Building a better biped: The easy answers

[Jasper]

Most of it, by my observations.

I like to watch people and get inside their heads.  A lot of the time, there's not a lot going on.

[P3nT4gR4m]

We filter out a lot of shit by necessity. If you actually felt the information coming to you from even a quarter of your nerve endings you'd be so overwhelmed you'd be utterly unable to do or concentrate on anything. You'd just roll around on the floor either screaming or cumming at the top of your lungs.

Same with information.

Problem is that it gets all to easy to do everything on autopilot. And it is. Ask someone who's never read a single book (I'd guess most of us have probably met one or two) how much trouble their life has been and you'll get much the same answer as you would from a poet laureate, albeit framed in less rosy language.

If you can get through life, quite comfortably, as an inferior biped and arrive at the same death as someone who really pushed themselves and went the extra mile, why should you bother? Most answers I've heard to this question seem to boil down to "just because" or equivalent. The intellectuals always seem to get indignant about "most people" and their lowest common denominator attitude but the bit most intellectuals never seem to be able to get is that it works for them.

I say fuck the masses. Concentrate on your own development. Take your avatar wherever the hell you want it to go and leave the rest to rot. As far as I'm concerned they're just something for me to hate or laugh at, depending on my mood. Improving them? Two words - how and why?

[Adios]

Good concept Pent. Don't you think the world is 'dumbing down' though? I mean people don't have to think as much anymore. Calculators were not allowed when I was in school for instance. 'Research' now mostly involves Google. Cars even tell you what to do and where to go.

[Jasper]

Calculators are still discouraged at the algebra level, but you kind of need it for trig and above.

Tables of trig values are cool and all, but it's just really slow. 

As for filtration, yeah that's a part of it.  We learn by habit that lots of data doesn't need our attention, but that leads to zealous habituation that can be dangerous.  For instance, you get used to driving, and you're bored, so you rubberneck at the scenery a bit and, crunch.

Tough example, but it applies to less deadly scenarios as well. 

[Juana]

Yes research involves a lot of Googling, but you still have to go through the stuff to find what you're looking for. You could argue the same for "'Research' now mostly involves card catalogs in libraries." Filtering is required either way.

Anyway, there's a line between too simple/autopilot and what I'd call actually simple.
Too simple: the answer to everything is prayer.
Simple: introspection is a good way to start looking for answers.

Both are simple concepts, but one is probably the better answer than the other.

Probably a bad example, but I'm hoping I got what I meant across. :P

[P3nT4gR4m]

Calculators are still discouraged at the algebra level, but you kind of need it for trig and above.

Tables of trig values are cool and all, but it's just really slow. 

As for filtration, yeah that's a part of it.  We learn by habit that lots of data doesn't need our attention, but that leads to zealous habituation that can be dangerous.  For instance, you get used to driving, and you're bored, so you rubberneck at the scenery a bit and, crunch.

Tough example, but it applies to less deadly scenarios as well. 

Tough example but it illustrates another almost absolute truth - human beings learn things best the hard way. The guy who loses the use of his body from the waist down cos he was rubbernecking and ploughed into a bridge stanchion? Bet that fucker never gets nonchalant about watching the road after that

[Jasper]

Yes research involves a lot of Googling, but you still have to go through the stuff to find what you're looking for. You could argue the same for "'Research' now mostly involves card catalogs in libraries." Filtering is required either way.

Anyway, there's a line between too simple/autopilot and what I'd call actually simple.
Too simple: the answer to everything is prayer.
Simple: introspection is a good way to start looking for answers.

Both are simple concepts, but one is probably the better answer than the other.

Probably a bad example, but I'm hoping I got what I meant across. :P

No, I get it.  There is definitely a bias against simplicity in this culture, which I find erroneous.  There's a corresponding bias in favor of complexity.  Someone may be unpleasable and indecisive, but what they say is "I'm complicated".  Like it's some kind of desirable trait.

