[FRIAM] Adversarial Collaboration - Kahneman

[glen]

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.