I honestly don’t know whether the type of exercise the average nerd actually gets would lead to better combat advantages than the type of exercise that food pickers get
On type of exercise I am confident but I am not at all sure about prevalence. If we, say, ranked all computer programmers and all fruit pickers in order of combat prowess and took the median of each I would tentatively bet on the fruit picker if given even odds when we place them in an unarmed fight to the death.
I did some research to see whether this might be right, here it is:
“America has become a nation of spectators. The latest statistics from the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tell the tale: 29% of adults are entirely sedentary and another 46% don’t get enough physical activity. That means only a quarter of all Americans get the exercise they need.
The real situation may be even worse. Most people who say they exercise report walking as their only regular physical activity, but when researchers from the CDC evaluated more than 1,500 people who said they were walkers, they found that only 6% walked often enough, far enough, or briskly enough to meet the current standards for health. Even people who report intense activity often overstate their efforts. Scientists from the University of Florida asked people to keep a log of their physical activities for a full week while they were hooked up to ambulatory heart monitors. Some 47% of the subjects reported that they had engaged in moderate activity, but only 15% actually boosted their heart rates enough to sustain moderate activity. The gap was just as great for more intense exercise: 11% reported hard activity, but only 1.5% boosted their heart rates to that level. Nobody achieved a heart rate consistent with very hard activity, though 1.5% made that claim.
“Spectator” is a kind word for it; in fact, we are a nation of couch potatoes.”
It looks like I won here, but I thought of some reasons why I may still have lost:
Females can be as big as males, and I’m sure that some have the muscle building bonuses comparable to the average male, but from what I’ve read and observed, males are more likely to have these benefits than females. Females can have the aggressive tendencies associated with testosterone, but do not get them as frequently as males do. Females can be nerds but most nerds are male. Food pickers may have a higher percentage of females than nerds do. Therefore the food pickers might be at a disadvantage in unarmed combat. (Though adding guns would change that completely.)
Nerds may exercise more than the average person in order to compensate for the stereotype that nerds are weak. I didn’t see any research specific to how much exercise nerds do or what type they use, but it is possible that this group is more fit than average.
Having a nerdy personality may make them more likely to research the best way of exercising, and measure their progress, making exercise more effective for them.
Do you see more factors that we haven’t taken into account?
My apologies, I must forgotten all about my ultimate goal of nailing you and got all caught up in just saying things because they happen to represent an accurate model of the world as I see it. Where are my priorities?
Naturally one of the most basic skills of debate is to only attack the soldiers of the enemy while smoothly steering the conversation away from any potential weaknesses in one’s own position. Even the simple process of filtering evidence and only mentioning that which favours one’s own bottom line can go a long way toward both winning a debate and making the discussion utterly useless as anything other than a status transaction or political platform.
As someone who enjoys being ‘beaten’ in discussions I’m curious whether you draw a distinction between ‘losing’ to a barrage of clever debate tactics exploiting the know human vulnerabilities and ‘losing’ in the sense that your opponent knew something that you did not and was able to communicate that new information to you effectively and clearly in a form that prompted you to learn. It is the latter form of ‘losing’ that I prize heavily while the former tends to just invoke my ire and contempt.
My apologies, I must forgotten all about my ultimate goal of nailing you and got all caught up in just saying things because they happen to represent an accurate model of the world as I see it. Where are my priorities?
I know better than to think I know what your motives are. I did hope that you wanted to kick my ass, though. I was merely expressing my disappointment, not an expectation.
Even the simple process of filtering evidence and only mentioning that which favours one’s own bottom line can go a long way toward both winning a debate and making the discussion utterly useless as anything other than a status transaction or political platform.
If I know information that could mean that my position is wrong, it will not be my position, or I won’t start a debate. I would instead begin with “I don’t know whether A or B is true. For A, I have this info. For B, this info.” and so would never attempt to convince anybody of A or B in that case, but just hope we worked it out.
The times when I actually decide to debate with somebody, there’s a reason for it—there is potential harm in them not realizing something. The way you just did with me when you thought I was making a generalization about nerds.
I suppose the reason I don’t lose often enough is because I “choose my battles” very effectively. Perhaps when people point out my flaws I am quick enough to accept them that it doesn’t turn into a debate.
I’m not interested in empty wins. I am interested in convincing people of important things when they don’t get them. Most people are tiring to debate with, for me, although that’s because people who haven’t spent a comparable amount of time on self-improvement tend to give me such a logical fallacy ridden pile of spaghetti code that it’s simply not fun to untangle. I don’t believe that I am using unethical tactics to win. There are times when I know my opponent does not want the full volume of information I have—like in my IT job, my non-IT boss does not want every detail, so I intentionally give him a simplification—but all the relevant stuff that I know he will care about is included. He likes simple explanations better and complains if I give him the technical details. That’s all that I can think of right now, but your question will have me watching out for a while.
