4 ms·

What if you did the exact opposite?

4 points by azhenley 3y ago

PaulHoule 3y ago
Reminds me of the time that my son and I were standing in front of our beehives and a stream of bees was mostly going over our head on the way to a wet meadow full of flowers and I asked him “How long could we stand here and not get stung?” and he said “Forever” and I said, “What about a few hours or days?” and he said “Maybe” Just then a bee alighted to the very top of his head and started digging into his hair, I was about to brush it away when it stung.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
You might experience some serious déjà vu, because that was the main plot point of an absolute classic episode of Seinfeld. Plot summary: In this text, several interwoven storylines play out: 1. Elaine receives a promotion. She also reconciles with her boyfriend Jake, who later breaks up with her. She is also evicted from her apartment for various misdeeds. Elaine's attempt to help her boss at a crucial meeting is thwarted, leading to a failed business deal and the collapse of Pendant Publishing. She laments that she has "become George". 2. George, convinced by Jerry that doing the opposite of his instincts would be right, begins to change his usual behavior. His new approach impresses a woman, Victoria, lands him a job with the New York Yankees, and enables him to move out of his parents' house. 3. Kramer's coffee table book is published by Pendant Publishing. His promotional tour is canceled when he offends Kathie Lee on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee by spitting out his coffee. 4. Jerry observes that his life maintains a constant balance: despite losing a stand-up gig, he is promptly offered another for the same pay. He notices that whenever something negative happens, it's quickly offset by a positive event. This trend continues as he sees Elaine's fall coinciding with George's rise. --- I don't think there are any real life lessons in the episode, except one: if you're a George Costanza and nothing you do ever seems to work out for you, try something different once in a while. I'll spare you the motivational aphorisms, but I think you can see how it might work. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697744/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697744/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Opposite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Opposite
rossdavidh 3y ago
Unexamined here is the idea of, how many "rogue bees" do we need? Obviously if all bees were "rogue", then the hive starves, because when one bee finds food none of the others will learn from them. Even half of the bees going rogue probably dramatically reduces the hives fitness. There's a problem space in statistics (later adopted by ML) called the "Multi-armed Bandit problem", which examines this tradeoff in detail. It can get rather complex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit

4 points by azhenley 3y ago

Reminds me of the time that my son and I were standing in front of our beehives and a stream of bees was mostly going over our head on the way to a wet meadow full of flowers and I asked him “How long could we stand here and not get stung?” and he said “Forever” and I said, “What about a few hours or days?” and he said “Maybe” Just then a bee alighted to the very top of his head and started digging into his hair, I was about to brush it away when it stung.

Paul-Craft 3y ago

You might experience some serious déjà vu, because that was the main plot point of an absolute classic episode of Seinfeld. Plot summary: In this text, several interwoven storylines play out: 1. Elaine receives a promotion. She also reconciles with her boyfriend Jake, who later breaks up with her. She is also evicted from her apartment for various misdeeds. Elaine's attempt to help her boss at a crucial meeting is thwarted, leading to a failed business deal and the collapse of Pendant Publishing. She laments that she has "become George". 2. George, convinced by Jerry that doing the opposite of his instincts would be right, begins to change his usual behavior. His new approach impresses a woman, Victoria, lands him a job with the New York Yankees, and enables him to move out of his parents' house. 3. Kramer's coffee table book is published by Pendant Publishing. His promotional tour is canceled when he offends Kathie Lee on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee by spitting out his coffee. 4. Jerry observes that his life maintains a constant balance: despite losing a stand-up gig, he is promptly offered another for the same pay. He notices that whenever something negative happens, it's quickly offset by a positive event. This trend continues as he sees Elaine's fall coinciding with George's rise. --- I don't think there are any real life lessons in the episode, except one: if you're a George Costanza and nothing you do ever seems to work out for you, try something different once in a while. I'll spare you the motivational aphorisms, but I think you can see how it might work. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697744/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697744/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Opposite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Opposite

rossdavidh 3y ago

Unexamined here is the idea of, how many "rogue bees" do we need? Obviously if all bees were "rogue", then the hive starves, because when one bee finds food none of the others will learn from them. Even half of the bees going rogue probably dramatically reduces the hives fitness. There's a problem space in statistics (later adopted by ML) called the "Multi-armed Bandit problem", which examines this tradeoff in detail. It can get rather complex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit