Scott Adams's Blog, page 362
April 20, 2011
Defending Gwyneth Paltrow
In today's post I will defend the honor of Gwyneth Paltrow. This week she got some heat for saying in an interview for Popeater that "Everything in my life that's good is because I worked my ass off to get it and to maintain it."
Who has a problem with that? An ambitious writer named Keli Goff does. In a lengthy article in The Huffington Post she accuses Gwyneth of "gloating" and says this is part of the bigger problem of an "attitude of entitlement" by those born rich and advantaged. The Huffington Post thought Goff's point of view was worthy of a lot of real estate online. And because the story involves a celebrity, it got picked up by other sites and bounced all over the Internet.
As my regular readers know, I recently learned that there is an unwritten rule to the effect that celebrities should not defend themselves in the media, even against unfair, false, libelous, and career-ending claims. If a celebrity is foolish enough to try, it is seen as "digging deeper." The media likes to keep a controversy alive, so anything said in defense will be taken out of context and it will indeed make things worse. Gwyneth just found this out too. Her statement that she works hard was in the context of answering a question about the nasty criticism she's been getting lately. She did in fact dig herself deeper. And if she takes another run at it, things will only get worse.
Luckily, for Gwyneth, I'm here to help. I bring to this fight one major advantage: I am not Gwyneth Paltrow. Nor do I have any connection to her. And I hereby offer my Internet Reputation Defense services to any other celebrity who gets the hatchet treatment from the lower rung of the media. Gwyneth will be my first case. If she still has a career when I'm done helping her, I hope to get more unpaid clients.
Let's start with some background that you need to understand about the writing industry. It's a hard field to break into. Newspapers are struggling. Magazines are shrinking. Publishers would rather sell a poorly written book from a well-known author than a masterpiece from someone new. The Internet is so vast that it's hard to get noticed. What's an ambitious writer to do?
If you're both ambitious and unscrupulous, there's a simple formula for getting attention. It goes like this:
1. Pick a hot social theme that's on everyone's mind.
2. Find a celebrity to tie to the theme.
3. Take the celebrity's words out of context to link him/her to the larger theme.
4. Write some celebrity career-snuff-porn disguised as social commentary.
5. Offer your piece for free to The Huffington Post or other blogger-friendly sites.
6. Use the exposure puff up your credentials.
You could call this writing technique "putting a face on an issue." Let's see how Keli Goff did it. You can start by looking at her background on her web site. She's evidently talented and has had some success. Someday she might be a household name. But at this point in her career she needs to fatten up her credentials to take the next leap.
To start, she needed a hot social theme to plug into the formula. In this case she cleverly picked class friction between the rich and the poor. The budget debate has put a spotlight on that issue. It's the perfect theme for the times. Now she needs to put a face on it. But who?
The obvious choice might be a fat cat billionaire. But most of them are not interesting enough to bring sparkle to a story. Worse yet, billionaires might have the means and the meanness to retaliate. If you're a writer just starting out, you don't want to piss off someone who golfs with publishing tycoons. That's burning your bridges before you even cross them.
Then Goff's radar picked up Gwyneth's interview for Popeater. It wasn't a perfect fit, but with some creative writing, Goff realized this could work. For step one, Goff equated Gwyneth's quote about working hard to "gloating." If you read it quickly, as most people will, you don't notice this sleight of hand. You're predisposed to think celebrities have oversized egos and surely must gloat, so you don't notice that the evidence doesn't match the conclusion. It's not even close. In your wildest imagination, speaking of your own hard work is not similar to gloating. But Goff somehow connects those dots.
Now that Goff has established Gwyneth as a damned gloater, any other charge against her is likely to stick. The reader has been primed. Is Gwyneth also a serial puppy choker? It would seem likely, given her gloating ways.
Next, it's time for Goff to manage the context in a way that makes her case more compelling. Goff notes that Gwyneth credits her work ethic for her success as if it didn't matter that she had famous Hollywood parents and her "uncle" is Steven Spielberg. To Goff, that means Gwyneth is "...under the delusion that she earned everything that she has..." Ouch.
Here's some context that Goff could have mentioned: When people talk, they normally leave out the obvious. If people didn't leave out the obvious, no conversation would ever end. In addition to Gwyneth leaving out the part about her well-known past, she also failed to mention that she's beautiful and talented. She didn't even mention that she is alive, which is totally an advantage. I can think of quite a few advantages Gwyneth didn't mention. Does that mean she's not aware of them? I'm almost positive she knows who Steven Spielberg is. Her background is known by anyone who might read an interview on Popeater. In that context, leaving it out makes sense. When Goff moves the context to the Huffington Post, where readers are far less likely to know celebrity minutia, it looks like a grievous omission.
