[The Clockwork Rat]

Posts deleted. Stay on topic.

[CounterChaos]

It is a bad and emotional view of society, being completely non-rational, as it ignores basic biological mechanisms of the human species. Like I said, our species is social and our society is hierarchical, otherwise we would see lots of non-hierarchized human groups around.

You have basically described PoFo here Smertios. That is exactly what we have here. You see traditional hierarchy where you live just as I see it here in the Philippines. In the first world though, traditional hierarchy is disappearing. Look at TCR for an example. He is a twenty something college educated young man and I'm a 59 year old retiree. In your world, I would be the hierarchical leader - that is not what you see here though is it? He is a moderator with control over me. He wrote:

You're saying that social relations have not been modified by 'human intelligence'?

He is correct. Today, human knowledge and intelligence is more of a factor in hierarchy. Even though I may have more wisdom and life experience than TCR does - that is rarely measured as valuable these days. That is unfortunate in my opinion and does not present a fair playing ground for older people. However, the same is true for the young - if we followed traditional hierarchy here, their voice would be labeled as immature silliness most of the time.

The combinations of the avatars and the anonymity of this place, is debatable as to whether it helps or complicates the situation. Logically, I think it would be used against the youth here, if ages and actual pictures were required. However; wisdom suffers as a result as well.

Qatz writes:

Human pyramid-building schemes have elaborate hierarchies that don't respect age or physical strength at all. Often, what leads to a "controlling" position on the pyramid is... being in the same club as other higher-ups.

So, in modern industrial society in this computer age of text - he is right.............

A solution I think would be to - disallow human beings as avatars here - as I believe by design it was done to give advantage to a younger audience. If not be design - it does turn out to be the case.

[Smertios]

You have basically described PoFo here Smertios. That is exactly what we have here. You see traditional hierarchy where you live just as I see it here in the Philippines. In the first world though, traditional hierarchy is disappearing. Look at TCR for an example. He is a twenty something college educated young man and I'm a 59 year old retiree. In your world, I would be the hierarchical leader - that is not what you see here though is it? He is a moderator with control over me.

Traditional hierarchy is disappearing everywhere, including here. What you don't understand is that I'm not talking about traditional hierarchy at all. I'm talking about hierarchy in general. It appears in the human society because humans are autonomous animals. So a few individuals will always be more popular, more talented, more influential, more charismatic etc. And other people will always orbit around those.

Your age is irrelevant. In "my world", you wouldn't be the hierarchical leader simply because you are older. There is a better chance a younger person is more talented and competent, actually, considering we are in a post-information revolution world. Information and knowledge are much more accessible to people in their formative years than it was when you were in your 20s, for example.

Except in gerontocracies - which have never existed in a large number -, age is not a factor for determining who is on top. Life experience never meant much, really...

He is correct. Today, human knowledge and intelligence is more of a factor in hierarchy. Even though I may have more wisdom and life experience than TCR does - that is rarely measured as valuable these days. That is unfortunate in my opinion and does not present a fair playing ground for older people. However, the same is true for the young - if we followed traditional hierarchy here, their voice would be labeled as immature silliness most of the time.

He is incorrect. Like I said in my example, leaders appear spontaneously in any human group, independent of their age. Read my example with a school project again. A teacher doesn't select a group leader, and they don't take a vote either. But, in the process of realizing the work needed, one or a few leaders will appear. Someone will organize the project, distribute chores, lead the project. Even if this leadership ends up being a bad one, the hierarchy will appear. Not by design, not influenced directly by the human intelligence, but because human groups are naturally hierarchic.

And no offense, but there is a better chance TCR is more qualified to be in a position of leadership than you. We just passed through the main phase of the information revolution. We have a weird situation now in which younger people know more stuff and are more able to deal with complicated situations than older people. It is not a matter of what is fair and what isn't. It is a matter of how liberal hierarchies work.

