This reminds me of how forgetful we are as a species. The stuff in this article was figured out thousands of years ago and now is being presented almost as if it's something new. It also reminds me that for all of our technological prowess, we still haven't mastered the no-tech fundamentals of dealing with life as human beings.
Maybe someday our ML will be good enough (and alas, it is not currently) that a "fuzzy trope search engine" could be built. Enter a description of a situation, set of relationships, or condition, and up pops references to historical tropes that match and are related. Then I can short-circuit old ideas being pitched to me repackaged in new clothing passing off as genuinely new ideas, and send the pitcher the link.
The title of this post would perhaps pull up "Thoughtcrime" and other related tropes (religious heresy among them probably, wonder how far back this particular trope goes in recorded human history).
That would be an amazing service. You could even provide short advising narratives, similar situations from novels, films, etc. and their conclusions to help guide the user to act appropriately according to their goal. It would be like a friend relating a, "Yeah, that happened to me once, this is what I did," kind of story except the stories would be pulled from hundreds of sources.
This is actually very similar to what an I-Ching reading does :) Except of course, the ML part is replaced by a random number generator (coins or sticks).
Fortunately we have an extremely powerful fuzzy narrative pattern matcher in our heads and with a bit of effort and interpretation people would still get useful advice from the method.
Our biological OS is not built for dealing with time.
1. We suck with memory. We re-write memory every time we recall.
2. We suck with delayed gratification. No other animal had to invest. We haven't evolved past that.
3. We suck with time estimates. The engineering trope of "3x the amount of time you think the project would take" illustrates this point. There is something in Pragmatic Programmer, too.
That is why we need calendars, planners, and timers. People who rely on their conception of time are ignoring the limits of their underlying OS.
Sometimes those who are most in need of this wisdom are least willing to accept it in its traditional forms.
Presenting mindfulness in a form that can reach the people who are not easily moved by the older forms of "evangelism" (e.g. monks living in poverty in a monastery, doing good works in their community) seems to me like a highly worthwhile pursuit.
[EDIT]
... yes, even if the concealed motive is to sell copies of yet another book about mindfulness.
That was hardly the only motive, even if the primary one. Easing the suffering in the world was also a primary driver, as were a pethora of other, just as, or much less, worthy goals.
"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again." -- R.Jordan
This title is exactly wrong, or at least misleading, according to CBT. The whole process of examining your feelings is to determine whether they have a sound basis. The basic loop is: identify feeling, then assumptions that led to that feeling, then try and replace those assumptions with better, more accurate ones. E.g. "I am sad." -> "everyone hates me" can be modified by realizing, no, my cat doesn't hate me, nor does my best friend Jen. Since I now know "everyone hates me" is not correct, the feelings that result from this thought can dissipate.
I.e., examine your feelings deeply and understand whether the thoughts behind them are right.
I think the problem is that sometimes emotions can have nothing to do with reality. It's just a brain chemistry problem and only fixing the brain chemistry aspect will help. That can be done through exercise, meditation, supplements or drugs. In certain instances there's even a correctable problem, such as low grade heavy metal poisoning, that can be permanently fixed. When people beat themselves up over brain chemistry problems, it just makes it worse. It's like mentally beating yourself over not being able to walk with a broken leg.
"Instead, the paradoxical key to true happiness seems to be accepting unhappiness - not forcing yourself to feel how you don't."
I don't know about that. The key to true happiness is accepting that happiness is the path not the destination. When you realize that life becomes a heck of a lot easier to live.
> pay close attention to those negative emotions, because they're usually trying to tell you something
No. They're always trying to tell you something. That's all emotions are. And they've already spoken, so arguing with them is futile. They're telling your brain how you feel so you can act intelligently on them, not so you can turn around and argue with yourself in the mirror.
There are no negative emotions. They're dumb and honest. There is no "how you should feel". Your brain is the only organ smart enough to pretend. You feel a certain way because that's the way it is. We should always start there.
Our emotions don't tell us shit. They are straight-up wrong, half the time.
Our biological OS is not constructed for the current world. That is why, even when everything is going right, we have intermittent moments of anxiety and depression.
This is chronic. The moment you ignore our biases, you fall into some deep shit.
And you can never get out; you can't see your own biases.
How do you know this if you're having "intermittent moments of anxiety and depression"? It's none of my business, but you sound troubled.
Emotions being broken is a different issue, but the article was about "normal" people.
Emotions are a physical reaction to your circumstances. You don't have to react to your emotions, but to second guess how you feel without second guessing your physical circumstances is the chronic modern illness that get's you into deep shit.
> ignore our biases
You don't ignore them. You adjust for them.
"Oh, I didn't have to be angry. Sorry about that! I lost my cool for a second."
