect of reintroducing apex predators for the wolf thread. I shouldn't have been surprised that the simple beautiful explanation I had embraced was vastly oversimplified.
Some of the recent studies suggest that trophic cascades in land-based ecosystems are more “center-out” than top-down, composed of many, many radial lines of cause and effect, continuing to change over time. This shifts our understanding of apex predators as “keystone species” whose presence makes or breaks a healthy ecosystem. |
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I've met people who spend way too much time questioning everything they believe. They tend to be socially awkward, and functionally inept. There comes a time when you have to shoot the engineer/designer, and start production. |
I was surpised yesterday when I went to the office expecting to be issued keys, etc. for my role in a new job only to be told that they'd found someone else they like better for the job (I'd just begun only two weeks earlier). With no explanation about what was deficient about my performance, I had little to learn from with respect to my actions. I did learn that "at will" employment can be very brief indeed.
Surprises are often good opportunities for learning, which seems to be the main purpose of the woman's journal. Lots of times there isn't something more that could have been done to keep an event from being a surprise. Sometimes I'm just wrong or uninformed. |
Damn.
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The idea is to embrace mistaken expectations - for instance if previously you thought it made perfect sense to just be a good employee and take care of business and trust that everything in the background would just work reliably, now you know that you should have embraced Machiavellian and schemed against competition you didn't know you have... So you know, develop paranoia and assume it's always there. Do psychiatrists do reverse treatment?
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So I just took note on how many of the guys here are really into vehicles...
Which in itself is unsprising and should comply with common expectations - this is something dude's just do... But in thinking about it, I was surprised when I realized that while my mind knows this to be theoretically true, somehow this doesn't apply to anyone I've known. One guy from middle school who was into them to the point of being the car-geek (And last I heard he was studying to be a licensed car mechanic), but that was his thing, he was the car kid. There was no general men-are-into-cars phenomena. It's supposed to be part of the stereotype, for men in genera and even israeli men in particular, but... none of it at all. could be generational too, not sure yet. |
So none of your personal acquaintances are car guys?
Huh. I'm a car guy and a number of my friends are definitely car guys. ElderSon is a car guy, he loved working on his cars, but SonofV doesn't even have his license. Go figure. |
Yea.
Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a good ride, I can feel how one car feels a lot more responsive then another, and sometimes I can enjoy driving - it relaxes me, assuming there isn't a lot of traffic. But given the option, I would probably give up driving for self driving cars so I can install an xbox and game on my way, even if I just end up playing Need For Speed. |
Will self driving cars have windshield wipers?
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Eh, that reminds me of when google took away the delete option from gmail because they were all "This is a near infinitely large inbox, YOU DON'T NEED TO DELETE ANYTHING". People claim corporations are psychopaths but sometimes this one feels more like an autistic child.
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This surprised me today. Kinda. A little. Ok, not at all, really...
Well, so much for going anywhere without an extra five pounds of steel and polymer...and lead. |
^ Actual psychopath.
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Yesterday I was late to the bus after work so I ordered a taxi driver. He asked me how I found the cab company's number and I told him on the internet, in my phone. His response was "There is also facebook", "What do you prefer? the internet or facebook?".... I then asked him a bit about his childhood and realized the man was in his 70s - came here in 1956 when he was 14 - He just looked remarkably healthy and young, would have never thought more then 50 from looking at him.
I always thought keeping fit with a job as a taxi driver would be very difficult - with all the overtime and sitting around, but he is doing better then I am. |
I thought it was Tuesday, until about an hour ago.
What the hell happened to Tuesday? The first person that says Tuesday's Gone...I'm coming to your house and shit on your porch. :p: |
Tuesdays gone man
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I will be surprised and full of awe if you took a shit on your own porch after that.
Double points if it was in a flaming bag and you've fall for it. |
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In the "Keen Links" thread I linked to an article about Joe Pesci.
I was surprised to find out that Joe Pesci can sing, not the best singer in the world, but, he can sing. I was also surprised to learn that he was the guitarist for a group called 'Joey Dee & The Starliters', until they found a better guitarist, in the form of Jimi Fucking Hendrix. Here's Mr. Pesci's rendition of "Got To Get You Into My Life"...It's...surprising. Attachment 53402 Ok, here is Mr. Pesci's rendition of "Got To Get You Into My Life".:mad: |
I wouldn't say he's a good singer, but he's better than I am.
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I watched all 5 hours of those debates last night, like a fucking dumbass. I am both surprised and ashamed.
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