They're Really After You

There was something fishy in the Formula 1 race yesterday. One team needed their driver to win, but he hasn't won once this season because his team mate is so good. They both share the best car on the grid. So what to do about that? Give the guy who's so good a technical fault so their number two driver can win. That's all well and good, but a fault that means you lose the lead surely means you then fall further back into the field right?

Well, no. He 'somehow' managed to keep going as fast as his team mate. Not really a technical fault then was there?

Of course, it might all be above board but it was a little too prefect for me. Something didn't sit right.

This, combined with a few comments on the social networking site Facebook got me thinking about that glorious chestnut, conspiracy theories.

I don't know how anyone can fail to find them interesting. They merge fact and fiction in such an attractive way. The problem is, people fail to rule out the notion of co-incidence with regard to some of them, like the cult of 23. Try it with another number. 22 if you want, and you'll find ways in which the number 22 seems to be cropping up everywhere. But to see how co-incidence can rule, its 19:35 now, on the 28/11/11. So 28+11+11 = 50. 1+9+3+5 = 18. 50 - 18 = 32. Switch them around and YIKES! Its 23. Spooooky. Or not.

There are the rather tasteless conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11. Not least that it was all propagated by the Bush Administration. Now, I'm not sure how the Bush Administration could fuck everything else up so brilliantly and yet pull off 9/11 the way they did. That doesn't add up to me. If you've ever seen the movie Loose Change, you'll know there are some pretty unexplainable things around that event, and the 'people' want answers.

I want answers too. But I won't jump to the conclusion that it was planned and performed by the government of the United States. I'll wait for all possible explanations to come in, then I'll decide.

For me, its the people that buy into these things that are way more interesting than the theory itself. Which part of the truth isn't weird enough for these people? Why, in the words of Douglas Adams, isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe there are fairies at the bottom of it? Sometimes it iz wot it iz, and no amount of co-inky dinks are going to change that.

I propose that the hardened theorists are simply scared. Scared of the world and the people in it. They then give themselves a license to withdraw from society. They'll say its because they know who's really running it and why, because they know what's going on and we don't, but really its because they haven't the balls to participate in society and make something of it. Its much easier to run away to a cabin and await the apocalypse than to try and build a life for yourself full of meaning.

Furthermore, their stance that they know something you don't, that they're somehow clued in to the 'truth' appears to elevate them to a lofty status. One in which us sheep are the ignorant, and they the enlightened. Sadly, I do talk to someone who believes in a lot of this guff, and he drinks in the same pub as me. So this knowledge has gotten him.....where exactly? Nowhere. He is in the same position as I, having a drink in a pub. He knows something he considers important but doesn't act on it, save for trying to appear like a smart arse in front of everyone. And of course, if you challenge the belief, its like arguing with an environmentalist....you are always wrong, because they are always right. And if you provide evidence to the contrary, its because you're part of the system....man.

I'm all for an entertaining life, but the line between fact, fiction, and pure confirmation bias must be drawn. A mind is a parachute, and works best when its open, but it must also be a finely tuned bullshit detector. Believing a conspiracy theory over anything factual doesn't make you more intelligent. In fact I'd argue it makes you the gullible one.

Do I believe Red Bull fixed the race? To be honest I couldn't care less. I hate the fuckers anyway. The point is I won't let it dictate my life or my attitudes towards other people.

School of Life

I am as guilty of this as the next man. Or at least, I used to be. When I was 16 all my friends decided they were going to bugger off and go to University, leaving me with literally no-one to play with. Of course the ego kicks in defensive, and I declared that University be a waste of time. There was no jobs anyway, I reasoned, so why go and get a degree to end up jobless when you could just be jobless anyway.

A friend of mine at the time, Din, asked if I could understand the notion of simply learning because its good to learn, and one may have a love of the subject. Being young, and stupid, I told him I had no idea what he was on about.

So today, a full half my life on, I find myself at University having to defend myself against exactly the kind of thing I was saying all those years ago. Many people on the social networking site Facebook list as their education 'School of Life'.

