3 ms·

Hmmm...It strikes me that her liking something is her internal mental association that you are not privy to, and any attempt you make to indirectly observe it u

by pohl 16y ago

Hmmm...It strikes me that her liking something is her internal mental association that you are not privy to, and any attempt you make to indirectly observe it using her choices as a proxy is problematic. I like the artist formerly known as Prince — Let's Go Crazy is a phenomenal track — but I haven't wanted him on my turntable for ages because he is in competition with other things I like more. I absolutely love The Beatles but i refuse to own or play their music because it has been so ubiquitous that there's no point in playing it more. (It's all in my head.) I think you may be deluding yourself about your superior knowledge of her likes.

jerf 16y ago
"Actions speak louder than words." Granted there can be different definitions of "like" in play here ("It does not cause me revulsion" or "I prefer to eat it vs. almost anything else"). But still, actions speak louder than words. When looking for the truth always choose the actions.
- pohl 16y ago
  Nice platitude, but I don't buy it here. There is a finite amount of time in my life, and a multitude of things to enjoy. If our culture has overplayed the Beatles to the point where I know their material so well that my ability to extract value from listening has passed the point of diminishing returns it does not mean that I did not enjoy them, or no longer like them. It might simply mean that I think I'd gain more from my own private habit of over-playing Steve Morse. I've had a great time on every occasion that I've ever gone bowling. It still wouldn't be in the top 100 choices of how to spend an evening, though. Yet I like bowling. Maybe we are using different definitions of 'like'.
  - jerf 16y ago
    It's not a platitude, it's a metric for finding truth that successfully compensates for what appears to be an inborn weakness in the human brain for overvaluing words.
    - pohl 16y ago
      It would be a great metric in a controlled scenario between two choices. The more choices you add, the less meaningful it becomes. I would say it has negligible value in determining that your girlfriend is mistaken about liking to skii.
dkarl 16y ago
It was like this: "You pick what we're doing tonight. I don't care." "Cool, let's go to this Chinese place/this club downtown/this movie you haven't seen." "Ehhh, well, not that, not tonight, okay?" "Okay. How about Indian food/this coffeeshop/this movie you've seen a million times?" "Yeah, sounds great!" Multiply that by enough repetitions that I felt it would be obnoxious of me to keep suggesting the given activity. Sometimes I'd push because I really felt like doing something, but it still wouldn't happen. So eventually I'd give up and stop suggesting the things that she was never willing to do, because I'm not perverse or passive-aggressive. I didn't want to be a dick and keep suggesting something again and again after she'd turned it down twenty times in a row. That's how I knew she didn't really like something. But she was convinced it was just a huge coincidence that every time I'd suggested, say, Chinese food in the last twelve months she wasn't in the mood for it.

by pohl 16y ago

jerf 16y ago

"Actions speak louder than words." Granted there can be different definitions of "like" in play here ("It does not cause me revulsion" or "I prefer to eat it vs. almost anything else"). But still, actions speak louder than words. When looking for the truth always choose the actions.

pohl 16y ago
Nice platitude, but I don't buy it here. There is a finite amount of time in my life, and a multitude of things to enjoy. If our culture has overplayed the Beatles to the point where I know their material so well that my ability to extract value from listening has passed the point of diminishing returns it does not mean that I did not enjoy them, or no longer like them. It might simply mean that I think I'd gain more from my own private habit of over-playing Steve Morse. I've had a great time on every occasion that I've ever gone bowling. It still wouldn't be in the top 100 choices of how to spend an evening, though. Yet I like bowling. Maybe we are using different definitions of 'like'.
- jerf 16y ago
  It's not a platitude, it's a metric for finding truth that successfully compensates for what appears to be an inborn weakness in the human brain for overvaluing words.
  - pohl 16y ago
    It would be a great metric in a controlled scenario between two choices. The more choices you add, the less meaningful it becomes. I would say it has negligible value in determining that your girlfriend is mistaken about liking to skii.

dkarl 16y ago

It was like this: "You pick what we're doing tonight. I don't care." "Cool, let's go to this Chinese place/this club downtown/this movie you haven't seen." "Ehhh, well, not that, not tonight, okay?" "Okay. How about Indian food/this coffeeshop/this movie you've seen a million times?" "Yeah, sounds great!" Multiply that by enough repetitions that I felt it would be obnoxious of me to keep suggesting the given activity. Sometimes I'd push because I really felt like doing something, but it still wouldn't happen. So eventually I'd give up and stop suggesting the things that she was never willing to do, because I'm not perverse or passive-aggressive. I didn't want to be a dick and keep suggesting something again and again after she'd turned it down twenty times in a row. That's how I knew she didn't really like something. But she was convinced it was just a huge coincidence that every time I'd suggested, say, Chinese food in the last twelve months she wasn't in the mood for it.