[FRIAM] Adversarial Collaboration - Kahneman

[Marcus Daniels]

I have this fantasy about what retirement could look like.   It would look like the period in my life before I was working.  My on-and-off again projects ranging from say 14 to 22 or so.  In some ways I just want to forget it.  The process of growing up is just terrible, and I don't wish it on anyone.   It is probably one reason I don't have kids.

Trying to figure out why I have some fond memories, it comes down to the solitary nature of the projects.   They were things I wanted for things I enjoyed.   Later I became more attached to ideology or the purpose in work.   This was an irresistible driver but ultimately only resulted in disappointment and frustration.    
The key aspect of enjoyable work to me is, as I remember Chris Langton once remarked, is "Following your nose."   Other people just get in the way of getting in a groove.  

But work as adults is dominated by what other people want.  Specifically, once enough co-workers are involved a project can easily become divorced from what any potential customer might pay for, and the constraints are more about consensus of the co-workers.   And it is all too common that co-workers want things that customers do not.   Kind of remarkably, corporate culture often does NOT automatically generate adversarial collaborators.   In my experience, it strongly selects for agreeableness, and then to a somewhat lesser extent crypto-agreeableness.  The latter people become managers due to their self-control, compatibility with deception, and a tolerance for insubstantial technical work for themselves.  Depending on how hierarchical the organization is, another property that is rapidly selected for, is avoiding conversations about bad decisions of senior management.

On the bullying topic, I've found that once one takes on the role of the lone disagreeable person (the lone skeptic), there is some danger of the contrast getting bigger and bigger relative to the agreeable group.  The trick is finding some way to nurture other disagreeable people without them becoming radioactive as well.   I have seen examples of the disagreeable person becoming toxic, self-destructive, and unreachable. 

On the other hand, co-critics won't be very valuable unless they can absorb some criticism.   In large organizations people tend to seek safety in numbers.   This is rational if the organization will likely exist no matter want.    Even at a startup it can make sense if the likely endgame is to jump to another startup when the first one crashes, because one will likely benefit from having friends to help find a new position.    

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2022 9:20 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Adversarial Collaboration - Kahneman

Very cool! Thanks. I need this. I've made a new friend with an MD focused on Psychiatry. She's a psychodynamics therapist (which I've ranted about with Frank). At supper, I consistently used the word "argument", e.g. "We have a lot of arguments in our future". She and her husband kept objecting to the word "argument", insisting that we use softer words like "discussion" or whatever. After lots of poking and shredding, it came to the concept of foundationalism ... the idea that there *can be* some common ground within which to be collaboratively adversarial. I'm skeptical that such foundations are even possible, much less findable and measurable. But as long as we can identify *that* we're assuming such a foundation, defining a game of some sort, then I can play along nearly as if I actually agree on that foundation, at least for awhile.

Maybe this construct will help us find a way to do that without anyone feeling bullied.


On 2/28/22 08:19, Steve Smith wrote:
> Glen wrote, a few weeks ago, about an old friend/colleague who had been out of touch who confronted him with having "bullied him intellectually" a while back.    I didn't think too much of it at the time because I experience Glen's confrontational style to be more about contrarianism than bullying, though on sensitive subjects it is hard not to feel any assertive disagreement otherwise.
> 
> This list traffic, I find, has a mix of fraternalism and adversarialism that can be both disarming and uncomfortable at times, which I believe is part of the reason for the lurker/poster and the female/male participant ratios.   I may not be calibrated well on that topic.  It is just an intuition.
> 
> In any case, the following Edge lecture on "Adversarial Collaboration"   really rung a bell with me:
> 
>     https://www.edge.org/adversarial-collaboration-daniel-kahneman
> 
> He covered several interesting and relevant (to me) topics:
> 
>  1. Confirmation Bias is widespread, insidious, and hard to detect in oneself.
>  2. People don't change their minds.
>  3. Healthy attempts to change another's mind can be beneficial to both sides in spite of the above.
>  5. "Angry Science" is supported by mob/tribalism, but does not serve.
>  5.   "Adversarial Collaboration" is a good alternative to "Angry Science"
> 
> And most poignant to my own aging/transition process:
> 
> */Old people don't really kick themselves. Their regret is wistful, almost pleasant. It's not emotionally intense./*
> 
> All in all, I found the topic and Kahneman's treatment very interesting, both in observing the general progress of Science and in my own navigation through this ever-expandingly complex world, with or without the help of experts and peers.


-- 
glen
When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.


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