It's worth noting, in the interest of context, that Goff was born with a few advantages herself. She's beautiful, smart, and apparently had the resources she needed to make it through NYU and go on to get her Master's Degree at Columbia University. If you ask Goff what made her successful, would she credit her hard work and leave out her other obvious advantages? Or would she answer honestly and say, "I worked hard for what I've achieved, but it didn't hurt that I'm a brilliant, smoking-hot African-American woman in 2011." I'm just saying that people don't generally talk about their advantages. To do so would be...wait for it...gloating.
We demand that our celebrities be role models. Isn't it better if they say in interviews that hard work is the main key to success? Or would we be happier with Gwyneth if she said something more along the lines of "Honestly, if I didn't have connections I'd be a crack whore right now."
Here's some more context: What percentage of well-connected children of Hollywood power couples go on to win Academy Awards and then transition into music careers without hard work? I can think of a dozen or so kids of famous actors who went on to do great things, but don't 95% of them fail to reach the standard of their famous parents? Hard work probably counts for something.
I think Keli Goff has a bright future ahead of her. I just hope she stops saying that children should not work hard to get ahead. (See what I did right there?)
Who has a problem with that? An ambitious writer named Keli Goff does. In a lengthy article in The Huffington Post she accuses Gwyneth of "gloating" and says this is part of the bigger problem of an "attitude of entitlement" by those born rich and advantaged. The Huffington Post thought Goff's point of view was worthy of a lot of real estate online. And because the story involves a celebrity, it got picked up by other sites and bounced all over the Internet.
As my regular readers know, I recently learned that there is an unwritten rule to the effect that celebrities should not defend themselves in the media, even against unfair, false, libelous, and career-ending claims. If a celebrity is foolish enough to try, it is seen as "digging deeper." The media likes to keep a controversy alive, so anything said in defense will be taken out of context and it will indeed make things worse. Gwyneth just found this out too. Her statement that she works hard was in the context of answering a question about the nasty criticism she's been getting lately. She did in fact dig herself deeper. And if she takes another run at it, things will only get worse.
Luckily, for Gwyneth, I'm here to help. I bring to this fight one major advantage: I am not Gwyneth Paltrow. Nor do I have any connection to her. And I hereby offer my Internet Reputation Defense services to any other celebrity who gets the hatchet treatment from the lower rung of the media. Gwyneth will be my first case. If she still has a career when I'm done helping her, I hope to get more unpaid clients.
Let's start with some background that you need to understand about the writing industry. It's a hard field to break into. Newspapers are struggling. Magazines are shrinking. Publishers would rather sell a poorly written book from a well-known author than a masterpiece from someone new. The Internet is so vast that it's hard to get noticed. What's an ambitious writer to do?
If you're both ambitious and unscrupulous, there's a simple formula for getting attention. It goes like this:
1. Pick a hot social theme that's on everyone's mind.
2. Find a celebrity to tie to the theme.
3. Take the celebrity's words out of context to link him/her to the larger theme.
4. Write some celebrity career-snuff-porn disguised as social commentary.
5. Offer your piece for free to The Huffington Post or other blogger-friendly sites.
6. Use the exposure puff up your credentials.
You could call this writing technique "putting a face on an issue." Let's see how Keli Goff did it. You can start by looking at her background on her web site. She's evidently talented and has had some success. Someday she might be a household name. But at this point in her career she needs to fatten up her credentials to take the next leap.
To start, she needed a hot social theme to plug into the formula. In this case she cleverly picked class friction between the rich and the poor. The budget debate has put a spotlight on that issue. It's the perfect theme for the times. Now she needs to put a face on it. But who?
The obvious choice might be a fat cat billionaire. But most of them are not interesting enough to bring sparkle to a story. Worse yet, billionaires might have the means and the meanness to retaliate. If you're a writer just starting out, you don't want to piss off someone who golfs with publishing tycoons. That's burning your bridges before you even cross them.
Then Goff's radar picked up Gwyneth's interview for Popeater. It wasn't a perfect fit, but with some creative writing, Goff realized this could work. For step one, Goff equated Gwyneth's quote about working hard to "gloating." If you read it quickly, as most people will, you don't notice this sleight of hand. You're predisposed to think celebrities have oversized egos and surely must gloat, so you don't notice that the evidence doesn't match the conclusion. It's not even close. In your wildest imagination, speaking of your own hard work is not similar to gloating. But Goff somehow connects those dots.
Now that Goff has established Gwyneth as a damned gloater, any other charge against her is likely to stick. The reader has been primed. Is Gwyneth also a serial puppy choker? It would seem likely, given her gloating ways.
