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Vorfreude

Vorfreude is a delightful German word for the pleasure of anticipation. It combines vor, meaning "before" or "in advance", and freude, meaning "happiness". It's the joy from the anticipation of joy. The magic of vorfreude For me, the magic of vorfreude lies in how it stretches out the pleasure of any upcoming event or experience. Once I hit 'Confirm' to book a trip, it kicks off joy for months whenever I think about the trip. And the great part about it, if we're organised, is that a trip in December can bring 'anticipatory joy' from when we book it in January. I need only reflect on my positive feelings about the trip, and life seems better. I've often found that the vorfreude may surpass the joy of the actual trip. With my vorfreude glasses on, I never worry about the mosquitoes, the heat, or the inevitable waiting on the journey. Thanks to something called fading affect bias, the emotional weight of negative memories tends to fade faster than positive ones. This leaves us with a rose-tinted view of past trips and may conveniently erase the niggly parts we didn't enjoy, allowing us to focus on just the good parts of a trip coming up. Or perhaps it's our optimism bias (we had a fun podcast about optimism bias). Vorfreude is not just for the big events Vorfreude doesn't only apply to big events like a holiday or wedding. I find anticipatory joy in small things, too. I look forward to the first coffee in the morning every day. Sometimes, the coffee won't live up to what I'd hoped for, but hey, I'd already been enjoying the idea of it since I finished my last coffee the day before. I look forward to meeting friends and loved ones. I look forward to a dinner out. I look forward to weekends. I look forward to the next football match. I look forward to a cake coming out of the oven. Many people look forward to 5 o'clock each day. By simply reflecting on these moments of future joy, we can experience happiness right now, no matter where we are. Enhancing vorfreude We can even work to cultivate and enhance our vorfreude. As a child, nothing built anticipation like an advent calendar, ramping up excitement for Christmas day as I opened each new window. Sharing photos of your holiday destination with friends and family before you go and planning activities increases vorfreude. Getting good things in the diary can kick us out of languishing. In some ways, vorfreude mirrors the benefits I get from fear-based training plans or the forcing function of signing up for endurance events later in the year—having signed up for the event, I start to benefit from it as soon as I get out training with friends. Enjoy the moment But don't forget to enjoy the moment. I'm sometimes reminded of Calvin talking with Hobbes about the enjoyment of his favourite breakfast cereal, Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs: "Ahhh, another bowl of chocolate frosted sugar bombs! The second bowl is always the best! The pleasure of my first bowl is diminished by the anticipation of future bowls, and by the end of my third bowl, I usually feel sick." While it’s great to savour the anticipation, remember to enjoy the moment when it arrives. More tips for vorfreude in this excellent article by Rachel Dixon: The vorfreude secret: 30 zero-effort ways to fill your life with joy Also see: Schadenfreude Fading affect bias 5 ways to wellbeing Wabi sabi If this isn't nice I don't know what is Choose passwords that make you happy Maslow's hierarchy of needs If money doesn't make you happy you're probably not spending it right I made prints for this as: the full vorfreude sketch a simpler vorfreude picture with text (which works rather well as a message on a clock) and just the umbrella and beach…Vorfreude is a delightful German word for the pleasure of anticipation. It combines vor, meaning "before" or "in advance", and freude, meaning "happiness". It's the joy from the anticipation of joy. The magic of vorfreude For me, the magic of vorfreude lies in how it stretches out the pleasure of any upcoming event or experience. Once I hit 'Confirm' to book a trip, it kicks off joy for months whenever I think about the trip. And the great part about it, if we're organised, is that a trip in December can bring 'anticipatory joy' from when we book it in January. I need only reflect on my positive feelings about the trip, and life seems better. I've often found that the vorfreude may surpass the joy of the actual trip. With my vorfreude glasses on, I never worry about the mosquitoes, the heat, or the inevitable waiting on the journey. Thanks to something called fading affect bias, the emotional weight of negative memories tends to fade faster than positive ones. This leaves us with a rose-tinted view of past trips and may conveniently erase the niggly parts we didn't enjoy, allowing us to focus on just the good parts of a trip coming up. Or perhaps it's our optimism bias (we had a fun podcast about optimism bias). Vorfreude is not just for the big events Vorfreude doesn't only apply to big events like a holiday or wedding. I find anticipatory joy in small things, too. I look forward to the first coffee in the morning every day. Sometimes, the coffee won't live up to what I'd hoped for, but hey, I'd already been enjoying the idea of it since I finished my last coffee the day before. I look forward to meeting friends and loved ones. I look forward to a dinner out. I look forward to weekends. I look forward to the next football match. I look forward to a cake coming out of the oven. Many people look forward to 5 o'clock each day. By simply reflecting on these moments of future joy, we can experience happiness right now, no matter where we are. Enhancing vorfreude We can even work to cultivate and enhance our vorfreude. As a child, nothing built anticipation like an advent calendar, ramping up excitement for Christmas day as I opened each new window. Sharing photos of your holiday destination with friends and family before you go and planning activities increases vorfreude. Getting good things in the diary can kick us out of languishing. In some ways, vorfreude mirrors the benefits I get from fear-based training plans or the forcing function of signing up for endurance events later in the year—having signed up for the event, I start to benefit from it as soon as I get out training with friends. Enjoy the moment But don't forget to enjoy the moment. I'm sometimes reminded of Calvin talking with Hobbes about the enjoyment of his favourite breakfast cereal, Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs: "Ahhh, another bowl of chocolate frosted sugar bombs! The second bowl is always the best! The pleasure of my first bowl is diminished by the anticipation of future bowls, and by the end of my third bowl, I usually feel sick." While it’s great to savour the anticipation, remember to enjoy the moment when it arrives. More tips for vorfreude in this excellent article by Rachel Dixon: The vorfreude secret: 30 zero-effort ways to fill your life with joy Also see: Schadenfreude Fading affect bias 5 ways to wellbeing Wabi sabi If this isn't nice I don't know what is Choose passwords that make you happy Maslow's hierarchy of needs If money doesn't make you happy you're probably not spending it right I made prints for this as: the full vorfreude sketch a simpler vorfreude picture with text (which works rather well as a message on a clock) and just the umbrella and beach