Life experience doesn't mean a thing nowadays, so it is natural that it won't be very effective on who is going to be on top and who isn't. I certainly would rather pay a young guy with proper education to be a manager in a company than an old guy with lots of life experience, but without proper education in management.

—“Human pyramid-building schemes have elaborate hierarchies that don't respect age or physical strength at all. Often, what leads to a "controlling" position on the pyramid is... being in the same club as other higher-ups.”

So, in modern industrial society in this computer age of text - he is right.............

Except that is exactly it. physical strength and age are not relevant anymore. Nobody cares if one was born in 1876 or if he can carry a ton of metal in a few hours. That is not going to take him anywhere. What matters is charisma, money, talent, looks, intelligence etc.

Human hierarchies were only about age and physical strength in the stone age, when the ability to protect the tribe with brute force was needed (there was no military technology) and the experience of elders was needed to keep the society working (there was no science to tell what is better and what isn't, so they had to accept that life experience was the best way to go).

After that, hierarchies have never been about age or strength...

And I'm afraid the two of you don't have a good idea of what a pyramid scheme is, by the way...

A solution I think would be to - disallow human beings as avatars here - as I believe by design it was done to give advantage to a younger audience. If not be design - it does turn out to be the case.

Funniest thing I ever read on PoFo.

[Cartertonian]

Life experience doesn't mean a thing nowadays

I would always advocate best person for the job. The difficulty with experience, in terms of years accrued, is whether the person who has been exposed to that experience has learned from it. Hence the question as to whether someone has (let's say) twenty years experience...or one year's experience, twenty times?

I would expect someone with twenty years adult life experience to be a better decision-maker and clearer thinker than someone with none. I grant you that the individual who hs failed to capitalise on their experience may not be.

[CounterChaos]

Traditional hierarchy is disappearing everywhere

Traditional hierarchy is everywhere where I live in the Philippines - I just assumed it was similar to where you live as well. Maybe you could focus more on the poor in South America - like I am as well?

As for the rest - we are just going to have to agree to disagree - because I don't agree with any of it..........

that is not being a socialist. You are being a liberal

I'm a little of both.........

[Smertios]

I would always advocate best person for the job. The difficulty with experience, in terms of years accrued, is whether the person who has been exposed to that experience has learned from it. Hence the question as to whether someone has (let's say) twenty years experience...or one year's experience, twenty times?

I would expect someone with twenty years adult life experience to be a better decision-maker and clearer thinker than someone with none. I grant you that the individual who hs failed to capitalise on their experience may not be.

Exactly. I have no doubt that an electronics technician that didn't have proper training but spent the last 20 years fixing TVs and radios knows what he is doing. Maybe he even knows more than the technician who has just graduated from a 2-year course. The problem is that it is a lot easier for someone to learn those things with a systematic training than through life experience. So it is more expected that the younger technician will develop faster and better than the veteran one, even if initially, he won't be as good.

Traditional hierarchy is everywhere where I live in the Philippines - I just assumed it was similar to where you live as well.

Well, there is a difference that is important there. The Philippines are an ethnic nation from the Old World. Brazil is a nation in the New World, created not very long ago. So it is natural that traditional/conservative hierarchies are predominant there, while liberal hierarchies are more common here, I guess...

Maybe you could focus more on the poor in South America - like I am as well?

Definitely, but poverty has been dropping here anyway

As for the rest - we are just going to have to agree to disagree - because I don't agree with any of it..........

Fair enough

I'm a little of both.........

So... you are a social democrat?

[Daktoria]

:hmm:

I would always advocate best person for the job. The difficulty with experience, in terms of years accrued, is whether the person who has been exposed to that experience has learned from it. Hence the question as to whether someone has (let's say) twenty years experience...or one year's experience, twenty times?

I would expect someone with twenty years adult life experience to be a better decision-maker and clearer thinker than someone with none. I grant you that the individual who hs failed to capitalise on their experience may not be.

This has ageism written all over it. You're assuming by default that people learn from experience.