If we didn't ignore the fact that we have biases, at least part of the time, wouldn't we be far less productive?
I've seen people who reflect daily on whether their breakfast egg is cage free and what that means for us as an ethically omnivorous species and our corporate agribusiness food economy... and by the time they're done it's dinner. I have better things to do with my day than think logically about everything all the time.
There is no need to ignore anything. Emotional bias is precisely why we have brains to balance them. If you can recognize you have bias you're all set. And lo and behold, next time you won't get as angry in the same situation, etc.
No. The projection of an emotional object onto a logical construction has the capacity for being "wrong" or "right". Emotions are a different, more distributed form of logic and one should not construe homomorphisms across the two.
Oh you read that article too? There are ways of thinking about happiness that still allow for striving. Also, unhappiness is not only caused by entitlement.
Completely removing religion and pc correctness and cultural obligations from my life fairly early on resulted in a very light weight approach to life and the removal of inner chatter bullshit. Do what makes sense to you to get the best result in the purpose of life you have chosen. Basic morality has already been ingrained in us through evolution and is quite adequate by itself. Why we then we must slap words on it to allow it to be spread through the consciousness of people like a bad virus is beyond me. It just causes cognitive dissonance as everyone is not the same in their pursuit of happiness.
@bholzer put it nicely. Google "chimps and bonobos demonstrate morality". Cooperation increased survivability and that generally has affected our acceptance of what is intrinsic to what feels right. Later religion slapped on meaning to it via super natural explanation which was the best bullshit they could come up with at the time. I get up voted on PC answers by the way but I should have cited some examples.
You're here aren't you? Had it not been sufficient, the human animal wouldn't have survived for 200k years. Morality is innate, instinctual, and is present across the animal kingdom.
I have met people who not only police everyone's behavior and speech for minor deviations from political correctness, but are constantly worried about how their thoughts are not meeting their own high standards. There is a difference between saying things in a public forum and thinking them when you see something crazy on the street. I just think living that way would be totally exhausting and remove a lot of fun from life. This is another reason why activists decry "old boys' clubs" or cliques that form at school and work. Some people just want to hang out with people where saying an off color joke doesn't ruin your fucking life.
Biases, prejudices and so on are subtle and take a while to unlearn. If you want to get rid of them, you essentially have to interrogate your own thoughts, for better or worse. If you're not conscious of a bias, you can't get rid of it.
I'm not sure how your parent even jumped to talking about "political correctness" in the first place, since that's not at all what the article meant by "right" thoughts and feelings.
But you're spot on. It's difficult to unlearn something that you never knew you were learning in the first place, because you just take it as fact or how the world is.
Confronting your own biases is uncomfortable, but it's well worth it, for it makes you a better person and helps you interact with the world in a more positive way. Besides, having your worldview shaken up and challenged is good for you; that's the best way to learn.
> I'm not sure how your parent even jumped to talking about "political correctness" in the first place, since that's not at all what the article meant by "right" thoughts and feelings.
It's funny to me, since I do, to some extent, try to recognise my prejudices in my thoughts, but it's not been a problem for me. Whereas I actually have had problems with worrying about whether my thoughts and feelings are “right” in the sense that the OP is talking about.
That is assuming a bias is completely a bad thing. The human brain as evolved many heuristics to help it lower cognitive load and get things done faster. As with anything, this can have good and bad outcomes, but trying to make yourself unbiased is ridiculous and non-sensical. The fact that you want to be unbiased makes you biased for information and people you think are unbiased.
> As with anything, this can have good and bad outcomes
Yes. Sometimes those bad outcomes are pernicious, and you may want to limit their effects.
> but trying to make yourself unbiased is ridiculous and non-sensical.
Why would it be so? Sure, you can't make yourself completely unbiased and lacking in prejudice. But you can try to be more aware of how you act in different situations so that biases you consider unhelpful have less of an influence.
> The fact that you want to be unbiased makes you biased for information and people you think are unbiased.
>> The fact that you want to be unbiased makes you biased for information and people you think are unbiased.
>What?
I think what is meant is that your analysis of people is different when they say the "right" things. The wife-murdering Earth Day founder comes to mind.
As Dag Hammarsköld said: It is much more difficult to care about those close to you than those far away.
I have seen plenty of people that use implicit accusations as a means of getting ahead. White, "angry", old men is a term that's been popular lately - I will use that as an example.
Are all old, white men "angry"? Are only the old, white men that disagree with the speaker "angry"? Are old, white men angrier than old men in general? Than old, white women? Than <colour> [menopausal|child-caring|single] women? Is there some skew in who brings their opinions to market? In who is heard?
I say that the people that the most seductively claim some one is biased, are those most likely to sweep their own biases under the rug.