But shouldn’t I be confused enough, somewhere, that it’s necessary to untangle me through debate? Or shouldn’t I know someone who makes my mind look like a mess of logical fallacy ridden spaghetti code? That seems to be the experience that I miss—that sense that there’s somebody out there who can see all of this better than I do. There is an imbalance in this that I do not like.
Wanting to lose is about this inequality. I want to see minds that look well-orchestrated. I am tired of what it does to me to anticipate spaghetti code.
Imagine you have 100 instances where you do a bunch of research, with the intention of having an unbiased view of the situation. Then you tell somebody about the result and they don’t agree. But they don’t support their points well. So you share the information you found and point out that their points were unsupported. They fail to produce any new information or points that actually add to the conversation. You may not have been trying to win, but if they’re unable to support their points or supply new information and yet believe themselves to be right, when you destroy that illusion, the feeling of “oh I guess I was right” is a natural result.
Imagine that during the same period of time, this happens to you zero times. Nobody finds a logical fallacy or poorly supported point. This is not because you are perfect—you aren’t. It is probably due to hanging out with the wrong people—people who are not dedicated to reasoning well. Knowing I am not perfect is not reducing the cockiness that is starting to result from this, for me. It is making me nervous instead—this knowledge that I am not perfect has become a vague intellectual acknowledgement, not a genuine sense of awareness. The sense that I have flawed ideas and could be wrong at any time no longer feels real.
Now that I am in a much bigger pond, I am hoping to experience a really good ass kicking. I want to wake up from this dream of feeling like I’m right all the time.
The reason I want to lose is because I agree with you that I shouldn’t see these debates as thing for me to win. I am tired of the experience of being right. I am tired of the nervousness that is knowing I am imperfect, that there are flaws I’m unaware of, but not having the sense that somebody will point them out.
Your comments are consistent with wanting to be proved wrong. No one experiences “being wrong”—from the inside, it feels exactly like “being right”. We do experience “realizing we were wrong”, which is hopefully followed by updating so that we once again believe ourselves to be right. Have you never changed your mind about something? Realized on your own that you were mistaken? Because you don’t need to “lose” or to have other people “beat you” to experience that.
And if you go around challenging other people about miscellaneous points in the hopes that they will prove you wrong, this will annoy the other people and is unlikely to give you the experience you hoped for.
I also think that your definition of “being wrong” might be skewed. If you try to make comments which you think will be well-received, then every comment that has been heavily downvoted is an instance in which you were wrong about the community reaction. You apparently thought most people were concerned about an Eternal September; you’ve already realized that this belief was wrong. I’m not sure why being wrong about these does not have the same impact on you as being wrong about the relative fighting skills of programmers and fruit-pickers, but it probably should have a bigger impact, since it’s a more important question.
No one experiences “being wrong”—from the inside, it feels exactly like “being right”.
That’s insightful. And I realize now that my statement wasn’t clearly worded. What I should have said was more like:
“I need to experience other people being right sometimes.”
and I can explain why, in a re-framed way, because of your example:
I don’t experience being double checked if I am the one who figures it out. I know I am flawed, and I know I can’t see all of my own flaws. If people aren’t finding holes in my ideas (they find plenty of spelling errors and social mistakes, but rarely find a problem in my ideas) I’m not being double checked at all. This makes me nervous because if I don’t see flaws with my ideas, and nobody else does either, then my most important flaws are invisible.
I feel cocky toward disagreements with people. Like “Oh, it doesn’t matter how badly they disagree with me in the beginning. After we talk, they won’t anymore.” I keep having experiences that confirm this for me. I posted a risk on a different site that provoked normalcy bias and caused a whole bunch of people to jump all over me with every (bad) reason under the sun that I was wrong. I blew down all the invalid refutations of my point and ignored the ad hominem attacks. A few days later, one of the people who had refuted me did some research, changed her mind and told her friends, then a bunch of the people jumping all over me were converted to my perspective. Everyone stopped arguing.
This is useful in the cases where I have important information.
It is unhealthy from a human perspective, though. When you think that you can convince other people of things, it feels a little creepy. It’s like I have too much power over them. Even if I am right, and the way that I wield this gift is 100% ethical, (and I may not be, and nobody’s double checking me) there’s still something that feels wrong. I want checks and balances. I want other people with this power do the same to me.