Many people don't. Furthermore, what really matters in management isn't how experienced you are, but how CHARISMATIC you are in expressing that experience.

Coincidentally, this is why many people don't learn from experience in the first place. They're charismatic already, so they know they can get away with being stubborn. Besides, they don't want to overcome their own pride, and they're so lazy that they treat questions about that pride as a bad compass for detecting when they're being challenged.

This might not be entirely without merit though. After all, charismatically proud people don't deserve their status in the first place since they haven't really learned. Pride becomes a circular defense mechanism for the corrupt.

Exactly. I have no doubt that an electronics technician that didn't have proper training but spent the last 20 years fixing TVs and radios knows what he is doing. Maybe he even knows more than the technician who has just graduated from a 2-year course. The problem is that it is a lot easier for someone to learn those things with a systematic training than through life experience. So it is more expected that the younger technician will develop faster and better than the veteran one, even if initially, he won't be as good.

While this is true, it's extremely results-oriented.

Systematic training teaches people skills, but it doesn't teach people the values required to discover those skills in the first place.

Seniors will often take this excuse for defending their pride, so you have to be careful with throwing it around. Some seniors actually care about values. Others don't.

The ones who don't care about values usually take pride in tradition instead. These are the worst seniors to work under because they only like subordinates who suck up, not subordinates who actually care.

Traditional hierarchy is everywhere where I live in the Philippines - I just assumed it was similar to where you live as well. Maybe you could focus more on the poor in South America - like I am as well?

As for the rest - we are just going to have to agree to disagree - because I don't agree with any of it..........

I have to agree with Chaos here. Democracy is a perfect environment for traditional hierarchy to return under because groupthink encourages appeals to normalcy and political arbitrage.

Even worse, free markets without social values decay towards traditional hierarchy as well because people become results-oriented. This means they don't actually appreciate the process from which results are achieved. Over time, this creates incompetence as people increasingly compete to show off results and cut corners, breaking down discipline and due process.

You see this especially in labor intense sectors of the economy where people, by definition, are very short sighted and not very intelligent. Over time, this pragmatism creeps up, and the rest of society becomes infected.

Furthermore, as political activism increases, politicians will appeal to pragmatism more and more in order to garnish civil support. Even marketing campaigns will encourage a "stupid is cool" culture so consumers can get away with laziness.

[CounterChaos]

Well, there is a difference that is important there. The Philippines are an ethnic nation from the Old World. Brazil is a nation in the New World, created not very long ago. So it is natural that traditional/conservative hierarchies are predominant there, while liberal hierarchies are more common here, I guess...

Wait a minute....1492, Columbus - the Caribbean coast of Colombia, Venezuela and Central America. 1621, the Spanish arrived in the Philippines. Old World - New World? I'm not just talking about Brazil.............

So... you are a social democrat? :?:

No, I'm a Utopian Socialist and a Jeffersonian Liberal

This is what I espouse:

Capitalism To Democracy

Resource Based Economy

Jeffersonian Liberalism

[Cartertonian]

This has ageism written all over it. You're assuming by default that people learn from experience.

You do yourself no favours, Daktoria, when you conspicuously fail to read other people's posts before you leap to criticise them.

Hence the question as to whether someone has (let's say) twenty years experience...or one year's experience, twenty times?

Ergo, someone who has spent twenty years not learning from their experiences is not as competent as someone who has spent twenty years learning from their experiences, capiche?

Let me give you an example from my own world. A soldier who has learned from his experiences will in all likelihood be promoted faster than others who do not. Therefore, when I come along looking for someone to entrust an important task to, it is reasonable for me to assume that the individual wearing sergeant's rank will have had both the training and the experience to be entrusted with the task I wish to delegate. If, however, we just dished out sergeant's tapes in the recruiting office because we liked the cut of someone's jib, I could no longer have confidence in the abilities of anyone wearing sergeant's tapes.

There's no ageism, here, Daktoria, only - ironically - experience.