Next, it's time for Goff to manage the context in a way that makes her case more compelling. Goff notes that Gwyneth credits her work ethic for her success as if it didn't matter that she had famous Hollywood parents and her "uncle" is Steven Spielberg. To Goff, that means Gwyneth is "...under the delusion that she earned everything that she has..." Ouch.
Here's some context that Goff could have mentioned: When people talk, they normally leave out the obvious. If people didn't leave out the obvious, no conversation would ever end. In addition to Gwyneth leaving out the part about her well-known past, she also failed to mention that she's beautiful and talented. She didn't even mention that she is alive, which is totally an advantage. I can think of quite a few advantages Gwyneth didn't mention. Does that mean she's not aware of them? I'm almost positive she knows who Steven Spielberg is. Her background is known by anyone who might read an interview on Popeater. In that context, leaving it out makes sense. When Goff moves the context to the Huffington Post, where readers are far less likely to know celebrity minutia, it looks like a grievous omission.
It's worth noting, in the interest of context, that Goff was born with a few advantages herself. She's beautiful, smart, and apparently had the resources she needed to make it through NYU and go on to get her Master's Degree at Columbia University. If you ask Goff what made her successful, would she credit her hard work and leave out her other obvious advantages? Or would she answer honestly and say, "I worked hard for what I've achieved, but it didn't hurt that I'm a brilliant, smoking-hot African-American woman in 2011." I'm just saying that people don't generally talk about their advantages. To do so would be...wait for it...gloating.
We demand that our celebrities be role models. Isn't it better if they say in interviews that hard work is the main key to success? Or would we be happier with Gwyneth if she said something more along the lines of "Honestly, if I didn't have connections I'd be a crack whore right now."
Here's some more context: What percentage of well-connected children of Hollywood power couples go on to win Academy Awards and then transition into music careers without hard work? I can think of a dozen or so kids of famous actors who went on to do great things, but don't 95% of them fail to reach the standard of their famous parents? Hard work probably counts for something.
I think Keli Goff has a bright future ahead of her. I just hope she stops saying that children should not work hard to get ahead. (See what I did right there?)
April 19, 2011
Donald Trump: Magnificent Bastard
It has come to my attention that there are still a few people in the world that I have not offended. I'd like to fix that by endorsing Donald Trump for president. But not for the reasons you might think.
This morning I read a news item saying that some folks at NBC think Trump might be pretending to run for president to boost ratings. The story noted that ratings for his TV show are up 20% lately. I laughed out loud because sometimes I forget that at least half the country doesn't realize he's just screwing with the media.
The magnificent part of this whole thing is that he's putting no effort whatsoever into concealing his prank. That's what I love about the guy. He knows that no level of clownery in a field of clowns will single him out as the one clown that doesn't really mean it.
Take Trump's recent empathy with the so-called birthers. That's the most brilliant part of his plan. It's a dead giveaway that he's just screwing with the media, and it has the added benefit of concentrating most of their attention on that one trivial issue. He doesn't even need to study up on the other issues. While Romney is writing position papers, Trump is golfing.
If you are not a student of practical jokes, you might not know they have a specific formula. A proper practical joke is more than a surprise or a lie. The magic part of the prank formula involves leaving enormous clues that are obvious to everyone but the target of the prank.
For example, if you have a coworker who likes to whistle little tunes in his cubicle, his blind spot is that he imagines other people are impressed and delighted by his whistling prowess. You could use that blind spot to engineer your prank. For example, you might have a friend call this fellow at work, pretending to be the director of the local symphony. Your co-conspirator could say the symphony is looking for an accomplished whistler to do a solo when the President of the United States' is in town next month. The payoff is getting the whistler to show up at the local symphony and ask the receptionist where he should go for the whistling audition.
The thing that makes the prank work is that no one in the solar system, except for the whistler, would find this scenario credible. He alone could imagine that word of his whistling talents have started to get around town. And he alone would imagine that the President of the United States would want to hear his whistling solo.
Back to Trump. He's a graduate of the Wharton School, which means his intelligence is in the genius range. He's a world-renowned businessman with attention to details. He's also famous for a trademark form of self-parody that has boosted his brand for decades. There isn't the slightest chance that this man hasn't looked at the birther evidence. He knows the President of the United States is American. That's the hiding in plain sight part of this prank. It isn't the least bit credible that Trump thinks the birther issue is real.
Some of you are thinking he's gone too far with the joke. Or maybe he went too far when he said we should take Iraq's oil by force as payment for a war they didn't ask for. This is not a man who thinks he might someday debate serious politicians in a public forum. This is a man who is winking at the camera and daring you to see the obvious.
