Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Four

[jpalbny]

G'Day All......

 

...a determined attack with the packing which is now done...thankfully two cases sufficed!

 

 

Wow! Be careful...pretty soon you'll manage to get everything into a carry-on!

 

;):cool::D

 

Jeff, your food is making me hungry. As usual!

[MLeh]

Good morning all. The sun is just starting to peak over the horizon here on the west coast, while some others coolers are probably already enjoying a sunset.

 

Always enjoy your food pictures and descriptions. As we say, “some people eat to live, while others live to eat. “

 

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks all,

 

For knödel lovers, you might be interested to hear that they were a week in the planning. I contrived to "waste" and leave three different loaves, a seedy sourdough, a plain white with crusts and a brown bread. And all of them went into my fragrant balls.

 

Thought I'd share today's Sunday Clarkson which I think as usual strikes a chord.

 

"Stick to pretty fish, Sir Attenborough, and stop blubbing about dead whales "

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jeremy-clarkson-stick-to-pretty-fish-sirattenborough-andstop-blubbing-aboutdeadwhales-gwbkxdfzh?shareToken=b6ea843bac4f6f5dc8536f171d6671b7

 

[mysty]

Interesting article J! Thanks for posting it! The question that comes to mind for me is "Why do people take celebrity opinions and advice more seriously than they do the people who might actually know something on the subject"? The whole kerfuffle about vaccinations for children being the cause of autism springs to mind. This "movement" was championed by Jenny McCarthy. Seriously???? I support people's right to express opinions. The problem arises when said opinions are taken as gospel by the masses.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Interesting article J! Thanks for posting it! The question that comes to mind for me is "Why do people take celebrity opinions and advice more seriously than they do the people who might actually know something on the subject"? The whole kerfuffle about vaccinations for children being the cause of autism springs to mind. This "movement" was championed by Jenny McCarthy. Seriously???? I support people's right to express opinions. The problem arises when said opinions are taken as gospel by the masses.

 

There is a whole issue about opinions. :)

 

The first is how people like to virtue signal. We get an awful lot of it on these boards. To be fair people don't know that they are doing it. They wish to grandstand their virtue but how much of it is genuine. People also expect higfer standards for others than they expect from themselves.

 

As you know I've been interested in the decision process, and in particular the benefits and disadvantages of logic versus intuitive. In pursuit of that you may be intrigued by the work of the Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahleman on thinking fast and slow (system one and two ..... ) and other work on 150 social cognitive biases and some of the stuff they are trying to understand. One of the interesting is how the fear of loss is twice as powerful as the desire for gain and how that shapes decision making.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=kahneman+thinking+fast+and+slow&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=E_AaWqfVJeXGXv7RiZAH

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=150+cognitive+biases&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=kfEaWonEAeXGXv7RiZAH

[mysty]

Thanks J! More interesting reading and more required consideration. The social cognitive biases link offers some intriguing reads! That should keep me off the streets for a while!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks J! More interesting reading and more required consideration. The social cognitive biases link offers some intriguing reads! That should keep me off the streets for a while!

 

In a way it was partly the reason for the Cooler starting. One of the idiotic consequences of cognitive bias is that for those who are not particularly "self-aware" once they decide they do not like someone everything they then do supports that persons first impression and they will not miss an opportunity to sneer or attack. That is why I said in the opening to the Cooler it is important to be poster blind. Once one poster decides they don't like another poster they disagree with everything they say. That is an example of cognitive bias.

 

There are also the illogical compounding of cognitive biases. For example if one poster likes another poster, and that poster indicates that they do not like a third poster then there is a tendency for pack mentality. "An enemy of yours is also an enemy of mine" the cognitive fallacy being as we like each orther we must therefore like and dislike exactly the same things and the same people. Another compound cognitive bias is the belief that as we are good, all the people we do not like are bad. It is all childish and counter-productive. Often forum behaviour exactly mimics chimpanzee troop behaviour.