[Daktoria]

You do yourself no favours, Daktoria, when you conspicuously fail to read other people's posts before you leap to criticise them.

No, I read what you said about what you "would expect" very clearly. What you fail to appreciate is how time can flow over people just like water flows over a rock. It's the absorption of a person, not the amount of experience, which matters.

Ergo, someone who has spent twenty years not learning from their experiences is not as competent as someone who has spent twenty years learning from their experiences, capiche?

Again, this isn't what I was talking about. You have to compare people with LESS field experience to others with more.

Let me give you an example from my own world. A soldier who has learned from his experiences will in all likelihood be promoted faster than others who do not. Therefore, when I come along looking for someone to entrust an important task to, it is reasonable for me to assume that the individual wearing sergeant's rank will have had both the training and the experience to be entrusted with the task I wish to delegate. If, however, we just dished out sergeant's tapes in the recruiting office because we liked the cut of someone's jib, I could no longer have confidence in the abilities of anyone wearing sergeant's tapes.

That's nice. You don't divide training from experience because...?

Some people can learn abstractly very well and don't require as much field experience to get it. What you're doing is encouraging a culture of slow learning by experience rather than fast learning by reflection.

If anything, learning by reflection is MORE reliable because it means people are willing to think about values before tradition when it comes to loyalty. That means they're less willing to suck up to get attention and more willing to actually care.

Seniors who demand historical obedience are incredibly vulnerable to letting organizations become subverted by suck ups.

[Cartertonian]

You don't divide training from experience because...?

If I put a newly-trained pilot and a pilot with 20 years of combat experience in two aircraft and send them into a dogfight, who do you suppose is most likely to survive?

I don't think you understood my question, 'as to whether someone has (let's say) twenty years experience...or one year's experience, twenty times?'

What you fail to appreciate is how time can flow over people just like water flows over a rock. It's the absorption of a person, not the amount of experience, which matters.

Precisely.

The person with twenty years experience has absorbed twenty years of experience.

The person who has been knocki' around for twenty years but never lerned a thing is the 'rock' of your analogy.

You have just latched onto one bit of my post and persist in both quoting it out of context and failing to understand what I was talking about in the first place.

[The Clockwork Rat]

Any more posts containing character attacks will be deleted. All replies likewise. I'm sick of tidying up this bickering, especially in an otherwise decent topic.

[Cartertonian]

Quite.

I have openly agreed that it should be 'best person for the job' that determines leadership positions and history is repleat with examples of incredible leaders who had youth on their side, particularly in the military ( ). I merely contend that the fact that experience is no guarantor of ability is neither an excuse to dismiss the value of experience out of hand.

[CounterChaos]

I don't think you understood my question, 'as to whether someone has (let's say) twenty years experience...or one year's experience, twenty times?'

I think a good example would be someone that moved around from job to job a lot. One year here another year there for a long period of time. We call them a "jack of all trades" - to me, that has value and experience, but not as much value as someone that focused on a single thing. I'm not really catching what you are saying here either maybe - unless you are referring to apathy in not wanting to learn?

I merely contend that the fact that experience is no guarantor of ability is neither an excuse to dismiss the value of experience out of hand.

[Cartertonian]

I'm not really catching what you are saying here either maybe - unless you are referring to apathy in not wanting to learn?

The phrase is in common use in my primary trade - nursing - where experience counts for a great deal in the professional sense. Yet, it is acknowledged that some nurses might have been qualified for twenty years, yet may have never really learned from their experience and therefore be no more effective and competent than a nurse with only a year's experience.

[Smertios]

Wait a minute....1492, Columbus - the Caribbean coast of Colombia, Venezuela and Central America. 1621, the Spanish arrived in the Philippines. Old World - New World? I'm not just talking about Brazil.............

The Old World-New World division is not about when the Spanish or other Europeans arrived in each place. Otherwise, India would have to be considered part of the New World as well, considering the Portuguese only got there in 1498.

