Search Results for: selinger

One Day There Will Be Associated With My Name the Recollection of Something Frightful

By in fresh hell, jests japes jokes jollies, nietzsche No Comments

Imagine my horror, as I looked upon the name “Evan Selinger” and thought, “Wait a minute; I’m pretty sure I have taken issue with this dimwit before,” only to find an uncanny calendrical regularity to my issue-taking.

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, “This post as you now write it and have written it, you will have to write once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence…”

For a Vision of the Night, Turn Off the Light

By in books, foolosophy 2 Comments

Evan Selinger:

And that’s the problem. Smith’s overly precious desire not to be identified with what’s trendy (or trending) but with what’s ornamental gets in the way of his writing a book that most of us can find illuminating.

I fail to see the point of reviews which say little more than, “I wish the author had written a different book.” Selinger drums his fingers impatiently throughout his review of Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason, waiting for Smith to get down to the serious business of illuminating current events and providing solutions to “the issues of our time.” He starts off by wondering why the behavioral sciences and cognitive biases are largely ignored here, and later complains that “Smith simply isn’t interested in concretely sullying his hands, as it were, by trying, for instance, to improve legal or corporate policies, or enhance educational curricula, pivot politics, or resolve interpersonal conflict. Nor is he interested in redressing thought distortions that make for dangerous-for-us-all decisions.” I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of the most stupidly, proudly philistine things I’d ever read on the web, where one of the LessWrong rationalists suggested that we replace philosophy classes — a “diseased tradition” focused on “old dead guys who didn’t know the slightest bit of 20th century science” — with the study of mathematical logic, heuristics and biases, probability theory, and Bayesian rationality. (As it happens, Smith did briefly address that species of delusion in the book, suggesting that the rationalist community would have done better to read Plutarch and Cicero.) I’m not sure where the dividing line is between a healthy desire to avoid the trendy and trending and an “overly precious” one, but I suppose I’m prepared to err on the side of being a hothouse flower.

Sometimes, when writing a post, a subject’s name triggers a faint memory, and I’ll go looking through my archives to see where it comes from. In Selinger’s case, it was precisely six years ago that I found him jumping to strange conclusions after seeing a Facebook ad. I suggested that perhaps David Hume, along with a wider perspective, could have helped him avoid such logical pratfalls. I think I see a theme developing here!

If It Was So, It Might Be; and If It Were So, It Would Be; but as It Isn’t, It Ain’t. That’s Logic.

By in augean stables, ohferfucksake, psychology, socmed, technology No Comments

Evan Selinger:

Let’s examine the most egregious Facebook ad of them all: “Dinner” (in the video above). On the surface, it portrays an intergenerational family meal where a young woman escapes from the dreariness of her older relative’s boring cat talk by surreptitiously turning away from the feast and instead feasting her eyes on Facebook Home. With a digital nod to the analog “Calgon, Take Me Away” commercials, the young woman is automatically, frictionlessly transported to a better place: full of enchanting rock music, ballerinas, and snowball fights.

But let’s break Zuckerberg’s spell and shift our focus away from Selfish Girl. Think off-camera and outside the egocentric perspective framed by the ad. Reflect instead on the people surrounding her.

Ignored Aunt will soon question why she’s bothering to put in effort with her distant younger niece. Eventually, she’ll adapt to the Facebook Home-idealized situation and stop caring. In a scene that Facebook won’t run, Selfish Girl will come to Ignored Aunt for something and be ignored herself: Selfishness is contagious, after all. Once it spreads to a future scene where everyone behaves like Selfish Girl, with their eyes glued to their own Home screens, the Facebook ads portend the death of family gatherings.

Remember what I was saying about Hume and his connexions? This is a good example. If you’re already inclined to believe that most social media activity is frivolous, it’s very easy to thoughtlessly nod along with the next few steps in his reasoning. But people are not integers. Silly ads are not chains of logical propositions understood as literal commands. The Great Unwashed are not blank slates incapable of resisting or criticizing suggestions without the help of a philosophy professor. And when it comes to human behavior, like does not necessarily beget like. Ignored Aunt might very well possess the wisdom of several decades’ experience and be gracious enough to realize that Selfish Girl will eventually outgrow her moody adolescent self-absorption, as adolescents always have, without bearing her a grudge over it. Like most humans ever, Selfish Girl will likely become bored by her normal routine — in this case, frittering away spare moments on Facebook — and go looking for greener grass elsewhere. Perhaps even in flesh and blood relationships.

It’s typical of intellectuals, in their drive for logical consistency, to trick themselves into seeing logical necessity where none exists. Overthinking things, basically. Really, the idea that millions of years of social instincts honed by evolution will be destroyed or reshaped in a couple decades by some cool new gadgets is only fit for laughing at.

I Used to Write Letters, I Used to Sign My Name

By in technology No Comments

Evan Selinger:

Let’s face it: Technology and etiquette have been colliding for some time now, and things have finally boiled over if the recent spate of media criticisms is anything to go by. There’s the voicemail, not to be left unless you’re “dying.” There’s the e-mail signoff that we need to “kill.” And then there’s the observation that what was once normal — like asking someone for directions — is now considered “uncivilized.”

Cyber-savvy folks are arguing for such new etiquette rules because in an information-overloaded world, time-wasting communication is not just outdated — it’s rude. But while living according to the gospel of technological efficiency and frictionless sharing is fine as a Silicon Valley innovation ethos, it makes for a downright depressing social ethic.

People like Nick Bilton over at The New York Times Bits blog argue that norms like thank-you messages can cost more in time and efficiency than they are worth. However, such etiquette norms aren’t just about efficiency: They’re actually about building thoughtful and pro-social character.

Let’s look at the cast of characters involved in this “thing” (since it appears to be an official thing now): that sociopath from a couple weeks ago in the NYT, a bubblegum-popping ditz from Gawker (is that redundant?), and some jerkoff from Slate being criticized (rightly) by a writer at Wired. Not a particularly representative slice of humanity, you might say. In fact, you might suggest, as I did, that it’s really more a case of young, tech-savvy, social media narcissists talking to themselves, helping to convince each other that their narrow little fraction of a world is the only one that matters.

I will say this, though, about how the times-they-are-a-changing. Long story short, yesterday I found myself with a couple hours to kill before clocking in, so I went across the street to mosey through the mall. Both the bookstores, the B. Dalton’s and Waldenbooks, that used to be there were gone, of course. So was the Sam Goody’s music store that I used to haunt throughout my adolescence. But I counted four cellphone kiosks, a Best Buy Mobile store, a Radio Shack which seemed to be much more phone-oriented than I ever remember them being, and a cash-for-used-cellphone depository. I almost felt like falling into step with the elderly power-walkers making their morning rounds to share stories about the good old days.