I want them to double check me. To remind me that I am not “the most powerful”. I am a perfectionist with ethics. If there is a flaw, I want to know.
And I don’t go around challenging people about miscellaneous points hoping for a debate. I’m a little insulted by that insinuation. I disagree frequently, but that’s because I feel it’s important to present the alternate perspective.
I am frequently misunderstood, that is true. I try to guess how people will react to my ideas, but I know my guesses are only a hypothesis. I try my best to present them well, but I am still learning.
Even if I am not received well at first, it doesn’t mean people won’t agree with me in the end.
It’s more important to have good ideas than to be received well, especially considering that people normally accept good ideas in the end. Though, I would like both.
On type of exercise I am confident but I am not at all sure about prevalence. If we, say, ranked all computer programmers and all fruit pickers in order of combat prowess and took the median of each I would tentatively bet on the fruit picker if given even odds when we place them in an unarmed fight to the death.
Aww. You didn’t nail me.
I did some research to see whether this might be right, here it is:
Harvard Men’s Health Watch, May 2004 issue
It looks like I won here, but I thought of some reasons why I may still have lost:
Females can be as big as males, and I’m sure that some have the muscle building bonuses comparable to the average male, but from what I’ve read and observed, males are more likely to have these benefits than females. Females can have the aggressive tendencies associated with testosterone, but do not get them as frequently as males do. Females can be nerds but most nerds are male. Food pickers may have a higher percentage of females than nerds do. Therefore the food pickers might be at a disadvantage in unarmed combat. (Though adding guns would change that completely.)
Nerds may exercise more than the average person in order to compensate for the stereotype that nerds are weak. I didn’t see any research specific to how much exercise nerds do or what type they use, but it is possible that this group is more fit than average.
Having a nerdy personality may make them more likely to research the best way of exercising, and measure their progress, making exercise more effective for them.
Do you see more factors that we haven’t taken into account?
My apologies, I must forgotten all about my ultimate goal of nailing you and got all caught up in just saying things because they happen to represent an accurate model of the world as I see it. Where are my priorities?
Naturally one of the most basic skills of debate is to only attack the soldiers of the enemy while smoothly steering the conversation away from any potential weaknesses in one’s own position. Even the simple process of filtering evidence and only mentioning that which favours one’s own bottom line can go a long way toward both winning a debate and making the discussion utterly useless as anything other than a status transaction or political platform.
As someone who enjoys being ‘beaten’ in discussions I’m curious whether you draw a distinction between ‘losing’ to a barrage of clever debate tactics exploiting the know human vulnerabilities and ‘losing’ in the sense that your opponent knew something that you did not and was able to communicate that new information to you effectively and clearly in a form that prompted you to learn. It is the latter form of ‘losing’ that I prize heavily while the former tends to just invoke my ire and contempt.
I know better than to think I know what your motives are. I did hope that you wanted to kick my ass, though. I was merely expressing my disappointment, not an expectation.
If I know information that could mean that my position is wrong, it will not be my position, or I won’t start a debate. I would instead begin with “I don’t know whether A or B is true. For A, I have this info. For B, this info.” and so would never attempt to convince anybody of A or B in that case, but just hope we worked it out.
The times when I actually decide to debate with somebody, there’s a reason for it—there is potential harm in them not realizing something. The way you just did with me when you thought I was making a generalization about nerds.
I suppose the reason I don’t lose often enough is because I “choose my battles” very effectively. Perhaps when people point out my flaws I am quick enough to accept them that it doesn’t turn into a debate.
I’m not interested in empty wins. I am interested in convincing people of important things when they don’t get them. Most people are tiring to debate with, for me, although that’s because people who haven’t spent a comparable amount of time on self-improvement tend to give me such a logical fallacy ridden pile of spaghetti code that it’s simply not fun to untangle. I don’t believe that I am using unethical tactics to win. There are times when I know my opponent does not want the full volume of information I have—like in my IT job, my non-IT boss does not want every detail, so I intentionally give him a simplification—but all the relevant stuff that I know he will care about is included. He likes simple explanations better and complains if I give him the technical details. That’s all that I can think of right now, but your question will have me watching out for a while.
But shouldn’t I be confused enough, somewhere, that it’s necessary to untangle me through debate? Or shouldn’t I know someone who makes my mind look like a mess of logical fallacy ridden spaghetti code? That seems to be the experience that I miss—that sense that there’s somebody out there who can see all of this better than I do. There is an imbalance in this that I do not like.
Wanting to lose is about this inequality. I want to see minds that look well-orchestrated. I am tired of what it does to me to anticipate spaghetti code.