6 Oct

The Writer's in the Writing. The Artist's in the Art.

Every creation is a mirror, reflecting something of its creator. If you and I were to paint the same subject, your painting would reflect some of you, and mine would reflect some of me. If we both write stories, each one will carry something of ourselves—our personality, our experiences. The writer is in the writing. The artist is in the art. The musician's in the music. Take writing as an example. If we're writing authentically, we can't help but share a bit of ourselves in our work. Our past experiences affect what we notice. Our timidity or confidence is reflected in the tone and style. Our education in the choice of words. Our kindness and patience, or cynicism and frustration, is revealed to the reader. And the choice of what you write or paint reflects you. Not if we're trying too hard. Not if we're writing to sound like a writer or if we're adopting a "literary" style because we think that's how it should be done. And not if we focus more on pleasing a search engine or ticking off marketing goals than connecting with readers. But if we write honestly and directly, the writer shows through. The Third Dimension This phrasing hit me while reading Brenda Ueland's book If You Want to Write. She calls the writer the Third Dimension. I believe she means that when you read a book, there are the characters, the reader, and also, inescapably, the writer's personality. She writes that readers can tell when writing isn't authentic, when it's not really you, but instead, a performance to meet someone else's expectations of how one should write—or perhaps a creation of an AI's sycophantic personality. The presence of the writer in the writing, or the artist in the art, leads Ueland to say, "…I have come to think the only way to become a better writer is to become a better person." I believe this principle also holds true across other creative disciplines, though I thought "the cook is in the cooking" didn't quite have the same ring. Still, it holds a ring of truth if I consider a musician and their music, an entrepreneur and their business, a podcaster and their podcast and others. It's hard to write this without wondering what I'm sharing about myself (and what gets scrubbed out and cleansed by Grammarly proofreading). In Sketchplanations as a project, I've come to think that sooner or later, everything I know of value will be there. So, in some way, the whole thing reflects me. Shall we go for a beer? Also see: How to speak plainly The first draft is always perfect The best writing is re-writing Short words are best Micro-editing redundant words Everyone's a geek about something Happy talk must die More sketches about writing — it always surprises me, for a designer and product developer, how many I have. 35 at last count. Here are images for each alone in case you're more one than the other: The writer's in the writing - solo The artist's in the art In addition to prints of this sketch, I added an individual print of the writer's in the writing and an individual print of the artist's in the art.…Every creation is a mirror, reflecting something of its creator. If you and I were to paint the same subject, your painting would reflect some of you, and mine would reflect some of me. If we both write stories, each one will carry something of ourselves—our personality, our experiences. The writer is in the writing. The artist is in the art. The musician's in the music. Take writing as an example. If we're writing authentically, we can't help but share a bit of ourselves in our work. Our past experiences affect what we notice. Our timidity or confidence is reflected in the tone and style. Our education in the choice of words. Our kindness and patience, or cynicism and frustration, is revealed to the reader. And the choice of what you write or paint reflects you. Not if we're trying too hard. Not if we're writing to sound like a writer or if we're adopting a "literary" style because we think that's how it should be done. And not if we focus more on pleasing a search engine or ticking off marketing goals than connecting with readers. But if we write honestly and directly, the writer shows through. The Third Dimension This phrasing hit me while reading Brenda Ueland's book If You Want to Write. She calls the writer the Third Dimension. I believe she means that when you read a book, there are the characters, the reader, and also, inescapably, the writer's personality. She writes that readers can tell when writing isn't authentic, when it's not really you, but instead, a performance to meet someone else's expectations of how one should write—or perhaps a creation of an AI's sycophantic personality. The presence of the writer in the writing, or the artist in the art, leads Ueland to say, "…I have come to think the only way to become a better writer is to become a better person." I believe this principle also holds true across other creative disciplines, though I thought "the cook is in the cooking" didn't quite have the same ring. Still, it holds a ring of truth if I consider a musician and their music, an entrepreneur and their business, a podcaster and their podcast and others. It's hard to write this without wondering what I'm sharing about myself (and what gets scrubbed out and cleansed by Grammarly proofreading). In Sketchplanations as a project, I've come to think that sooner or later, everything I know of value will be there. So, in some way, the whole thing reflects me. Shall we go for a beer? Also see: How to speak plainly The first draft is always perfect The best writing is re-writing Short words are best Micro-editing redundant words Everyone's a geek about something Happy talk must die More sketches about writing — it always surprises me, for a designer and product developer, how many I have. 35 at last count. Here are images for each alone in case you're more one than the other: The writer's in the writing - solo The artist's in the art In addition to prints of this sketch, I added an individual print of the writer's in the writing and an individual print of the artist's in the art.