The division is more related to what was known before. All of Africa, Asia and Europe was known before the Age of Discovery. Egyptians knew about Sub-Saharan Africa, the Chinese and Japanese (who were known to the Romans) had contact with Vietnam, the Philippines etc, ancient Greeks had conquered India. Etc. What was really "new" were the lands that nobody knew about: the Americas and Oceania/Australia. Those lands were inhabited by stone-age to iron-age natives only. They were not developed and could be easily conquered. So Europeans used that in order to expand their culture into this New World.

They even called the Americas West Indies, because they reached the continent by trying to get to Asia - the East Indies, of which the Philippines were part of...

Old World nations are all ethnic-based. Their cultures have been the same for thousands of years, so the traditional hierarchies are more pronounced. New World nations were started from scratch 500 years ago, by the contact between natives, colonists and immigrants. Capitalism, statehood and liberalism were already flourishing, so the traditional hierarchies themselves never had much of a chance.

Back to Brazil, if you go to a traditional community, you will definitely see some traditional hierarchies there. For example, indians still have elders and warriors on top of their society. Colonies of German and Italian immigrants (and there are tons of those, and also of Japanese, Polish, American immigrants etc) still respect the same social relations their peoples had in the Old World. And lastly, but not less important, communities of run-away African Slaves still have several traditional African cultures and hierarchies. All of this makes less than 2% of the population. The rest of Brazil is composed by a population that was the product of the interaction between Amerind natives, Portuguese/Dutch/French/Spanish colonists (the largest group), African slaves and European/Japanese immigrants; shaped through the last 500 years into the liberal society Brazil is today.

So yes, a rich and young entrepreneur here has much more power and influence than an old Catholic priest, for example...

[Daktoria]

If I put a newly-trained pilot and a pilot with 20 years of combat experience in two aircraft and send them into a dogfight, who do you suppose is most likely to survive?

I don't think you understood my question, 'as to whether someone has (let's say) twenty years experience...or one year's experience, twenty times?'

Is every career a labor intense occupation?

Precisely.

The person with twenty years experience has absorbed twenty years of experience.

The person who has been knocki' around for twenty years but never lerned a thing is the 'rock' of your analogy.

You have just latched onto one bit of my post and persist in both quoting it out of context and failing to understand what I was talking about in the first place.

Quite.

I have openly agreed that it should be 'best person for the job' that determines leadership positions and history is repleat with examples of incredible leaders who had youth on their side, particularly in the military ( ). I merely contend that the fact that experience is no guarantor of ability is neither an excuse to dismiss the value of experience out of hand.

Alright.

It'd be helpful in the future if you distinguished between experience and time.

The value of training and reflection is that it compresses time within a shorter span. Training teaches general techniques which can be applied over a range of scenarios. Field experience, in contrast, only teaches techniques one scenario at a time.

The problem is you haven't shown how to compare experience with training. In labor intense occupations, yes, field experience is vital so people learn to keep their cool and exercise dexterity, but again, all careers are not labor intense.

The other thing about experience is it's biased. People who have more experience do not necessarily have greater potential, but managers will often hold less experienced people back on purpose whether as a tease or out of pride. Some of them are afraid of less experienced people becoming more experienced, more talented, and more competent than groomed proteges or even managers themselves, so it's a careerist defense mechanism.

[CounterChaos]

It'd be helpful in the future if you distinguished between experience and time.

The value of training and reflection is that it compresses time within a shorter span. Training teaches general techniques which can be applied over a range of scenarios. Field experience, in contrast, only teaches techniques one scenario at a time.

The problem is you haven't shown how to compare experience with training. In labor intense occupations, yes, field experience is vital so people learn to keep their cool and exercise dexterity, but again, all careers are not labor intense.

The other thing about experience is it's biased. People who have more experience do not necessarily have greater potential, but managers will often hold less experienced people back on purpose whether as a tease or out of pride. Some of them are afraid of less experienced people becoming more experienced, more talented, and more competent than groomed proteges or even managers themselves, so it's a careerist defense mechanism.