Normally I wouldn't call out a prankster while the prank is in play. But this is a special case because the people who think he's serious have made up their minds. In order for them to accept that this is a prank, they'd have to accept that they can't tell the difference between a real candidate and one who is yanking their chains. Brains are not wired for that sort of 180 turn. In the history of humankind, no one has ever said, "I thought I was a brilliant observer of politics but this new information proves that my brain is the size of a tiny mouse turd." Trump's prank literally can't be exposed by anyone but him.
Trump is smart enough to never admit that his presidential aspirations are no more than marketing. To admit the trick would damage his brand. But he has no need to ever expose the prank. Trump, the magnificent bastard, has figured out a way to have his cake and eat it too. The people who are in on the joke find it entertaining. The people who will never know it's a joke have raised their opinion of him so much that he's the leading Republican presidential contender. And his TV ratings are up, so from a marketing standpoint it's working.
Granted, many people are turned off by Trump's pomposity. He knows that. But he also knows that success doesn't come from bland acceptance by the entire world. It comes from the ability to inspire the few. He's nailing that part. I just spent my morning writing about him.
The other genius part of his marketing is that he knows people are influenced by repetition more than reason. The attention he gets for his alleged presidential ambitions allow him to tell you over and over again that all things Trump are amazing. That part of the plan is working too.
Wink.
This morning I read a news item saying that some folks at NBC think Trump might be pretending to run for president to boost ratings. The story noted that ratings for his TV show are up 20% lately. I laughed out loud because sometimes I forget that at least half the country doesn't realize he's just screwing with the media.
The magnificent part of this whole thing is that he's putting no effort whatsoever into concealing his prank. That's what I love about the guy. He knows that no level of clownery in a field of clowns will single him out as the one clown that doesn't really mean it.
Take Trump's recent empathy with the so-called birthers. That's the most brilliant part of his plan. It's a dead giveaway that he's just screwing with the media, and it has the added benefit of concentrating most of their attention on that one trivial issue. He doesn't even need to study up on the other issues. While Romney is writing position papers, Trump is golfing.
If you are not a student of practical jokes, you might not know they have a specific formula. A proper practical joke is more than a surprise or a lie. The magic part of the prank formula involves leaving enormous clues that are obvious to everyone but the target of the prank.
For example, if you have a coworker who likes to whistle little tunes in his cubicle, his blind spot is that he imagines other people are impressed and delighted by his whistling prowess. You could use that blind spot to engineer your prank. For example, you might have a friend call this fellow at work, pretending to be the director of the local symphony. Your co-conspirator could say the symphony is looking for an accomplished whistler to do a solo when the President of the United States' is in town next month. The payoff is getting the whistler to show up at the local symphony and ask the receptionist where he should go for the whistling audition.
The thing that makes the prank work is that no one in the solar system, except for the whistler, would find this scenario credible. He alone could imagine that word of his whistling talents have started to get around town. And he alone would imagine that the President of the United States would want to hear his whistling solo.
Back to Trump. He's a graduate of the Wharton School, which means his intelligence is in the genius range. He's a world-renowned businessman with attention to details. He's also famous for a trademark form of self-parody that has boosted his brand for decades. There isn't the slightest chance that this man hasn't looked at the birther evidence. He knows the President of the United States is American. That's the hiding in plain sight part of this prank. It isn't the least bit credible that Trump thinks the birther issue is real.
Some of you are thinking he's gone too far with the joke. Or maybe he went too far when he said we should take Iraq's oil by force as payment for a war they didn't ask for. This is not a man who thinks he might someday debate serious politicians in a public forum. This is a man who is winking at the camera and daring you to see the obvious.
Normally I wouldn't call out a prankster while the prank is in play. But this is a special case because the people who think he's serious have made up their minds. In order for them to accept that this is a prank, they'd have to accept that they can't tell the difference between a real candidate and one who is yanking their chains. Brains are not wired for that sort of 180 turn. In the history of humankind, no one has ever said, "I thought I was a brilliant observer of politics but this new information proves that my brain is the size of a tiny mouse turd." Trump's prank literally can't be exposed by anyone but him.
Trump is smart enough to never admit that his presidential aspirations are no more than marketing. To admit the trick would damage his brand. But he has no need to ever expose the prank. Trump, the magnificent bastard, has figured out a way to have his cake and eat it too. The people who are in on the joke find it entertaining. The people who will never know it's a joke have raised their opinion of him so much that he's the leading Republican presidential contender. And his TV ratings are up, so from a marketing standpoint it's working.
Granted, many people are turned off by Trump's pomposity. He knows that. But he also knows that success doesn't come from bland acceptance by the entire world. It comes from the ability to inspire the few. He's nailing that part. I just spent my morning writing about him.
The other genius part of his marketing is that he knows people are influenced by repetition more than reason. The attention he gets for his alleged presidential ambitions allow him to tell you over and over again that all things Trump are amazing. That part of the plan is working too.
Wink.
