[FRIAM] Adversarial Collaboration - Kahneman
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon Feb 28 17:40:17 EST 2022
sounds like template for the next installment of Game of Thrones...
but I get the picture... I know "that guy" (red faced, snarling,
spitting, yet nevertheless well intentioned and constructive (once bile
had been vented))...
On 2/28/22 1:26 PM, glen wrote:
> At one of the dot-coms I worked, I was explicitly hired for my "social
> engineering skills". [sigh] Startups in perpetual crisis mode need
> such skills. (I'm not proud that I was hired for them - even if we
> granted that I actually did have them. I was really just jumping from
> the fire into a frying pan.) My entire job was to corral a collection
> of curmudgeons and grease the skids between that group and the rest of
> the corporation (e.g. marketing, CxOs, QA, etc.). Within our little
> group, we were extremely critical of one another and (of course) the
> other groups. Between our group and the rest of the corp, we had
> designated members who got along well enough with whatever other group
> we had to work with. One of us was hated by almost everyone outside
> our group. He literally *spit* when he talked. Got red in the face.
> Etc. But if you could remove all that physiological nonsense, every
> criticism he made was well-intentioned and constructive. But he was
> discouraged from talking to anyone outside our group. Over a year or
> so, he turned from a snarling beast into a relatively calm, critical
> path asset, perhaps partly because he was allowed to do work he
> enjoyed without all the "political jockeying" he hated.
>
> Meanwhile, *I* had to do that "political jockeying" and I
> abso-fvcking-lutely hated. that. fvcking. job. I was so happy when
> they sold the company and laid me off, I didn't even mind jumping from
> that frying pan into a different fire, a world where I might not be
> able to pay rent and eventually had to move to Oregon for cheaper cost
> of living.
>
> But whatever. Establishing the platform for collaborating is
> difficult. There's no reason we would expect it to happen without
> intention.
>
> On 2/28/22 10:41, 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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