Furthermore, I claim it is a much better goal to be consciously fair in one's dealings, than to seek some mythical state of "biased-less-ness". It seems more work, but it truly brings greater rewards to you and the people you deal with.
Trying to be "unbiased" leads to exactly zero good, because it isn't how the human mind functions. I will put my own family before the stranger on the street. That doesn't mean I won't help the stranger on the street that I _see_ needs it. I need a functioning mind for that, and this college nonsense about bias is something I had to unlearn to do so, as it leads to cowardice at the hint of personal danger or embarrassment.
(Unless, of course, you dont't perceive a real threat, but just some poor sod you can lecture about how morally superior you are.)
> Furthermore, I claim it is a much better goal to be consciously fair in one's dealings, than to seek some mythical state of "biased-less-ness".
I'm not seeking a mythical state of being unbiased. I'd say it's more like what you say, trying to be consciously fair. I'm aware that I'm likely to be prejudiced against certain kinds of people, so I try my hardest to be fair when I deal with them.
Knowledge is key to this, but it's not enough. Some people will try to fool you, and then knowledge will help you decide whether that is the case. It
may be a cultural thing you haven't picked up on.
If I came across a case of taharrush gamea, Heaven help me. I believe I would turn out a killer. If I came across some guy not being able to tell me he's late with a delivery; I understand it, but to him it's a loss of face? Of course I try to help.
I can't believe defending those in an exposed situation is a bad thing. The thing is: One has to be able to trust oneself without some sort of nonsensical, theoreticsl framework.
By what objective standard do you make this claim?
As it stands, your comment comes across as flippantly disrespectful and totally void of empathy for those who's lives are actively and continuously harmed by that sort of anxiety; that such anxiety is a perfectly acceptable externality in the process of achieving some theoretically perfect lack of bias.
The middle ground is obviously ideal. some anxiety about your behavior is necessary to be a person anyone wants to spend time with, much less work with. I'd rather be an anxious person (as anyone know knows me will attest I am) than a person nobody wants to be around. There's no panacea for "correct level of self-awareness".
Have you considered they aren't out to ruin your life? Seems narcissistic to assume it's about you. Sometimes (most of the time?) you can be generically terrible instead of personally terrible.
> Some people just want to hang out with people where saying an off color joke doesn't ruin your fucking life.
Is this something you feel a need to do? Given your previous mention of political correctness, I'm assuming this means you want to tell jokes about black people or Hispanics, but resent the fact that society no longer smiles on such things.
C'mon man, it's not about you and your struggle to find a safe place to crack your precious racist jokes. And I feel your pain. Remember those "How many pollacks does it take..?" jokes? I used to love those. How we laughed and laughed.
But seriously, the article isn't saying "so be an insensitive boor."
It's just warning of the pitfall of being "neurotic" (I mean that in the commonsense, rather than clinical, sense) in the pursuit of happiness.
Really it's only basic bio/psycho-physics: When you worry or stress out what are your muscles doing? They are tense, burning ATP molecules at a furious rate, working to get rid of waste products, and generally feeling uncomfortable.
Now relax. Take a few calming breaths, meditate, have a scotch, whatever. Just let the tissues of your body relax, despite your problems. Make sure you do this in a place where you can reasonably expect not to be interrupted, so your body can commit to it. Lo and behold, you feel better.
There's no magic, and the only mystery is why it seems so mysterious! :-)
Sure the mortgage is still due and you've got no job, but you can cope with all of this much better when your system is relaxed and tuned. Really that's the difference between animals and humans: we can stop, think, and act differently. You "should" be panicking, except that reaction is no longer adaptive.
Really all this article boils down to is: when you start to tense up, stop and take a breath instead. (Unless there really is a bear or something, then just run like hell.)
----
As for the challenges of telling racist jokes, the trick is to establish the safe place first. In my cubicle at work we all trust each other enough that we can drop all sorts of stinkers and we can laugh, or throw wads of paper, as apropos. But that's because we all know and trust one another, and it's never mean-spirited. We respect each other so it's safe. And fun.
The issue when you try to have this sort of ease in a larger context is that there are "smiling monsters", racists who have the hate, the illness, in them, and those kind will use the safety to psychologically "knife" the vulnerable members of the group. When there is scope for this sort of thing to happen, people close themselves off to protect themselves, and become more sensitive to "violations" of the safety protocol (aka P.C.). Given the current and historical circumstances, I don't find it an undue burden to hew to the greater common denominator of kind and friendly speech when I'm in public, or even in most private spaces. Only among friends is it humane and proper to cut loose. Basic manners really.
We replaced the title with a photo caption from the article that appears to summarize what the researcher means by "showing up". If anyone suggests a better (more accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again.