Simple stuff often works best, in the right frame.  Salmon with pepper, butter, and lemon is simple and magnificent.  Using a hammer and duct tape to fix everything is probably too simple.

(Probably.)

The idea is to find out what level of simplicity is required.  Which often requires a certain amount of profundity.  Which leads back to the "don't make me think" syndrome.

[Jasper]

Calculators are still discouraged at the algebra level, but you kind of need it for trig and above.

Tables of trig values are cool and all, but it's just really slow.  

As for filtration, yeah that's a part of it.  We learn by habit that lots of data doesn't need our attention, but that leads to zealous habituation that can be dangerous.  For instance, you get used to driving, and you're bored, so you rubberneck at the scenery a bit and, crunch.

Tough example, but it applies to less deadly scenarios as well.  

Tough example but it illustrates another almost absolute truth - human beings learn things best the hard way. The guy who loses the use of his body from the waist down cos he was rubbernecking and ploughed into a bridge stanchion? Bet that fucker never gets nonchalant about watching the road after that

By the same token, a moment's careful consideration can spare you having lessons burned into your brain.

"Time is the greatest of teachers, but it kills all its students".

[Adios]

Calculators are still discouraged at the algebra level, but you kind of need it for trig and above.

Tables of trig values are cool and all, but it's just really slow.  

As for filtration, yeah that's a part of it.  We learn by habit that lots of data doesn't need our attention, but that leads to zealous habituation that can be dangerous.  For instance, you get used to driving, and you're bored, so you rubberneck at the scenery a bit and, crunch.

Tough example, but it applies to less deadly scenarios as well.  

Tough example but it illustrates another almost absolute truth - human beings learn things best the hard way. The guy who loses the use of his body from the waist down cos he was rubbernecking and ploughed into a bridge stanchion? Bet that fucker never gets nonchalant about watching the road after that

By the same token, a moment's careful consideration can spare you having lessons burned into your brain.

"Time is the greatest of teachers, but it kills all its students".

Experience is the most effective and most merciless teacher of all.

[Jasper]

Same diff. 

Monkey learn:  Fire bad, oww, very bad.

[Golden Applesauce]

Correct answer: the store is having a "buy a bat for a dollar, get a ball free" sale, and the local sales tax is 10%.  (That math problems about buying things always leave out tax unless they were specifically about tax / percents really bugged me as a kid.  Bobby has a five-dollar bill, and he wants to buy a $4.99 toy - what happens when he gets to the checkout register?  Fucking despair, that's what.)

I suspect part of the problem with that question is that if you try to answer it as you're reading it, you come up with $1 before you get to the word "than":

"A ball and a bat cost $1.10, the bat costs $1 ... " <- right here you're thinking, okay, the bat is a dollar and the ball is the remaining 10 cents, then you get back to the question just in time to hear " ... how much does the ball cost?" (okay, that's probably not what really happens, but it sounds believable.)

If you make the mistake of misinterpreting the question as "the set costs a dollar more than the just the ball" or "buying the bat on top of the ball costs you an extra dollar" - which is what people are a lot more likely to actually say, then the "correct" answer for you to come to is 10 cents.  Nobody who pays $1.05 for one item and $.05 for another item announces that they paid a dollar more for one than the other.  For that matter, it's pretty uncommon to buy two different items where one is 20x the other without the smaller one being a small snack object because you got hungry while shopping.  That, and you can't buy anything for a nickel - it screws with your intuition to have such a tiny amount be relevant.  I (and I think most people) solve practical arithmetic problem by just doing approximations until you get close enough - which is a lot more efficient than digging around for pencil and paper and doing algebra.  For this problem it might go something like this (which is basically what I did):

Approximate bat at at $1 (since the bat has to be at least a dollar, and one dollar is a nice round number) and ball at the remaining $.10.
Then here, it forks:

The more intuitive heuristic method says, $1 and $.10 together make a dollar and a $1 is a dollar more than a dime - because the question asked about real quantities, and every American knows that a dime all by itself is worth approximately nothing.  It's this tiny little coin, whereas dollars are bills.  And to be honest, I can't fault people who think this way.  They're within 5% of being correct of the price of an item that costs less than $1.25 - the error is insignificant, or at least it is anywhere except on a math test.