29 Sep

Fauxtomation

Writer and filmmaker Astra Taylor explains fauxtomation as "the process that renders invisible human labour to maintain the illusion that machines and systems are smarter than they are." (Faux means false or fake in French). Taylor gives an example of standing in line to collect food and the person in front of her expressing amazement at how the app knew his order was done 20 minutes early. The server replies, "I sent you a message." With the rise in incredible abilities driven by AI chatbots and tools, it's tempting to believe that AI can run anything. But, in many situations, claims of AI magic and sophisticated automation disguise work done by people—often outsourced and poorly paid. An example of fauxtomation is content moderators, whose job is to review and filter objectionable content from the web when the claim is that sophisticated algorithms and AI are doing the work. Other examples are tagging or searching images, transcribing audio, responding to customer queries, making decisions, or, ironically, training machine learning models. In another twist, ordering on the app or touchscreen at McDonalds or the self-checkout at a supermarket, you, as a customer, become the labour of a server or waiter. Some have argued that automation polarises work into vast quantities of small, menial tasks feeding the machines on one end and sophisticated, high-skilled work in designing and maintaining the machines at the other. Amazon has long offered its Mechanical Turk service, which crowdsources assignments with a distributed workforce—they called it artificial, artificial intelligence. The original Mechanical Turk was a hoax from the 1700s where a concealed human chess player fooled onlookers into believing a machine was playing. As a design and UX professional, I've used the Wizard of Oz prototype technique. Named after the infamous wizard secretly controlling impressive machines from behind a curtain, the idea is to give the appearance of a working software prototype by discreetly controlling what people see based on their actions. AI promises instant automation, but that's rarely the case. As you work to automate and remove inefficiencies, it's natural that systems should be supported by people. Human-augmented work may be a more appropriate term. In many domains, especially where safety is at stake, such as in self-driving cars, reviewing legal documents, or automated background checks, oversight by people may remain critical. Alongside the AI revolution, a quiet revolution nearly as significant for our everyday experience is the tying together of different tools for automation. Tools like Zapier, Google Sheets, Notion, and the growth of APIs allow us to automate workflows across systems, saving massive amounts of time and effort. While the vision of machines reducing our labour persists, history shows that they often drive increased productivity instead of reducing work. This echoes Jevon's paradox, where fuel efficiency gains usually result in increased fuel usage rather than less. I saw an excellent talk by machine learning and AI expert James Smith, in which, before you try machine learning ("I hear you have Magic Pixie dust. Can I have some?"), he would ask, "Have you tried 50 IF statements?" These programmed rules will be more maintainable, less complex, and result in responses that are easy to understand. I learned about fauxtomation from Tom Humberstone's remarkable visual essay What Luddites Can Teach us About Resisting an Automated Future in the MIT Technology Review. Fauxtomation is similar in concept to Potemkin AI, a term from researcher Jathan Sadowski. You can read Astra Taylor's article, The Automation Charade, or watch her discuss fauxtomation at the AI Now 2018 symposium. Sketchplanations continues to be done by me, by hand. If you'd like to support me, I'm improving my Patreon, which makes such a difference in helping creators like me keep creating. Thank you. Here's a fauxtomation sketch by ChatGPT in case you're interested =) Also see: Jevon's paradox The automation paradox The big data equation The long nose of innovation As well as fauxtomation prints, you can get AI department