 

The example often used is that Hitler use to like chidlren. That doesn't make Hitler a decent person but it makes many people not believe that he couldn't have liked children because he was so awful otherwise.

 

They have discovered that the cognitive bias with respect to the fear of loss compared to the fear of gain appears to be within our DNA as monkeys have shown to have the same trait.

 

Kahleman got his Nobel prize for his work on how his original research influences economics and for example "banker" behaviour. You are right M, it is worth a read.

[mysty]

I'm putting Kahleman's book on my reading list! And further to your explanation of the origins of the Cooler...."the enemy of my enemy is my friend". I often wonder if open association with the Cooler denizens results in a scarlet letter type of branding. I'm not concerned with a scarlet letter on my back. Some posters may well be. Sad that!

[MLeh]

You might want to add Malcolm Gladwell to your reading list too. I find his books thought provoking, although I don’t always agree with his conclusions.

 

Another interesting book on confirmation bias is “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)”.

 

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Edited November 26, 2017 by MLeh

[UKCruiseJeff]

I'm putting Kahleman's book on my reading list! And further to your explanation of the origins of the Cooler...."the enemy of my enemy is my friend". I often wonder if open association with the Cooler denizens results in a scarlet letter type of branding. I'm not concerned with a scarlet letter on my back. Some posters may well be. Sad that!

 

You might do just as good with reading summaries of his work as many decent good ideas at their heart is a simple concept. His one is that we take up to 10,000 decisions a day and most of them are easy and automated ie system 1. He says we can only cope with all these decisions because of the automatic nature of system 1 which takes care of most of them. He says that the decisions type two are influenced by (for example) previous type one decisions and are also more vulnerable to being wrong decisions because of cognitive bias. So cognitive bias is the interesting reading. I became aware of some of these when training people. They use Kahlemans work in training intelligence operatives in the US and have found that inexperienced agents do better because they are shorter on cognitive bias and become more vulnerable the more experienced they become.

 

Quite a lot of social training has subconsciously been produced by the underlying principles. For example the importance of first impressions and how they shape future bias. You might recall some time ago my musings about how the first time you hear a theory that tends to become belief. Possibly (imho) the very worst of all is how we inherit religious "belief" and nationalisitc "belief" which as it turns out seems to be the most negative and destructive force on earth today. Instead of all of us seeing us collectively being human beings of the world we too often see ourselves through thepolarised view of the place of our birth and/or the religion of our parents. How can we really believe our beliefs are self-constructed when the vast majority of people in the world simply inherit the religion and nationalistic fraternalism simply because of the random accidental nature of who their parents are and where they were born.

 

A very wide topic. :)

[UKCruiseJeff]

You might want to add Malcolm Gladwell to your reading list too. I find his books thought provoking, although I don’t always agree with his conclusions.

 

 

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Funnily enough some time ago I was in touch with Malcolm. I was trying to convince him to write on harnessing intuition but he told me to do it. I sadly cannot write. :)

[mysty]

Thanks MLeh! I will definitely pursue your suggestion!

 

J.....Your cognitive bias reference to nationalism and religion triggered a memory for me. I was raised a Catholic and I went to a Catholic school where we were taught by nuns. We were cautioned not to interact with non-Catholics because they were all going to hell. I questioned that at the time asking my teacher why they would be going to hell if it was God's choice of the family they were born into. A supposedly merciful God would not condemn someone to the fires of perdition due simply the the religion of the parents that merciful God had chosen for them. To put it in a few words....All Hell Broke Out! I was cautioned to discipline my thinking, swallow my questions and stop traveling down the path to heresy.

 

And one more thing.....you can absolutely write J!!!!!!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks M,

 

I became disenchanted with my own religion very early on. It finally faltered when I had my first son who I was expected to mutilate in order to satisfy my families religous traditions whose religion was so flakey that they couldn't accept my wife.

