[FRIAM] Adversarial Collaboration - Kahneman

[Steve Smith]

Marcus -

I really appreciate your thoughtful  self-exposing reflection. Much of 
what you describe matches my own (too) long career at LANL 1981-2008 
with myself filling a spectrum of the roles you describe.   I was too 
agreeable to be more than a piker as a curmudgeon, but not agreeable 
enough to rise above various roles of a team or project leader.   When 
offered the opportunity to rise further (explicit or implicit) I always 
undermined it one way or another... sometimes recognizing overtly that I 
didn't have (much if) any respect for the next rank of management 
(middle/group/program) so why in the world would I want to *be* one of 
them?   I was usually frustrated enough at my existing peter-principle 
position that I knew rising another level would destroy me, or something 
*in* me.   I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have been a lot happier if I 
had cultivated my disagreeable side a bit more.  I am (not so) secretly 
envious of many contrarian curmudgeons, but maybe not quite as much as 
the highly agreeable high-functioning skeptics.

I appreciate your reflections on the toxic/disagreeable/unreachable.   I 
left LANL opportunistically after I realized I was at risk of becoming 
such myself after 27 years of institutionalization.  I think I slipped 
out early enough because when I encountered other escapees/graduates 
from my own (and previous) cohort, they were MUCH more angry/resentful 
of their experiences.

Your point about co-critics being able to "absorb some criticism" is 
well taken and is my reason (excuse) for some of the crypto in my own 
agreeableness.   I don't have to like or even internalize other's 
criticism to be able to remain engaged.  It is better when I actually 
internalize the criticism, or at least take it for what it is worth 
rather than just ignoring or deferring it.   This has served me well in 
many contexts, primarily by allowing me to remain somewhat engaged with 
curmudgeons and give criticism a chance to at least marinade rather than 
impaling me.

Regarding rats and sinking ships needing friends.  I have more than a 
few (often lapsed) acquaintances who became "friends" when they were in 
the throes of changing employment and then ghosted out pretty quickly 
once they landed a new job.  Meh...

- Steve

On 2/28/22 11:41 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> 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.
>
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