prints…Writer and filmmaker Astra Taylor explains fauxtomation as "the process that renders invisible human labour to maintain the illusion that machines and systems are smarter than they are." (Faux means false or fake in French). Taylor gives an example of standing in line to collect food and the person in front of her expressing amazement at how the app knew his order was done 20 minutes early. The server replies, "I sent you a message." With the rise in incredible abilities driven by AI chatbots and tools, it's tempting to believe that AI can run anything. But, in many situations, claims of AI magic and sophisticated automation disguise work done by people—often outsourced and poorly paid. An example of fauxtomation is content moderators, whose job is to review and filter objectionable content from the web when the claim is that sophisticated algorithms and AI are doing the work. Other examples are tagging or searching images, transcribing audio, responding to customer queries, making decisions, or, ironically, training machine learning models. In another twist, ordering on the app or touchscreen at McDonalds or the self-checkout at a supermarket, you, as a customer, become the labour of a server or waiter. Some have argued that automation polarises work into vast quantities of small, menial tasks feeding the machines on one end and sophisticated, high-skilled work in designing and maintaining the machines at the other. Amazon has long offered its Mechanical Turk service, which crowdsources assignments with a distributed workforce—they called it artificial, artificial intelligence. The original Mechanical Turk was a hoax from the 1700s where a concealed human chess player fooled onlookers into believing a machine was playing. As a design and UX professional, I've used the Wizard of Oz prototype technique. Named after the infamous wizard secretly controlling impressive machines from behind a curtain, the idea is to give the appearance of a working software prototype by discreetly controlling what people see based on their actions. AI promises instant automation, but that's rarely the case. As you work to automate and remove inefficiencies, it's natural that systems should be supported by people. Human-augmented work may be a more appropriate term. In many domains, especially where safety is at stake, such as in self-driving cars, reviewing legal documents, or automated background checks, oversight by people may remain critical. Alongside the AI revolution, a quiet revolution nearly as significant for our everyday experience is the tying together of different tools for automation. Tools like Zapier, Google Sheets, Notion, and the growth of APIs allow us to automate workflows across systems, saving massive amounts of time and effort. While the vision of machines reducing our labour persists, history shows that they often drive increased productivity instead of reducing work. This echoes Jevon's paradox, where fuel efficiency gains usually result in increased fuel usage rather than less. I saw an excellent talk by machine learning and AI expert James Smith, in which, before you try machine learning ("I hear you have Magic Pixie dust. Can I have some?"), he would ask, "Have you tried 50 IF statements?" These programmed rules will be more maintainable, less complex, and result in responses that are easy to understand. I learned about fauxtomation from Tom Humberstone's remarkable visual essay What Luddites Can Teach us About Resisting an Automated Future in the MIT Technology Review. Fauxtomation is similar in concept to Potemkin AI, a term from researcher Jathan Sadowski. You can read Astra Taylor's article, The Automation Charade, or watch her discuss fauxtomation at the AI Now 2018 symposium. Sketchplanations continues to be done by me, by hand. If you'd like to support me, I'm improving my Patreon, which makes such a difference in helping creators like me keep creating. Thank you. Here's a fauxtomation sketch by ChatGPT in case you're interested =) Also see: Jevon's paradox The automation paradox The big data equation The long nose of innovation As well as fauxtomation prints, you can get AI department prints

