On Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:32:18 +0200, andrel wrote:

>>>> Depends on the audience.  Some audiences look at such exaggeration
>>>> and say "this person has gone off the rails" and stop listening
>>>> completely.
>>>
>>> Sure, but not in this newsgroup.
>>
>> You can say that for 100% certain?
> 
> No, by definition. If they don't respond there is no way to figure out
> why not.

Exactly. :)

>> I've looked at some posts that had
>> that kind of exaggeration myself and just shook my head and moved
>> on....
> 
> Well, I wasn't the one starting with great generalizations in this
> thread. ;) Anyone still here had already past that point.

LOL, fair point. ;)

>> When I talk about something being human nature, I'm not saying it's an
>> irresistible force.  Quite the opposite, in fact - one of the things
>> about being human is (ostensibly) being able to say "yes, this is in
>> our nature, but that doesn't mean I *have* to behave this way - I have
>> a choice.
> 
> Still confused as to when you would call something 'part of human
> nature'.

When it's something that in general people have a tendency to do but 
cannot (perhaps) explain why.  It's not about a specific person's 
predisposition, but more about 'herd mentality' (if you will).

There are some behaviours in people that you can generally predict.  You 
can predict that when there is an automobile accident, people will tend 
to slow down and gawk.  Some will stop to help (not as many as one would 
hope), most will slow down to get a good look, and then move on.  There 
are some who will just be annoyed at the slowdown in traffic and wish 
everyone would either decide to stop and help or just get a move on.

But the 'human nature' in this scenario is to slow down to get a good 
look at the damage, say "damn, that looks bad" and then get on with their 
day.

>> Well, no, we haven't established that nobody likes to compete.  All one
>> has to do is look at the CxO level of any US-based company to see that
>> there are people who absolutely *love* to compete.
> 
> Compete in what sense?

Compete for market share.  Compete for money.  Compete for power, 
prestige, etc, etc, etc.

>  > Professional athletes.  People who play chess competitively.
> 
> Just as long as it is within their field. Let them write a grant
> application to get money to pay their training program and living for
> half a year with only 15% granted and see if they still like to compete.

That's not the way it works, though.  You work in academia IIRC, are you 
saying you don't compete for grant money for research you're working on?

>> Right now, we're discussing competing ideas - in a way, this discussion
>> is a form of competition. ;)
> 
> And I have a bit of a cold so I am competing with a lot of small things
> too. Sorry, what was the point?

You've said that you're not competitive by nature, but in fact, you do 
compete even if you don't call it that.

>>> I think the alternative explanation that we are not competitive by
>>> nature but that sometimes we are forced to suppress that instinct is a
>>> much better one.
>>
>> Perhaps it's more cultural than I initially thought. :)  I read an
>> interesting article today at www.markgoulston.com about the nature of
>> competition in the US and how it differs from other parts of the world.
>> I'd be interested in what you think of that article.
> 
> I vaguely remember someone in the beginning of this discussion
> mentioning that competitiveness is cultural. It was a long time ago, so
> I might be misremembering.

No, I remember someone making that statement, too.  I thought it was 
you. :)

> What I find interesting is that an American realizes that cultural
> differences exist. They often seem to have trouble understanding that.
> Must be cultural.

LOL!  Many Americans do - as a society, we tend to be overconfident and 
tend to underachieve.  There was a study done recently about how students 
around the world perform on exams, with Americans scoring somewhere in 
the middle on actual score, but their confidence in answering the exam 
questions was #1.  So, we're #1 and thinking we're #1.

Of course that doesn't apply to *all* of us.  My wife and I would fit in 
very well in UK society - we were out visiting friends once and stopped 
in a chip shop down in Brighton (I think it was, it's been a few years), 
and the staff couldn't figure out where we were from.  Our accents had 
slipped a bit towards UK (not a conscious thing - I can always tell when 
my wife's been talking to her parents in Pennsylvania, and she can always 
tell when I've been talking with my mom in Minnesota), and eventually one 
of them asked.

When we said we were visiting from Utah, they were very surprised - 
partly because of our dress (quite "British" in style - not at all the 
"loud colours" that the stereotypical American tourist wears) and they 
had to ask me to repeat my order because I'm *very* soft-spoken.

We can be pretty hard to pigeonhole. ;)

>>> Anyway, let's agree to disagree on this point.
>>>
>>> *) one of the insights that repeatedly comes back in Pratchett is that
>>> in the end what a human wants is that tomorrow will be almost the same
>>> as today.
>>
>> I think there are some like that.  I know in my current situation, I'd
>> prefer tomorrow not be the same as today - I'd rather be employed. ;)
> 
> But if you have a family you would prefer them to be there tomorrow too.
> If you had enough money to buy food, you'd prefer that to be the case
> tomorrow too. Still having two arms would be a bonus. Being employed or
> not is just a mere detail. ;)

Fair points, though employed/not employed - at least right now - is kinda 
a big detail.

Jim

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