[ExI] Survival

Jef Allbright jef at jefallbright.net
Fri Jan 4 19:37:29 UTC 2008


On 1/4/08, PJ Manney <pjmanney at gmail.com> wrote:

> Of course, the fallacy lies in the assumption that all stimuli and
> response are the same in all people.  This is where the empathetic get
> in trouble.  It's easy to assume that a behavior comes from whatever
> stimulus would trigger it in themselves.  We know that's not the case.
>  Not only are people different in their likes, dislikes, appetites,
> etc., but some may ape behavior that they don't actually feel to
> elicit a specific response, like sociopaths.  (They would be excelling
> at the first part of the feedback loop -- observing and copying -- and
> not the second.)  Maybe because I work in a business where sociopathic
> behavior is allowed to thrive, I personally find the quoted 4% of
> sociopaths out of the entire population unnaturally low.  :)
>
> **The mileage comes in when you grasp the previous paragraph, and see
> that patterns that don't exist within your own head exist in others.
> When you can predict those, then I'd say you've got some pretty great
> people assessment skills.

Yup, it's not a simple question of the likelihood that a person
prefers chocolate, but rather, a question of my subjective view of the
likelihood that a person prefers chocolate.

- Jef



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