April 17, 2011
Planned Chaos
Did you see the reports of my scandalous behavior on the Internet? The headlines say "Scott Adams Caught Defending Himself Anonymously on Metafilter!" The stories go on to explain that I was posting under the name PlannedChaos and pretending to be the only person in the world who doesn't hate me. According to the wise and fair denizens of the Internet, this behavior is proof that I am a thin-skinned, troll, asshole, dick, fame-whore, ego maniac, douche nozzle, misogynist. That list might sound bad to you, but keep in mind that I was starting from a pretty low base, so I think my reputation is trending up.
You might have questions about this story. So I asked my Internet alter-ego, PlannedChaos, to interview me and get to the bottom of it.
PlannedChaos: Mr. Adams, do you mind if I call you Douche Nozzle?
Scott: This interview is over! You really are a dick!
Let's try this the old-fashioned way. I'll give you all of the facts about this scandal, and some proper context, and you can assume every word of it is bullshit. And that leads me to my first point about context: As a general rule, you can't trust anyone who has a conflict of interest. Conflict of interest is like a prison that locks in both the truth and the lies. One workaround for that problem is to change the messenger. That's where an alias comes in handy. When you remove the appearance of conflict of interest, it allows others to listen to the evidence without judging.
Obviously an alias can be used for evil just as easily as it can be used to clear up simple factual matters. A hammer can be used to build a porch or it can be used to crush your neighbor's skull. Don't hate the tool.
The next thing to consider is that in my line of work, some types of rumors can cause economic damage to hundreds of people in the so-called value chain. The stakes are high. I know from experience that when a rumor flares up that says, for example, I'm affiliated with one particular interest group or another, the people who hate that group will stop reading Dilbert comics. And they will aggressively warn everyone who will listen to do the same. This was a small problem in the pre-Internet age. Today, a rumor will send an army of advocates to vote down your products on Amazon.com and defame you on every blog and web site that allows comments. It happens in hours, not days.
This week for example, I'm the target of Men's Rights advocates, Feminists, and one bearded taint who is leading an anti-creationist movement. What do those folks have in common? In each case they are using the same strategy. They take out of context something I've written, present it to the lazy Internet media who doesn't check context, and use it to demonize me to gain publicity for their respective causes. That's how advocates get free publicity. They find a celebrity to target.
The same thing is happening today with a Republican official who emailed some friends a humorous photo of President Obama's face on a chimp and a punch line about his birth certificate. If your only context is what the Internet says about this story, you assume it's a typical racist act by a Republican who is already guilty by association. But if I add the context that Googling "George Bush monkey" gives you over 3 million hits, and most of them are jokes where President Bush's face is transposed on a monkey, you see what's really going on. Democrats and advocates of civil rights are using the media to further an agenda at the expense of a woman who was probably so non-racist that the photo in question didn't set off her alarms as being a career-ending risk.
In my book The Dilbert Future, published in 1997, I predicted that in the future the media would start killing celebrities to generate demand for their so-called news. That seemed like a stretch when the worst part of the media was the tabloids. Now the Internet has given media power to the likes of Gawker, Metafilter, and any other cesspool with an IP address. When the low end of the media conspired with unscrupulous advocates to label the aforementioned Republican woman a racist, they probably killed her career, and they might end up killing her too.
There's no sheriff on the Internet. It's like the Wild West. So for the past ten years or so I've handled things in the masked vigilante-style whenever the economic stakes are high and there's a rumor that needs managing. Usually I do it for reasons of safety or economics, but sometimes it's just because I don't like sadists and bullies.
Some time ago, I learned the hard way that posting messages with my own identity turns any discussion into an orgy of name-calling. When I'm personally involved, people speculate that I'm being defensive, or back pedaling, or being a douche nozzle, or trying to weasel my way out of something. Speaking with my true identity also draws too much attention to the very rumors I'm trying to extinguish. In contrast, when my spunky alter ego weighs in, people generally focus on the facts presented, including checking the source material to see my writing in context. The masked vigilante strategy worked well until recently. And I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun.
Most of the inaccurate information about me on the Internet is harmless. And negative opinions about the quality of my work are always legitimate. The trouble starts when advocates for one cause or another use me as a whipping boy to promote their agendas. As I mentioned, the way that works is that they take out of context something I've written, paraphrase it incorrectly, and market me as a perfect example of the thought-criminal that they've been warning everyone about. I don't think any of this is an organized conspiracy. I think it's a combination of zealotry, bad reading comprehension, opportunism, and some herd behavior.
[If you're new to this, the paragraph above is the part that will be taken out of context and paraphrased to show that I'm paranoid and delusional, claiming that organized groups are out to get me.]