22 Sep

Zigzag trenches

Trench warfare dominated the fighting in WW1. After the initial hasty digging of trenches in the early days of the war, as each side dug in to defend their lines, trenches evolved to be more complex and sophisticated, including digging them in a stepped or zigzag shape. Why were trenches dug in a zigzag pattern? Zigzagging trenches with sharp corners helped remedy several fatal flaws learned from early trench warfare: 1. Zigzags help contain blasts One of the key advantages of a zigzag trench is its ability to contain blasts. In a straight trench, the blast from mortar or artillery fire would travel unimpeded to either side. However, a trench with frequent bends could confine explosions to smaller portions of the trench, reducing casualties. 2. Zigzags help slow an enemy down after capturing a trench A straight trench meant that breaching a portion of it gave a long line of sight and the ability to fire down the trench which could aid attackers. Angles and corners from the zigzag or wavy shape of a trench meant that line of sight was reduced and gave better defensive positions with cover and concealment. So, the simple change from a straight trench to a zigzag gave defenders significant advantages, and both sides used the design during the war. It's painful to imagine the tragic lessons that led to this evolution in design. I learned about zigzag trench design from a children's book about WW1: 50 Things You Should Know About The First World War, by Jim Eldridge. It's striking how such a simple design change can have a significant effect. It's also a great example of how a simple solution can seem so obvious in retrospect and yet may take time to develop. One of the trends of evolution identified in the theory of inventive problem solving that always fascinated me and has myriad applications is how straight lines in products typically evolve to jointed or bent, then wavy lines. As the theory would say, a straight line has unused potential, and someone will find an advantage in introducing a bend or bends. I sketched a similar trend about flat surfaces having unused potential. The Imperial War Museum has a great 9-minute video explaining trench warfare, which discusses the zigzag or stepped design in this sketch. Also see: VUCA OODA Loop Survivorship bias Design by committee A flat surface has unused potential Kitty Hawk moment More history sketches…Trench warfare dominated the fighting in WW1. After the initial hasty digging of trenches in the early days of the war, as each side dug in to defend their lines, trenches evolved to be more complex and sophisticated, including digging them in a stepped or zigzag shape. Why were trenches dug in a zigzag pattern? Zigzagging trenches with sharp corners helped remedy several fatal flaws learned from early trench warfare: 1. Zigzags help contain blasts One of the key advantages of a zigzag trench is its ability to contain blasts. In a straight trench, the blast from mortar or artillery fire would travel unimpeded to either side. However, a trench with frequent bends could confine explosions to smaller portions of the trench, reducing casualties. 2. Zigzags help slow an enemy down after capturing a trench A straight trench meant that breaching a portion of it gave a long line of sight and the ability to fire down the trench which could aid attackers. Angles and corners from the zigzag or wavy shape of a trench meant that line of sight was reduced and gave better defensive positions with cover and concealment. So, the simple change from a straight trench to a zigzag gave defenders significant advantages, and both sides used the design during the war. It's painful to imagine the tragic lessons that led to this evolution in design. I learned about zigzag trench design from a children's book about WW1: 50 Things You Should Know About The First World War, by Jim Eldridge. It's striking how such a simple design change can have a significant effect. It's also a great example of how a simple solution can seem so obvious in retrospect and yet may take time to develop. One of the trends of evolution identified in the theory of inventive problem solving that always fascinated me and has myriad applications is how straight lines in products typically evolve to jointed or bent, then wavy lines. As the theory would say, a straight line has unused potential, and someone will find an advantage in introducing a bend or bends. I sketched a similar trend about flat surfaces having unused potential. The Imperial War Museum has a great 9-minute video explaining trench warfare, which discusses the zigzag or stepped design in this sketch. Also see: VUCA OODA Loop Survivorship bias Design by committee A flat surface has unused potential Kitty Hawk moment More history sketches

