Logical fallacies and rationalizations, cont.

I recently came across this post, which reminded me of the logical fallacies and rationalizations discussion. The post discusses a vicious murder, but also touches on the very core of the subject we discussed, with a bit on "affecting change" and getting set in your ways, traditions and taboos.

Now, disengaging from the act of murdering three girls for "free will", which naturally, is difficult to do (as if we don't, it will hijack the discussion immediately)--this post has a very interesting first paragraph:

"Whenever you hear someone defend an action with the excuse that "it is our custom," "it is traditional," "we've always done it that way," "it is written so in our sacred texts," or variants thereof, slap 'em down and spit in their eye. Those are not excuses for anything but the perpetuation of bad old dogma rather than taking the useful step of actually thinking about causes and consequences fallacious shortcut that allows ancient evils to thrive."

Affecting change and getting movement in groups is a special interest of mine. The examples given above are the illiterate answers someone may give as to why they should or shouldn't do something (except for the "because it's written" which is a whole other unrelated concept).

More literate answers do exist when you speak with intelligent people, and then there can be several reasons why they hold to their beliefs, legitimately. These taboos came from somewhere and some of them were even a Very Good Idea™ at the time. Noticing things we know to be evil no longer are is difficult. Further, our beliefs are still what in many cases defines any group and shouldn't always be abandoned just because they are not necessarily reflecting reality.

Example from my life in computer security:
Sharing virus (computer) samples is considered "evil" and irresponsible by the Anti Virus industry, for reasons ranging from fear of spreading them to helping the criminals, or giving them feedback on what we know (not to mention losing a competitive edge).

And yet the landscape changed, these are everywhere nowadays so the criminals don't need "our" samples, while many defenders do--desperately--and have no "legal" means to get the same information. Yet, is it wrong for professional anti virus researchers to view such sharing as evil?

Getting set in your ways as well as following established taboos are quite fascinating in how they form and how they can be broken. Usual annoying disclaimer: nothing is ever black and white... blah blah.

The rationalizations mentioned, however, are another facet of the same thing we discussed earlier, I think?

Gadi.

Follow me on twitter! http://twitter.com/gadievron

Hiring people and how communities run

This post by one Seth Godin speaks for itself, and is fascinating. The guy wanted to find out who to hire out of all the "PDFs". So, he put all the internship candidates on a Facebook group, and watched. He quickly saw four types of participants.

• The game-show contestants, quick on the trigger, who were searching for a quick yes or no. Most of them left.
• The lurkers. They were there, but we couldn't tell.
• The followers. They waited for someone to tell them what to do.
• The leaders. A few started conversations, directed initiatives and got to work.

Having had almost too much experience in getting projects running, making things happen, working to bridge big egos, building communities and forming new trends--or in other words, Herding Cats (TM)--I was hooked. it's not often I find another "campaign manager", and especially not a student of "affecting change".

I kept wishing the guy shared more information and some of his insight. He didn't, but it was still interesting.

Adjacent subjects hinted to in his post such as learning, hiring and mentoring are almost as interesting to me, and in general, I found the subject matter close to heart. The post really "spoke" to me.

The world is full of followers, and this idea will be copied. My fear is that the fakers will become the winners.

In the Israeli military any course you go through--especially officers' course--has occasional Psychometric tests where your friends "rate" you on different attributes. [*opinion* most of] The people who get the high scores are the fakers. That means you get smart people, but also poor actors (not too much acting required).

Looking at the huge industry preparing people for anything from the SATs to professional certifications, I can visualize how this methods could become [as] useless.

On the other hand, human nature has a way of coming through in the end. And, of course, in business--if the fakers "get the results" it doesn't really matter.

Gadi Evron,
ge@linuxbox.org.

Follow me on twitter! http://twitter.com/gadievron