Tag: psychology

Nobody ever changed anything by remaining quiet, i…

Nobody ever changed anything by remaining quiet, idly standing by, or remaining part of the faceless, voiceless masses. If you ever want to effect change, in your work, in your life, you must learn to persuade others.

Jeff Atwood

Constructive lies

Being a pathological liar myself, I often hear people saying how bad lies are and how lies are only making things worse.  Of course, there are counter examples of telling a lie to prevent hurting people and such.  But there weren’t so many examples of constructive, useful lies.  Here is one such example of lies used by an educator to assist students with a boring course.

The topic of Corporate Finance/Capital Markets is, even within the world of the Dismal Science, (Economics) an exceptionally dry and boring subject matter, encumbered by complex mathematic models and obscure economic theory.

What made Dr. K memorable was a gimmick he employed that began with his introduction at the beginning of his first class:

“Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures … one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day.”

Read the whole story – it’s pretty fascinating.

On violent video games

Here’s a question that’s asked often: how violent are video games?  Well, of course, that depends on the video game.  Tetris, for example, is hardly violent at all, unless you play it at full volume at 3am with a bunch of drunken friends.  But more importantly than the game itself is actually you.  Yes, that’s right, the video games are only as violent as you, the player, make them.  Here is a recent example that I picked up via kottke blog:

This feat may sound impossible, but for Game Informer reader and hardcore Modern Warfare 2 player Glen McCracken, it’s only a matter of time. In two hours of playing, Glen has reached rank 5 without taking a life. Using pacifist means to earn points, Glen estimates it will take him roughly two months to be the first player to reach rank 70 with zero kills.

And it reminded me of another story I read some time ago.  That one was about a four year old kid playing Grand Theft Auto:

In all his time with Grand Theft Auto he never once encountered any of the controversy surrounding this notorious title. He didn’t beat any hookers with a baseball bat.  He didn’t deal drugs. He didn’t go on a murderous rampage. He certainly never once had a cup of hot coffee. He didn’t avoid these things because I told him he counldn’t try them. It just never occurred to him to commit these acts.

On psychological trauma via a content filtering job

There is a rather serious article on Slashdot about unprepared minds being traumatized when working as a content moderator.  There are a lot of sick people around, when they fancy their fancies, any sane person should be as far as possible.  But that understanding is always easy coming.  As it is often said: “Some things cannot be unseen”, and you should think carefully before agreeing to see such things.

On a lighter note, with a subject like this, Slashdot is pretty much guaranteed to have some funny comments.  Here is one that made me smile:

The problem is that most 20 year old kids don’t really know how sensitive they are to things like this until they’re repeatedly exposed to them, by which point much of the damage has already been done. Luckily for me, I was exposed to the Internet and all of the nastiness on it when I was only 13, and I’ve managed to get by with no ill effects at all except for the occasional extended blackout followed by a dead hooker in my bed. Some more sensitive people might really lose their minds, though.