On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:52:05 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Now, if everyone that was telling you that you are good at detecting
>>> deceit where one of those who claimed to trust priests, farmers and
>>> prostitutes, before scientists, what would your reaction be to their
>>> certainty of how good you are?
>> 
>> Admittedly not that good.  That's why I don't look to those kinds of
>> people (or people actually in those professions) to help me adjust my
>> personal self-perception bias.
>> 
>> Jim
> 
> Well, my point here was that "everyone" has some general biases. Its not
> hard to detect "some" kinds of deceit, especially if they manage to
> press many of the wrong buttons. After all, its likely that the
> individual you are talking about where used to dealing with precisely
> the people that thought they where going to, i.e. lawyers. They knew
> their mind set, they knew what to say that would sound plausible to
> "those" people, etc. You on the other hand... they where not able to
> predict, so couldn't, as effectively, mess with. So, yes, in that
> situation "anyone" with your background might have had "better"
> instincts than the people who they where "intending" to target.

Perhaps, but the specific case in hand the person wasn't intending to be 
talking to the lawyer at all.  He was trying to force me to do something/
allow him to do something.  He said the magic words that meant I had to 
take it to legal, though - and he was *very* surprised when he got a call 
from a lawyer.  He was trying to deceive me, but didn't know me very 
well.  His thinking was "Jim should value me and my contribution, so I 
should be able to force him to bend to my will".  When I didn't, he 
started trying to use deceit, even dragging others into his deception 
(which could have gotten really ugly).

> This is actually so common that there are a few companies that have
> started, based on the theory, "Everyone has blind spots." The idea being
> that an engineer, for example, may be clearly aware of some math,
> design, behavior, or curiosity of the things they work on, which a
> biologist simply doesn't know. Yet, that thing "may" provide a lead
> into, or explanation for, some biological issue, for which a purely
> bio-based examination fails to come up with. Mind, this is kind of like
> someone failing to realize that triangles are applicable to house
> building, as well as bridge building, but its still a blind spot.
> Laywers, also have blind spots. And, my guess is, who ever your working
> with, do, and they just happen to not match yours. ;)

One of the things I've read is that every company's marketing department 
needs someone with a sick sense of humour.  Reason being that when 
product naming/marketing plans/marketing campaigns are created, you need 
that person to make sure you're not being blind to some sort of rude word 
in your marketing that isn't intended.  Like an abbreviation that almost 
spells a curse word.

Jim

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