The best example of the rumor problem involves the topic of evolution. I've often stated publicly that evolution meets the scientific standard of "fact." But when I write an article or a comic on any unrelated topic that sparks discussion on other sites, a commenter suspiciously appears each time to say, "Adams has no credibility because he doesn't believe in evolution." Dilbert readers don't expect all of their opinions to line up with mine, but evolution is probably the hottest of hot buttons for the technology crowd. If you're rumored to be anti-science, you're dead to them, and so is your product. That's a rumor with economic consequences.
If you wonder how the evolution rumor started, it's partly because I made the following argument: The evidence for evolution, by its nature, seems fishy to the average non-scientist independent of the underlying truth. That's a statement about human perceptions, not the objective reality of the theory. The suggestion here is that if scientists could do a better job of packaging the evidence for evolution it might help convert the doubters. Malevolent posters often quote me out of context as saying, "The evidence for evolution smells like bullshit." Out of context it means nearly the opposite of what it means within context.
I've also famously predicted that the theory of evolution will be debunked in my lifetime. That sounds like crazy Creationist talk, and a direct contradiction to my statement that evolution is a scientific fact. The context for that prediction is the notion that a future Einstein might someday demonstrate that our common sense understanding of the passage of time is flawed. If that happens, every part of our observed reality will be debunked, sort of. Instead of focusing on evolution, I could have predicted that the history of your daily commute to work will be debunked. It's the same point but less catchy.
By now you are probably thinking that my prediction has nearly zero chance of being right. I'll let you in on an industry secret: You're correct. You know all of those books on the market that predict various economic bubbles, social upheavals, and disasters of all kinds? Most of those authors don't believe their predictions are likely to pan out. They're making calculated bets that in the unlikely event they guessed right, they will become famous. That's worth a fortune in future speaking gigs and book deals.
My contrarian prediction about evolution being debunked in my lifetime was the same sort of bet. It's unlikely that I'll be right. But if I get lucky, I'll be the one person who predicted it. And because of the "in my lifetime" condition, I can't be wrong until I'm too dead to care. This is the sort of thing I do that really, really, really pisses off some people, especially the anti-creationist bearded taint guy.
Keep in mind that Einstein debunked humanity's common sense understanding of gravity, and no one saw that coming. Your great grandfather probably thought the planet was exerting an invisible sucking force called gravity to keep him from floating away. But Einstein figured out that mass curves spacetime. That sounds different than an invisible sucking force. I'm just saying anything can happen.
Let's take a moment to call back the discussion of how the messenger changes the message. A large number of you are reading my explanation of the evolution rumor and dismissing it as my pathetic attempt at revisionist history. I'm back pedaling! I got caught being a moron and now I'm trying to save face!
See how this works? The messenger with a strong self-interest is automatically non-credible, and should be. There are some types of information that can only be communicated by an unbiased messenger. And the most unbiased messenger in the world is one that is imaginary, such as my invisible friend, PlannedChaos. Speaking of him, let's get back to my interview to mop up some lingering questions.
PlannedChaos: Isn't it fundamentally dishonest, and therefore immoral, to debate under an assumed name?
Scott: Yes. On the scale of immoral behavior, where genocide is at the top, and wearing Spanx is near the bottom, posting comments under an alias to clear up harmful misconceptions is about one level worse than Spanx.
PlannedChaos: Are you saying the ends justify the means?
Scott: Yes, sometimes. The types of people who act solely on principle are the ones who burn Korans and wonder why something went wrong.
PlannedChaos: How do we know this whole scheme isn't a Dogbertian prank. You have a dark history of doing exactly this sort of thing.
Scott: There's no way for you to know if it's a prank. The only person who knows the answer to that question is me, and I'm not credible. But for the record, my non-credible answer is that the entertainment value of this endeavor was only a side benefit. With that said, I have to confess that giving verbal wedgies to people who desperately deserve them, in a public forum, is a lot more fun than you imagine.
PlannedChaos: Didn't you once wear a professional disguise, including a wig and mustache, and pass yourself off as a famous consultant named Ray Mebert?
Scott: Yes, several years ago at Logitech's meeting of top management. I led them through a Mission Statement workshop that I manipulated to create the world's worst Mission Statement. The president of Logitech was in on the prank, and the San Jose Mercury sponsored the whole thing.
PlannedChaos: So you've been a douche for quite some time?
Scott: Apparently.
PlannedChaos: Are you a fame whore?
Scott: Yes, but I have ambitions to become a high-priced fame prostitute. In my job, fame is just one of the tools. The main reason you've heard of Dilbert is that I'm a tireless self-promoter and I've been able to work with some of the best PR professionals in the industry. (I'm off the leash at the moment. You might have noticed.)
PlannedChaos: Are you just a troll?
