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> In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't seem good without being good. Sometimes might be surprised on this point! Some people in some

by graycat 12y ago

> In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't seem good without being good. Sometimes might be surprised on this point! Some people in some relatively small, conservative, apparently highly ethical, responsible, competent, serious, and hard working communities manage totally to pull the wool over the eyes of just about everyone else, including the members of their own families. They can look totally like a sweet, angelic church lady while, actually, plotting against others and slowly but effectively sabotaging them. How? One way is to be a very talented, determined, bright, mentally energetic actor/actress. The act can take a lot of mental energy to negotiate all the daily events and situations while keeping the act totally believable while actually it is totally false. There's more on such things in the now famous E. Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Sorry, PG, there's a fundamental problem here: As in some recent research (wish I'd kept the reference), already in the crib, the girls are thinking about people and the boys, things. While the boy is trying to hack the latch on the crib and install Linux in the toy firetruck on the floor, the girl is trying to elicit protection and care taking from adults, especially her father. "If a girl is smart, she doesn't have to have brains." and can get others, especially Daddy, to do things for her. A boy might work and work and work, say, to get his iPhone synchronized with his MacBook while his sister can get it done with just one frown and one tear, and often don't need the tear. A girl can be really good at it, by age four have Daddy totally wrapped around her little finger and manipulated so that he can never tell her no. And, in later years, she can get much better, much, much better at it. They can be highly talented and very mentally energetic and seem to be sweet, darling, adorable, precious angels while they are actually determined, selfish, even dangerous, masterly manipulators. Never ask a nerd male to evaluate the real, inner thoughts or intentions of a masterly female -- he just doesn't have the basic qualifications for the job! You just learned this lesson here for $0 tuition. I paid full tuition, and you don't want to do that; trust me this time! Uh, there are no college loans nearly big enough to cover the tuition I paid. For Ron Conway, I can't forget his short advice to entrepreneurs in the Sam Altman course at Stanford last fall -- "bootstrap". Okay, message received loud and clear! I do believe that PG can evaluate Ronco; good to know I can take Ronco's advice seriously!

darkmighty 12y ago
I agree about the general position that girls are more socially focused, but you put a sad and cynical twist to it...
- graycat 12y ago
  Not all girls are as "sad and cynical" as I described. But the statement I was responding to was > In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't seem good without being good. So, this statement seems to claim to apply broadly. So, I just said essentially that the statement claims too much, that, for some counterexamples, there are people with behavior that contradicts the claim, e.g., some females, say, adults, using some of what they learned as children, starting even in the crib. I didn't claim, and don't believe, that the behavior I described, say, that you are describing, appropriately, as "sad and cynical", is common among either males or females. But to counter PG's quite broad claim, I just need some, say, counterexamples; I've seen too many of them. More generally, from some of what I saw. in a very "connected world", some of the complexity of Presentation of Self in Everyday Life can be just astoundingly involved and complicated -- some very bright, determined people work really hard at such presentation. I would add, a very "connected world" can lead to more complexity, posturing, manipulation, difference between reality and presentation, etc. than a less connected world. E.g., a person from such a more connected world can feel much better, and act much more like themselves, posture, pretend, and manipulate less, in a big city where they have some anonymity. Presentation in a "connected world" can be one heck of a lot of hard mental work!

by graycat 12y ago

darkmighty 12y ago

I agree about the general position that girls are more socially focused, but you put a sad and cynical twist to it...

graycat 12y ago
Not all girls are as "sad and cynical" as I described. But the statement I was responding to was > In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't seem good without being good. So, this statement seems to claim to apply broadly. So, I just said essentially that the statement claims too much, that, for some counterexamples, there are people with behavior that contradicts the claim, e.g., some females, say, adults, using some of what they learned as children, starting even in the crib. I didn't claim, and don't believe, that the behavior I described, say, that you are describing, appropriately, as "sad and cynical", is common among either males or females. But to counter PG's quite broad claim, I just need some, say, counterexamples; I've seen too many of them. More generally, from some of what I saw. in a very "connected world", some of the complexity of Presentation of Self in Everyday Life can be just astoundingly involved and complicated -- some very bright, determined people work really hard at such presentation. I would add, a very "connected world" can lead to more complexity, posturing, manipulation, difference between reality and presentation, etc. than a less connected world. E.g., a person from such a more connected world can feel much better, and act much more like themselves, posture, pretend, and manipulate less, in a big city where they have some anonymity. Presentation in a "connected world" can be one heck of a lot of hard mental work!