You should stop thinking about discussions in these terms.
Imagine you have 100 instances where you do a bunch of research, with the intention of having an unbiased view of the situation. Then you tell somebody about the result and they don’t agree. But they don’t support their points well. So you share the information you found and point out that their points were unsupported. They fail to produce any new information or points that actually add to the conversation. You may not have been trying to win, but if they’re unable to support their points or supply new information and yet believe themselves to be right, when you destroy that illusion, the feeling of “oh I guess I was right” is a natural result.
Imagine that during the same period of time, this happens to you zero times. Nobody finds a logical fallacy or poorly supported point. This is not because you are perfect—you aren’t. It is probably due to hanging out with the wrong people—people who are not dedicated to reasoning well. Knowing I am not perfect is not reducing the cockiness that is starting to result from this, for me. It is making me nervous instead—this knowledge that I am not perfect has become a vague intellectual acknowledgement, not a genuine sense of awareness. The sense that I have flawed ideas and could be wrong at any time no longer feels real.
Now that I am in a much bigger pond, I am hoping to experience a really good ass kicking. I want to wake up from this dream of feeling like I’m right all the time.
The reason I want to lose is because I agree with you that I shouldn’t see these debates as thing for me to win. I am tired of the experience of being right. I am tired of the nervousness that is knowing I am imperfect, that there are flaws I’m unaware of, but not having the sense that somebody will point them out.
I just want to experience being wrong sometimes.
Your comments are consistent with wanting to be proved wrong. No one experiences “being wrong”—from the inside, it feels exactly like “being right”. We do experience “realizing we were wrong”, which is hopefully followed by updating so that we once again believe ourselves to be right. Have you never changed your mind about something? Realized on your own that you were mistaken? Because you don’t need to “lose” or to have other people “beat you” to experience that.
And if you go around challenging other people about miscellaneous points in the hopes that they will prove you wrong, this will annoy the other people and is unlikely to give you the experience you hoped for.
I also think that your definition of “being wrong” might be skewed. If you try to make comments which you think will be well-received, then every comment that has been heavily downvoted is an instance in which you were wrong about the community reaction. You apparently thought most people were concerned about an Eternal September; you’ve already realized that this belief was wrong. I’m not sure why being wrong about these does not have the same impact on you as being wrong about the relative fighting skills of programmers and fruit-pickers, but it probably should have a bigger impact, since it’s a more important question.
That’s insightful. And I realize now that my statement wasn’t clearly worded. What I should have said was more like:
“I need to experience other people being right sometimes.”
and I can explain why, in a re-framed way, because of your example:
I don’t experience being double checked if I am the one who figures it out. I know I am flawed, and I know I can’t see all of my own flaws. If people aren’t finding holes in my ideas (they find plenty of spelling errors and social mistakes, but rarely find a problem in my ideas) I’m not being double checked at all. This makes me nervous because if I don’t see flaws with my ideas, and nobody else does either, then my most important flaws are invisible.
I feel cocky toward disagreements with people. Like “Oh, it doesn’t matter how badly they disagree with me in the beginning. After we talk, they won’t anymore.” I keep having experiences that confirm this for me. I posted a risk on a different site that provoked normalcy bias and caused a whole bunch of people to jump all over me with every (bad) reason under the sun that I was wrong. I blew down all the invalid refutations of my point and ignored the ad hominem attacks. A few days later, one of the people who had refuted me did some research, changed her mind and told her friends, then a bunch of the people jumping all over me were converted to my perspective. Everyone stopped arguing.
This is useful in the cases where I have important information.
It is unhealthy from a human perspective, though. When you think that you can convince other people of things, it feels a little creepy. It’s like I have too much power over them. Even if I am right, and the way that I wield this gift is 100% ethical, (and I may not be, and nobody’s double checking me) there’s still something that feels wrong. I want checks and balances. I want other people with this power do the same to me.
I want them to double check me. To remind me that I am not “the most powerful”. I am a perfectionist with ethics. If there is a flaw, I want to know.
And I don’t go around challenging people about miscellaneous points hoping for a debate. I’m a little insulted by that insinuation. I disagree frequently, but that’s because I feel it’s important to present the alternate perspective.
I am frequently misunderstood, that is true. I try to guess how people will react to my ideas, but I know my guesses are only a hypothesis. I try my best to present them well, but I am still learning.
Even if I am not received well at first, it doesn’t mean people won’t agree with me in the end.
It’s more important to have good ideas than to be received well, especially considering that people normally accept good ideas in the end. Though, I would like both.