Scott: If I understand the term, trolling involves off-topic comments with no purpose other than to get people worked up. My main purpose is generally to add context to the stuff that trolls and issue advocates have posted online about me. My primary motivation is economic as opposed to evil. But I do have a twitchy trigger finger when I run into sadists and bullies online. So while I generally enter an online conversation with the intent of suppressing damaging misunderstandings, I've been known to empty my clip once I'm there. I'm not proud of that. I'm also not proud that my personal hero is the bigger kid in this video. I'll own that.
PlannedChaos: I called you a genius on Metafilter. Is that proof that you are an ego-maniac?
Scott: No, that is not proof. But as circumstantial evidence goes, it's pretty good. The proof that I'm an ego-maniac is that I'm interviewing myself in my own blog. I don't think I can be any clearer on that point.
I will add some context though. Keep in mind that creating the hapless Dilbert character largely in my own image launched a twenty year career of daily self-deprecation. Likewise, about half of what I write outside of the comic is unambiguously self-deprecating. I'm a short, near-sighted, bald, over-the-hill guy with a bad sense of direction and an astonishing lack of competence at 99% of life's challenges. It is also objectively true that I sometimes have good days. That last part is a thing called arrogance.
Another bit of context is that most of what I write outside of the comic is meant to be entertainment for a certain type of reader who likes to be exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints no matter how ridiculous. With the blog in particular, the explicit model is that I write down whatever dumbass theory pops into my head and try to sell it as God's final word. Then my readers shred it in the comment section, or sometimes say it's an old idea that's already been done. Taken out of context, many of my blog posts and even my Wall Street Journal articles would look like the crazy rantings of a guy who thinks he has all the answers to fix the entire world. At best, that's only half true.
And the last piece of context is that I created you, PlannedChaos, specifically to say things that are relevant to the debate but would be grossly inappropriate for me to say about myself. By analogy, if critics of President Obama start calling him stupid, it wouldn't be appropriate for him to whip out his SAT scores. But if one of his spokespeople reminds the public that the President has a law degree from Harvard, which by any objective measure puts him in the genius category, that's a legitimate response. Context is everything.
PlannedChaos: Are you going to go full-Sheen or is this mental breakdown more of a temporary thing that you can fix with rehab?
Scott: No promises, but I think I'll be okay if I lay off the crack pipe for a few days.
PlannedChaos: Why wouldn't it be better to just defend yourself online using your real name?
Scott: You're not a good listener. Watch what happens now that I have. Every part of this post will be taken out of context and twisted to its opposite meaning.
PlannedChaos: Are you going to smugly claim that you orchestrated everything that happened, including getting caught, and it is all part of your oh-so-clever plan? You do that sometimes.
Scott: Not this time. My plan came off the rails when I learned the hard way that Metafilter doesn't have a privacy policy. I assumed, incorrectly, that the worst thing that would happen is that I'd correct some rumors online, amuse myself, and get discreetly booted off the system by the administrators. Instead, the moderators acted on a tip, probably because I left bread crumbs in my comments the size of tractors, snooped into my not-so-private sign-up information, and threatened to make my identity public unless I did so myself. On the scale of immoral behavior, I think everyone involved scored about the same that day, unless one of us was also wearing Spanx. And if the moderators of Metafilter think the ends justified the means, for business or other purposes, I support that choice.
PlannedChaos: What's the point of trying to correct inaccurate rumors online when you often say no one is persuaded by new information?
Scott: That's a brilliant question. Are you a genius?
PlannedChaos: Just having a good day.
Scott: Rarely is anyone persuaded by new information once a strong opinion has been formed. But I like to think that some people haven't yet formed opinions on the question of whether I am a Holocaust Denier, to pick just one example. That's an actual rumor floating around the Internet. I hope to influence the undecided.
The second benefit of joining a debate that I might prefer had never happened is that once inside I can shift the conversation from something awful to something less so. We humans are wired to think that the most important fact is the one that gets repeated and discussed the most. This scandal started when I went to Metafilter to kill the rumor that I'm anti-science. But after I stirred up things, what are people discussing most often now?
PlannedChaos: They're mostly appalled that you invented a fake identity to call yourself a genius.
Scott: Wait for it...
PlannedChaos: Damn it! You're doing it again! You arrogant bastard!
You might have questions about this story. So I asked my Internet alter-ego, PlannedChaos, to interview me and get to the bottom of it.
PlannedChaos: Mr. Adams, do you mind if I call you Douche Nozzle?
Scott: This interview is over! You really are a dick!
Let's try this the old-fashioned way. I'll give you all of the facts about this scandal, and some proper context, and you can assume every word of it is bullshit. And that leads me to my first point about context: As a general rule, you can't trust anyone who has a conflict of interest. Conflict of interest is like a prison that locks in both the truth and the lies. One workaround for that problem is to change the messenger. That's where an alias comes in handy. When you remove the appearance of conflict of interest, it allows others to listen to the evidence without judging.