 

Organised religion and nationalism seems to have caused a million times more problems than it has ever avoided or cured. How many non-naturally caused problems do we have in the world that doesn't have at it's heart and core the tribalism of religious or nationalistic differences - or both. We are all blessed with an inner voice that more often than not guides us well and tells us accurately what is right and what is wrong and how we should behave and no amount of ludicrous fairy tales or subjugation to silly ritual makes us better people. One of the worst things about many deeply religious people is that they believe that they are good simply because they are religious. I feel I know what is right or wrong without the need for anyone in fancy dress guiding me. Religion only prospers when there is a vcuum caused because people cannot accept that not all issues in life has rational explanations or no explanations at all. People sadly need answers whether they are right or wrong. Answers even if they are mystical provide reassurance whereas no answers produce a vacuum that produces fear of the unknown.

 

I first met Malcolm when we were both talking at the same event. He was talking about the tipping point and I was talking about understanding satisfaction and both concepts were thankfully equally simple.

 

For some reason our voltage has gone down and some stuff has gone off and others are holding on. I may have to use that big battery I bought!

[mysty]

The superstitious might be thinking that the current topic is angering a vengeful spirit J! :) Good luck with the voltage!

[UKCruiseJeff]

You'd have to be right. The moment I finished posting everything went off! We were on battery power!

 

Now thankfully back at full voltage.

[MLeh]

Most recent Malcolm Gladwell “hmmm” moment was when he was talking about tribalism in the USA as it pertains to Trump. Definitely worth a listen.

 

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

To me, he seems to be losing the plot a bit. He said that Clinton lost because she was a woman. I don't think he has that right.

 

He also said over a year ago that that Trump would be in jail within a year.

[MLeh]

Well, we’ve touched on religion and politics. Care to change the topic to complete the “three things one should never discuss in public”? Is it sex, or how much you make?

 

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

You can talk about anything you want on the Cooler as long as you do it nicely.

What is it you wish to tell us about sex and how much you make?

[mysty]

Just out of interest (mine), where would one find the Malcolm Gladwell tribalism and Trump presentation? Thank You!

 

As per the Clinton loss, the message we got in our discussions with American friends was that she lost because she was perceived to be a crook. Not because she was a woman. Really can't judge the validity of that.

 

And MLeh...don't bite on the bait J is casting into the waters. Ha Ha Ha!

[MLeh]

Not going to touch that, mysty. I was actually thinking of a discussion on which of those two completed the trio.

 

I’ll look for the interview when I’m not on my iPad, as I hate searching (typing) on this tiny keyboard. But I think it was a Wendy Mesley interview on the National.

 

 

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[mysty]

Thanks MLeh! I'd love to listen to that one! I found his podcasts and they look interesting as well!

 

On the other note, that must have been a very interesting discussion on which of the two completed the trio. Times have changed. I think sex would have been the no-no in my early days. Now maybe not so much!

[rumba2015]

Jeff

 

Your post is not acceptable for this blog. Your voice on all things going forward will be viewed through a new filter. No religion or politics here please!

 

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

Jeff

 

Your post is not acceptable for this blog. Your voice on all things going forward will be viewed through a new filter. No religion or politics here please!

 

 

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rumba2015,

 

Our normal habit here is to welcome new posters on the thread and express the hope that they join in. It is regrettable that your first post therefore is this one.

 

I am sorry that you are against free speech and debate and that instead of engaging you choose to tell others to "shut up". For what it's worth I think we need more debate and discussion on these topics in society generally not less of it. We are allowed a greater degree of lattitude unless people start to be rude to each other, which is what you have chosen to do. We discuss all sorts of things and have done so for several years. So far people who participate enjoy the free-spirited nature of the posts and whilst none of us agree with everything expressed, we choose never to tell anyone else to shut up.

 

If you do not like this thread I suggest you simply steer clear of it, or alternatively if you have something constructive to contribute, by all means feel welcome to do so.

[Sirgym]

Frankly, I enjoy religion, politics and great food pictures. Keep calm and carry on Silversea people.

 

 

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