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When you're dealing with people, though, that kind of response can be actively counterproductive. Anyone who's had a significant other "vent" and respond negati

When you're dealing with people, though, that kind of response can be actively counterproductive. Anyone who's had a significant other "vent" and respond negatively when you try to turn to problem solving will probably recognize this dynamic. The rational reaction to such situations would be to recognize that this approach yields bad results and to try something different instead, e.g. the emotional manipulation you seem to be implicitly recommending. One important bit of learning for engineer-types to do is to recognize that most people aren't like them. The more I treat other humans as emotionally driven markov chains (rather than intelligent thinkers) the better my life outcomes are. Unfortunately the desire to empathize and treat others like oneself makes this a difficult lesson to learn.

JohnBooty 11y ago
> One important bit of learning for engineer-types to do > is to recognize that most people aren't like them. The > more I treat other humans as emotionally driven markov > chains (rather than intelligent thinkers) the better my > life outcomes are. Consider that a lot of "irrational decisions" made by others are only irrational from your perspective. The people making those decisions may simply value vastly different things than you do. A lot of people would say us engineer types are completely irrational for wanting to spend large portions of our lives staring at computer screens.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  I'm aware of differing utility functions and this is not what I'm talking about. I get better results by assuming most people don't maximize any utility function but merely respond to stimuli in a probabilistic manner (with emotional state as a hidden variable).
- mchaver 11y ago
  I think that's the right line of thinking. To me it seems that people build and update rationality models and base the rationality of their decisions and thoughts on their personal model, not on some universal model. Conflict occurs when people's models don't intersect. People with good social skills probably recognize this. Unfortunately I have no data to refute this.
simula67 11y ago
> Unfortunately the desire to empathize and treat others like oneself makes this a difficult lesson to learn. Thinking that others are like us is narcissism. Feeling other people's pain as our own is empathy. You -> Others ( bad ) Others -> You ( good, in limited quantities )
qb45 11y ago
> The more I treat other humans as emotionally driven markov chains (rather than intelligent thinkers) the better my life outcomes are. I think all humans are emotion optimizers, trying to maximize the good ones while avoiding the bad ones. But: 1. Some do it by hacking the world to make it feel better. 2. Some do it by hacking their perception of the world to make it feel better. 3. Some do it by trusting others to make them feel better. The people you call "markov chains" are probably number 3. They tend to live in reasonable consensus with majority of their peers, which means that people help them and things usually turn good enough for them, to great frustration of some elitist engineers who can't imagine how such dumb people manage to survive :) Number 1 are your garden variety nerdy engineers, 2 are clinically insane and probably somewhere in between is where genius lies.
- wwweston 11y ago
  > 2 are clinically insane Or buddhists. > Number 1 are your garden variety nerdy engineers, 2 are clinically insane and probably somewhere in between is where genius lies. There is definitely genius in realizing the distinction between number 1 and number 2 is finer than it might initially look.
  - qb45 11y ago
    I was under impression that Buddhism is about giving up on 2. By "hacking perception" I meant things like hiding thoughts from your consciousness so that other can't learn about them, masking unwanted emotions with others, forcing yourself to feel particular emotions in order to achieve some external goals - pretty un-Buddhist things to do, if my understanding of Buddhism is worth anything. The distinction between 1 and 2 as I meant them is influencing emotions directly vs. influencing external factors which those emotions have evolved to benchmark, if that makes sense. I'm a (recovering) nerd, not a Buddhist :)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]

JohnBooty 11y ago

> One important bit of learning for engineer-types to do > is to recognize that most people aren't like them. The > more I treat other humans as emotionally driven markov > chains (rather than intelligent thinkers) the better my > life outcomes are. Consider that a lot of "irrational decisions" made by others are only irrational from your perspective. The people making those decisions may simply value vastly different things than you do. A lot of people would say us engineer types are completely irrational for wanting to spend large portions of our lives staring at computer screens.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
I'm aware of differing utility functions and this is not what I'm talking about. I get better results by assuming most people don't maximize any utility function but merely respond to stimuli in a probabilistic manner (with emotional state as a hidden variable).
mchaver 11y ago
I think that's the right line of thinking. To me it seems that people build and update rationality models and base the rationality of their decisions and thoughts on their personal model, not on some universal model. Conflict occurs when people's models don't intersect. People with good social skills probably recognize this. Unfortunately I have no data to refute this.

simula67 11y ago

> Unfortunately the desire to empathize and treat others like oneself makes this a difficult lesson to learn. Thinking that others are like us is narcissism. Feeling other people's pain as our own is empathy. You -> Others ( bad ) Others -> You ( good, in limited quantities )

qb45 11y ago

> The more I treat other humans as emotionally driven markov chains (rather than intelligent thinkers) the better my life outcomes are. I think all humans are emotion optimizers, trying to maximize the good ones while avoiding the bad ones. But: 1. Some do it by hacking the world to make it feel better. 2. Some do it by hacking their perception of the world to make it feel better. 3. Some do it by trusting others to make them feel better. The people you call "markov chains" are probably number 3. They tend to live in reasonable consensus with majority of their peers, which means that people help them and things usually turn good enough for them, to great frustration of some elitist engineers who can't imagine how such dumb people manage to survive :) Number 1 are your garden variety nerdy engineers, 2 are clinically insane and probably somewhere in between is where genius lies.

wwweston 11y ago
> 2 are clinically insane Or buddhists. > Number 1 are your garden variety nerdy engineers, 2 are clinically insane and probably somewhere in between is where genius lies. There is definitely genius in realizing the distinction between number 1 and number 2 is finer than it might initially look.
- qb45 11y ago
  I was under impression that Buddhism is about giving up on 2. By "hacking perception" I meant things like hiding thoughts from your consciousness so that other can't learn about them, masking unwanted emotions with others, forcing yourself to feel particular emotions in order to achieve some external goals - pretty un-Buddhist things to do, if my understanding of Buddhism is worth anything. The distinction between 1 and 2 as I meant them is influencing emotions directly vs. influencing external factors which those emotions have evolved to benchmark, if that makes sense. I'm a (recovering) nerd, not a Buddhist :)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]