This is intended to represent many things. Firstly, that they've seen it and done it. Whatever it is, they've experienced it and have the scars to show. Secondly, it illustrates that they don't need no education, they've learnt enough. GCSE's were a waste of time, they just left school and got on with the business of making money.

The third thing I believe it implies, is that those who have got an education can't possibly know or have experienced as much as they. Let's be clear, there are two schools of skill. There's the practical, and the academic. Sure, some boffin with his face in a book all day would be ill-prepared to fix your plumbing. But I wouldn't trust a plumber to do brain surgery either. Is one better than the other? I'd say not. I'd say each one has its merits and each practitioner should be equally proud of their work.

The other day I posted a humorous Facebook update, and to cut a long story short, I was met with a comment by one of my friends that, as a student, I don't live in the 'real world'. Now I'm not sure which world I live in then, because I assure you if there's a nuclear war I will be affected. If there's a drought or food shortage, I will find myself hungry or thirsty. I pay my bills. I pay my rent. I pay to keep an automobile on the road, no small task these days. When I need food, I have to pay for it. Which part of all this is not living in the real world?

One suspects living in the 'real world' entails getting your hands dirty for a living. But we can't all do that, it just wouldn't work.

Happily, we can attribute this attitude to a wonderful thing called the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognise their errors. They therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own skills as above average.

Basically then, idiots refuse to believe they're wrong about anything because they're incapable of seeing that they're wrong about anything. A vicious circle, and a dangerous one too.

This now has the danger of sounding like snobbery, and claiming that anyone who hasn't been to University is an idiot. Not so. I know many smart people who hold few to no qualifications. They can however, see that self-improvement is a good thing, and following a chosen path is an admirable thing, and supporting your friends with their choices is the best thing.

Da Way I Iz

Its odd isn't it, the way people can justify their actions.

Perhaps its simply the way things are now, and things really were better in 'the good old days', or perhaps its always been this way, and as we grow older we just begin to tire of certain things.

I speak to many people who think everything is more fucked up now than its ever been. I'd question whether their perception is merely selective and not accurate, and influenced by what they want to see rather than what they really see.

External and internal attributions are common. We take credit for the good things that happen to us, and palm off the bad as things out of our control. Often we refer to 'luck' as well, just to back up our claims. We also make the fundamental attribution error, which is to blame other people for their actions when it was external factors that were more likely to motivate or dictate their behaviour.

Somebody may hate men (they're allowed to) because they've been hurt by one or two in the past. In a world of seven billion people, with just over half of them being men, I'd consider it a trifle unfair to judge every member of a gender on the actions of one or two of them. Yet this seems quite plausible to some.

What's gotten stuck in my craw though, is this notion of "Its just the way I am", and then any excuse that follows it. There's those that expect you to excuse their actions because that's just them.

Well...no. Actually. No I won't.

I used to work with a girl who claimed no-one should talk to her before 10 AM, as she hadn't woken up by then. If you did, it was like she had a license to bite your head off with her piss poor attitude. Her excuse was always the same, she'd say "You know I'm tired and cranky before 10".

Immediately, she'd turned the blame on to me for having the audacity to attempt communication before the sun reaches a certain point in the sky. She could get to bed earlier and give her body the required amount of rest. She could attempt to swallow her fatigue and just deal with a brief exchange of information through gritted teeth, since the workplace contains many examples of doing things you just would rather not do. Instead, she chose to just say its the way she is, and everyone else has to work around her and deal with it.

The arrogance of "Its just the way I am" is lost on many.

You may well be that way, but any reluctance to try and improve that part of yourself others find disagreeable, is simply ignorance and ego on your part. Why bother trying to be a better person, when really the whole world should just learn to accept you and your faults, right? Know me, know my ways? If the rest of seven billion idiots could just realise the way you are, the world would be a better place then?

Its common that those who believe the world to suck are often guilty of this kind of social ineptitude. Which again makes me believe its a perceptual problem rather than any real one grounded in reality.

We do have our own little ways, and they're what make each one of us each one of us. Admitting however, that perhaps everything isn't perfect with us is a step we should all take. If we then wish to attempt change for the better that's admirable. If we don't, perhaps it would be wise to not just expect everyone else to fall in line with our moods, attitudes and beliefs.