Now, don't use this as an excuse to write two pages about maturity Dak; but, I am beginning to understand why you are hounding about it so much. It is not wise to release individuals into a society unprepared to handle the responsibilities of such. It is far wiser to allow these individuals to fully mature (no matter what the age may eventually be). Lack of maturity in society creates a tremendous amount of difficulties for the smooth running of such. We are discussing hierarchy here and my mind is currently exploring the possibilities of success of a world like the Venus Project. To be successful, I think that it would be of great importance to assure that the individuals that dwell within the society are prepared emotionally as well. Today, when an individual reaches a certain age - we release them into society - were their failures become their teacher. I would surmise that the value of hierarchy not be underestimated if applied for the betterment of society. Hierarchy is a double bladed sword though. If applied with honor and integrity - it is an invaluable asset. If applied with malice of intent - it becomes tyranny. Therefore, I would surmise that in a world like that of the Venus Project (or any society) - hierarchy applied with malice of intent, should have very grave consequences.

[Daktoria]

Chaos, I definitely agree with you.

Handling emotions, though, requires philosophical training first. People have to understand that emotions are fundamentally unconscious and out of our control, so we shouldn't use them for passing judgment.

Likewise, we have to understand that other people do not create our emotions, but we also have to understand that we can trigger each others' emotions. This is both from an offensive and defensive perspective. Psychopathic need to be tuned down, socially anxious need to be tuned up.

It's only after that training can experience be relied upon because without that training, people's experiences even within experiential social institutions will be at risk.

I also agree with what you're saying about honor, but people need to understand that honor is about values, not tradition. Otherwise, we end up with a results-oriented society where people hypercompete to prove their worth from showing off traditional practices by wasting resources and cutting corners.

Emphasizing values before tradition also helps eliminate ageism because it prevents people from being held back just because they're young. It likewise prevents people from being passed through a system just because they're old.

[CounterChaos]

Chaos, I definitely agree with you.

Handling emotions, though, requires philosophical training first. People have to understand that emotions are fundamentally unconscious and out of our control, so we shouldn't use them for passing judgment.

Likewise, we have to understand that other people do not create our emotions, but we also have to understand that we can trigger each others' emotions. This is both from an offensive and defensive perspective. Psychopathic need to be tuned down, socially anxious need to be tuned up.

It's only after that training can experience be relied upon because without that training, people's experiences even within experiential social institutions will be at risk.

I also agree with what you're saying about honor, but people need to understand that honor is about values, not tradition. Otherwise, we end up with a results-oriented society where people hypercompete to prove their worth from showing off traditional practices by wasting resources and cutting corners.

Emphasizing values before tradition also helps eliminate ageism because it prevents people from being held back just because they're young. It likewise prevents people from being passed through a system just because they're old.

A value system is what creates tradition and tradition is what creates honor. Therefore; it is imperative that society has a value system. We are not born honorable - we are born ignorant. Our traditions and values is what influences whether we choose to be honorable or not.

The phrase is in common use in my primary trade - nursing - where experience counts for a great deal in the professional sense. Yet, it is acknowledged that some nurses might have been qualified for twenty years, yet may have never really learned from their experience and therefore be no more effective and competent than a nurse with only a year's experience.

Yes, a case of European verbal irony..................

Old World nations are all ethnic-based. Their cultures have been the same for thousands of years, so the traditional hierarchies are more pronounced. New World nations were started from scratch 500 years ago, by the contact between natives, colonists and immigrants. Capitalism, statehood and liberalism were already flourishing, so the traditional hierarchies themselves never had much of a chance.

This is true for the Philippines as well. So, I think what we have here is a mixture of both - on both sides of the world. It is very rare to find a "pure" Filipino. Chinese/Indians/Americans/Spanish/Japanese it is all mixed here. Chinese culture is very influential here as well as Spanish culture all wrapped up in American culture........ Yet traditional Filipino style hierarchy still exists among them all. Great respect is given to elders.