15 Sep

Hanlon's Razor

Hanlon's Razor is the adage: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Or sometimes, "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence." It appears in a similar form by the inimitable Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as, "And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence," in The Sorrows of Young Werther. The same sentiments are also shared by William James, Churchill, and H.G. Wells. More recently, Douglas Hubbard gave a more modern version in his book The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system." The mistake of assuming bad intentions was brought home to me when puzzling why people kept leaving paper towels in the sinks of the bathrooms at university. How hard is it to put them in the bin?? A year after assuming my fellow students were either lazy or inconsiderate or both, I was washing my hands when another student dried his hands on the towel, walked to the door, opened it by covering the handle with the paper towel — presumably to avoid the germs — and then aimed his paper towel at the bin which was between the sinks. He missed, and it landed in the sink as he walked off down the corridor. Suddenly, it was clear to me that the hygiene of the door handle was higher in consideration of towel-in-the-sink people than whether or not their towel hit their target (and whether it was worth checking if their towel had hit the bin). It made sense. Someone later moved the bin next to the door, and it didn't happen again. Besides towels in sinks, I've seen people get mad at others pushing in line when the pushers-in didn't realise other people were queuing. I've seen drivers shouting at another driver who's in blissful ignorance of the trouble they've caused. I've seen agents blamed for terrible customer service when the system is at fault, and customer service blame users when the product is at fault. I've seen people despairing at others leaving litter in the park or on the street when animals had dragged out the mess overnight. I've seen people vilified for not moving down on a train when they weren't aware of the squeeze at the other end. And, usually, I think people aren't smart or capable enough, or in fact wicked enough, to carry out the conspiracies that people credit them for. Very often it's the person assuming bad intentions and getting mad who suffers the most. To be sure, there are different degrees of negligence. We can all make mistakes, but if you're doing your taxes, it's not okay to make a mistake because you didn't read the instructions. If you're standing on a busy train, you owe it to others to be aware that you may be blocking an aisle, and we should do our best to make sure our rubbish stays where we put it. But none of us are perfect and so often I think Hanlon's Razor has some truth to it. Perhaps a better formulation of Hanlon's Razor would be, "Before attributing to malice, try attributing to incompetence." But I'm not a fan of the wording with 'stupidity' or 'incompetence'. Awareness is so often the necessary start and what's missing. Since posting this a few people also shared with me, Clarke's Corollary: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." And another relevant name for a similar situation is Cock-up Over Conspiracy. Hanlon's Razor, which encourages us first to consider innocent mistakes rather than assuming ill will, was a submission to Murphy's Law, book two: more reasons why things go wrong, by Arthur Bloch (p52). Murphy's Law is "If anything can go wrong, it will." I've also previously covered Muphry's Law, where, when criticising spelling or grammar, you will make a spelling or grammar mistake yourself. Also see: Fundamental Attribution Error (someone shared Hanlon's Razor with me on posting this) Attribution bias Self-serving bias More conjectures and thinking named after people: Chesterton's fence Russell's teapot Bloom's taxonomy Maslow's hierarchy Muphry's Law The Peter Principle The Generalised Peter Principle Hofstadter's Law…Hanlon's Razor is the adage: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Or sometimes, "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence." It appears in a similar form by the inimitable Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as, "And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence," in The Sorrows of Young Werther. The same sentiments are also shared by William James, Churchill, and H.G. Wells. More recently, Douglas Hubbard gave a more modern version in his book The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system." The mistake of assuming bad intentions was brought home to me when puzzling why people kept leaving paper towels in the sinks of the bathrooms at university. How hard is it to put them in the bin?? A year after assuming my fellow students were either lazy or inconsiderate or both, I was washing my hands when another student dried his hands on the towel, walked to the door, opened it by covering the handle with the paper towel — presumably to avoid the germs — and then aimed his paper towel at the bin which was between the sinks. He missed, and it landed in the sink as he walked off down the corridor. Suddenly, it was clear to me that the hygiene of the door handle was higher in consideration of towel-in-the-sink people than whether or not their towel hit their target (and whether it was worth checking if their towel had hit the bin). It made sense. Someone later moved the bin next to the door, and it didn't happen again. Besides towels in sinks, I've seen people get mad at others pushing in line when the pushers-in didn't realise other people were queuing. I've seen drivers shouting at another driver who's in blissful ignorance of the trouble they've caused. I've seen agents blamed for terrible customer service when the system is at fault, and customer service blame users when the product is at fault. I've seen people despairing at others leaving litter in the park or on the street when animals had dragged out the mess overnight. I've seen people vilified for not moving down on a train when they weren't aware of the squeeze at the other end. And, usually, I think people aren't smart or capable enough, or in fact wicked enough, to carry out the conspiracies that people credit them for. Very often it's the person assuming bad intentions and getting mad who suffers the most. To be sure, there are different degrees of negligence. We can all make mistakes, but if you're doing your taxes, it's not okay to make a mistake because you didn't read the instructions. If you're standing on a busy train, you owe it to others to be aware that you may be blocking an aisle, and we should do our best to make sure our rubbish stays where we put it. But none of us are perfect and so often I think Hanlon's Razor has some truth to it. Perhaps a better formulation of Hanlon's Razor would be, "Before attributing to malice, try attributing to incompetence." But I'm not a fan of the wording with 'stupidity' or 'incompetence'. Awareness is so often the necessary start and what's missing. Since posting this a few people also shared with me, Clarke's Corollary: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." And another relevant name for a similar situation is Cock-up Over Conspiracy. Hanlon's Razor, which encourages us first to consider innocent mistakes rather than assuming ill will, was a submission to Murphy's Law, book two: more reasons why things go wrong, by Arthur Bloch (p52). Murphy's Law is "If anything can go wrong, it will." I've also previously covered Muphry's Law, where, when criticising spelling or grammar, you will make a spelling or grammar mistake yourself. Also see: Fundamental Attribution Error (someone shared Hanlon's Razor with me on posting this) Attribution bias Self-serving bias More conjectures and thinking named after people: Chesterton's fence Russell's teapot Bloom's taxonomy Maslow's hierarchy Muphry's Law The Peter Principle The Generalised Peter Principle Hofstadter's Law

