[FRIAM] Adversarial Collaboration - Kahneman

[Steve Smith]

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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