The Bloj

Thinking outside the box

Posted on November 29th, 2006 by Tim.
Categories: Thinking Outside the WTF, Tim.

One of my favorite games of all time is a game called Alpha Centauri. It’s a game like Civilization, in the classic 4X style. After each research advance in the game, you are presented with a “quote” from a fictional character within the game plotline. One that has particularly stuck with me is this:

Man’s unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist.

Academician Prokhor Zakharov
“For I Have Tasted The Fruit”

This struck a chord with me, and I later found that this idea - that humans believe what they prefer to be true - has a scientific name: Confirmation Bias. Actually, confirmation bias is the tendancy people have to interpret information in a way that supports their preconceptions, which is quite similar to what “Zakharov” said. The end result of confirmation bias is that we tend to believe some pretty crazy stuff. The earth is flat. Cold weather makes you sick. People would explode in the vacuum of space. None of these are true. It makes you wonder how many other crazy things we take for granted as being true.

Take, for instance, recycling. Recycling has become one of those cultural icons that has become accepted accross political lines. It would likely be a very bad move politically to oppose recycling, for a Republican or Democrat. As a universally accepted “fact”, few people stop to question the actual benefit that we get from recycling. Examine paper recycling: In order to recycle paper, we burn a large quantity of fossil fuels in order to transport the paper between local recycling stations and paper mills, and even more oil and energy in the paper manufacturing process. All this to save… a renewable resource called forests. Of course, it is common knowledge that we are running out of trees, isn’t it? Well actually, no, it isn’t. The number of trees is at its highest point now than any time in this century. What about landfill space, aren’t we running out of landfill space? Again, no. We could continue producing trash at our current rate for the next 1000 years, and we would only need a landfill that was 35 square miles.

On the assumption that recycling is an inherently good thing, the US government has poured billions of dollars into recycling subsidies. The cost of recycling one ton of garbage in NYC is $239, compared to $132 to put it in a landfill. If the city would stop all recycling efforts, it would save $56 million a year. Imagine what we could do with that money if we put it towards conservation efforts, or research into alternative energy? However, there is one shining point of economic beauty in this quagmire of wasteful recycling: The cost of recycling aluminum cans is significantly lower than the cost to extract aluminum from raw ore. This results in the only class of recycling that is economically profitable.

Thinking without confirmation bias requires thinking outside the box. It’s not a natural way to think, and requires serious introspection on preconcieved ideas and beliefs. For more information about the recycling controversy, check out this video of Penn and Teller calling Recycling Bullsh*t.

1 comment.

The method never justifies the product.

Posted on November 28th, 2006 by Chris.
Categories: Business/The Software Industry, Chris, General/Misc., Philosophy, Product Design.

What do these posts have in common?:

If you get it wrong, the voice comes on the line to tell you. Hey, since you know what I did wrong and you know what I meant to do, why not just fix it? If I dial a number and forget the “1″, just insert the 1 and connect the call. If I dial a number and include the “1″ when I didn’t need to, just delete the 1 and connect the call. Don’t make me have to look up in the book whether I need a 1 or not. (In the front of the phone book are tables showing which numbers need a “1″ and which don’t. I hate those tables.)

(Yes, I know there are weird technical/legal reasons for why I have to dial the phone in four different ways depending on whom I want to call. But it’s still wrong that these technical/legal reasons mean that the rules for dialing a telephone are impossibly complicated.)

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/11/27/1160055.aspx

Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items. The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items. I’m guessing the lock icon does the same thing as the lock menu item, but I’m not sure which menu item the on/off icon corresponds to…

Inevitably, you are going to think of a long list of intelligent, defensible reasons why each of these options is absolutely, positively essential. Don’t bother. I know. Each additional choice makes complete sense until you find yourself explaining to your uncle that he has to choose between 15 different ways to turn off a laptop.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html

(more…)

2 comments.

Societal Ramblings

Posted on November 12th, 2006 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, General/Misc..

When working on a project where I need to collaborate with members of different groups, I often have to send e-mails to them. When I talk to people about this, they often stress the need to e-mail people several times just to get their attention.

Has anyone ever told you this story?:

I sent [someone I know] an e-mail and left them a message twice on their phone, and they haven’t gotten back to me. They’re jerks/I must not be important enough for them.

One symptom of the overcommitted is that there’s not enough time to pay attention to people, as much as one might want to. Combine that with the how being ignored often causes people to feel unimportant or angry, and you have, as a result, a society that’s naturally more pissed-of and unhappy, for no specific reason.

0 comments.