8 Sep

Kawaii

Kawaii is the word for the Japanese culture of cute, adorable and childlike. When you see a sushi roll with a cute smiley face, that's Kawaii at work. You might also find it in an innocent, high voice like a child's. I love how, by adding a couple of big eyes, maybe with a couple of little highlights, a smiley mouth and perhaps a little shy blushing on the cheek, it's possible to transform a cactus or a pencil case into something adorable. As a family, we've enjoyed the card game Sushi Go, which includes cute wasabi, fried shrimp, and even a chopstick holder. It's a bit like the magic of adding googly eyes to anything to make it fun. The childlike simplicity, sweetness and cute artwork of Kawaii is also in Sanrio's Hello Kitty. Also see: The rules of cute Lego faces More lovely stuff from Japan: Wabi-sabi Kintsugi Tsundoku Ma Hara hachi bu I liked chindogu, the art of unuseless inventions, so much I accidentally sketched it twice: chindōgu back-scratching t-shirt, the 3 tenets of chindōgu…Kawaii is the word for the Japanese culture of cute, adorable and childlike. When you see a sushi roll with a cute smiley face, that's Kawaii at work. You might also find it in an innocent, high voice like a child's. I love how, by adding a couple of big eyes, maybe with a couple of little highlights, a smiley mouth and perhaps a little shy blushing on the cheek, it's possible to transform a cactus or a pencil case into something adorable. As a family, we've enjoyed the card game Sushi Go, which includes cute wasabi, fried shrimp, and even a chopstick holder. It's a bit like the magic of adding googly eyes to anything to make it fun. The childlike simplicity, sweetness and cute artwork of Kawaii is also in Sanrio's Hello Kitty. Also see: The rules of cute Lego faces More lovely stuff from Japan: Wabi-sabi Kintsugi Tsundoku Ma Hara hachi bu I liked chindogu, the art of unuseless inventions, so much I accidentally sketched it twice: chindōgu back-scratching t-shirt, the 3 tenets of chindōgu

1 Sep

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