The "correct" method then says, but wait, then the bat would have to be $1.10, and they'd total $1.20, I've got an extra ten cents, so I take half of 10 cents off of both of them, and I get one-ten minus zero-five is one-five, and ten minus five is five again, so $1.05 for the bat and $.05 for the ball.  Quite a bit more mental math.

[Requia ☣]

The error remains when you talk about a transaction totaling 1.1 million as well, so the dime being next to nothing doesn't seem to be a contributing factor.

[Golden Applesauce]

Tough example but it illustrates another almost absolute truth - human beings learn things best the hard way. The guy who loses the use of his body from the waist down cos he was rubbernecking and ploughed into a bridge stanchion? Bet that fucker never gets nonchalant about watching the road after that

Depressingly, this is not the case - real statistics show that people are more cautious for a while after an accident (either themselves or someone they know, although the effect is weaker if it doesn't happen to them personally) but that after a few months or so they're right back doing whatever it is that got them injured in the first place.  In fact, once you get injured, you're statistically more likely than the general population to have the same general sort of injury happen to you, because you're still the type of person who got injured in the first place.  For example, people who get into serious car accidents are more likely than the general population to be people who have greater "risk factors" - like poor driving skills, casual treatment of road regulations, people who routinely drive with a lot of distractions, or just ADHD - and so after they've gotten over the shock of the accident they're right back where they started.  At least I think this is based on real statistics - a psych prof told our class this, but not being a real science teacher she didn't have cited sources at the ready for at least a third of the alleged facts she presented.  

[Golden Applesauce]

The error remains when you talk about a transaction totaling 1.1 million as well, so the dime being next to nothing doesn't seem to be a contributing factor.

Stay away from my just-so stories! 

[Golden Applesauce]

Good concept Pent. Don't you think the world is 'dumbing down' though? I mean people don't have to think as much anymore. Calculators were not allowed when I was in school for instance. 'Research' now mostly involves Google. Cars even tell you what to do and where to go.

Calculators, I'll give you.  I see college kids who can't do basic mental arithmetic because of this, and it blows my mind.  I TA'd for a special section of general intro physics, where all of the students were education majors, and I had this conversation happen during a study/review session:
"So how do you find the momentum of the block?"
"Times the mass and the velocity together."
"Right.  And what is the block's mass?"
"2."
"Yes, 2 kilograms.  And the problem says that the block is stationary, so what is its velocity?"
"... zero?" (Whenever you ask students an easy question, they think you're trying to trick them.  Always.)
"Right!  So if its mass is 2 kilograms and its velocity is zero, then what is its momentum?"
At this point the student pulled out a calculator and I very nearly flipped my lid.  Yes, this college student who plans on teaching impressionable young children pulled out a calculator to multiply 2 and 0, and then in all seriousness announced that the answer was, in fact, zero.  There was no "How silly of me!  I just used a calculator to multiply a number by zero without even realizing it!"  She saw nothing wrong using a calculator to solve 2 x 0.

Research, no.  The point of intelligence in research comes in understanding and interpreting the information you find, not finding it in the first place.  This is definitely a case where the means are largely irrelevant as long as you get the information you're looking for.  And skill, or at least know-how, is there too - people don't check the discussion page on controversial Wikipedia articles, they don't look at the cited sources to find more information (or even to confirm that it says what the wiki says it says.)  If they're looking for scholarly info, they don't check the list of references at the end of the book or article.  (Protip: if you check the references on a couple of related books/articles, and then look up the works that are in the overlap of the references list, you're almost guaranteed to find the most cited/referenced works on the subject you're looking for, which is probably one that you want.)