Obviously an alias can be used for evil just as easily as it can be used to clear up simple factual matters. A hammer can be used to build a porch or it can be used to crush your neighbor's skull. Don't hate the tool.
The next thing to consider is that in my line of work, some types of rumors can cause economic damage to hundreds of people in the so-called value chain. The stakes are high. I know from experience that when a rumor flares up that says, for example, I'm affiliated with one particular interest group or another, the people who hate that group will stop reading Dilbert comics. And they will aggressively warn everyone who will listen to do the same. This was a small problem in the pre-Internet age. Today, a rumor will send an army of advocates to vote down your products on Amazon.com and defame you on every blog and web site that allows comments. It happens in hours, not days.
This week for example, I'm the target of Men's Rights advocates, Feminists, and one bearded taint who is leading an anti-creationist movement. What do those folks have in common? In each case they are using the same strategy. They take out of context something I've written, present it to the lazy Internet media who doesn't check context, and use it to demonize me to gain publicity for their respective causes. That's how advocates get free publicity. They find a celebrity to target.
The same thing is happening today with a Republican official who emailed some friends a humorous photo of President Obama's face on a chimp and a punch line about his birth certificate. If your only context is what the Internet says about this story, you assume it's a typical racist act by a Republican who is already guilty by association. But if I add the context that Googling "George Bush monkey" gives you over 3 million hits, and most of them are jokes where President Bush's face is transposed on a monkey, you see what's really going on. Democrats and advocates of civil rights are using the media to further an agenda at the expense of a woman who was probably so non-racist that the photo in question didn't set off her alarms as being a career-ending risk.
In my book The Dilbert Future, published in 1997, I predicted that in the future the media would start killing celebrities to generate demand for their so-called news. That seemed like a stretch when the worst part of the media was the tabloids. Now the Internet has given media power to the likes of Gawker, Metafilter, and any other cesspool with an IP address. When the low end of the media conspired with unscrupulous advocates to label the aforementioned Republican woman a racist, they probably killed her career, and they might end up killing her too.
There's no sheriff on the Internet. It's like the Wild West. So for the past ten years or so I've handled things in the masked vigilante-style whenever the economic stakes are high and there's a rumor that needs managing. Usually I do it for reasons of safety or economics, but sometimes it's just because I don't like sadists and bullies.
Some time ago, I learned the hard way that posting messages with my own identity turns any discussion into an orgy of name-calling. When I'm personally involved, people speculate that I'm being defensive, or back pedaling, or being a douche nozzle, or trying to weasel my way out of something. Speaking with my true identity also draws too much attention to the very rumors I'm trying to extinguish. In contrast, when my spunky alter ego weighs in, people generally focus on the facts presented, including checking the source material to see my writing in context. The masked vigilante strategy worked well until recently. And I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun.
Most of the inaccurate information about me on the Internet is harmless. And negative opinions about the quality of my work are always legitimate. The trouble starts when advocates for one cause or another use me as a whipping boy to promote their agendas. As I mentioned, the way that works is that they take out of context something I've written, paraphrase it incorrectly, and market me as a perfect example of the thought-criminal that they've been warning everyone about. I don't think any of this is an organized conspiracy. I think it's a combination of zealotry, bad reading comprehension, opportunism, and some herd behavior.
[If you're new to this, the paragraph above is the part that will be taken out of context and paraphrased to show that I'm paranoid and delusional, claiming that organized groups are out to get me.]
The best example of the rumor problem involves the topic of evolution. I've often stated publicly that evolution meets the scientific standard of "fact." But when I write an article or a comic on any unrelated topic that sparks discussion on other sites, a commenter suspiciously appears each time to say, "Adams has no credibility because he doesn't believe in evolution." Dilbert readers don't expect all of their opinions to line up with mine, but evolution is probably the hottest of hot buttons for the technology crowd. If you're rumored to be anti-science, you're dead to them, and so is your product. That's a rumor with economic consequences.
If you wonder how the evolution rumor started, it's partly because I made the following argument: The evidence for evolution, by its nature, seems fishy to the average non-scientist independent of the underlying truth. That's a statement about human perceptions, not the objective reality of the theory. The suggestion here is that if scientists could do a better job of packaging the evidence for evolution it might help convert the doubters. Malevolent posters often quote me out of context as saying, "The evidence for evolution smells like bullshit." Out of context it means nearly the opposite of what it means within context.
I've also famously predicted that the theory of evolution will be debunked in my lifetime. That sounds like crazy Creationist talk, and a direct contradiction to my statement that evolution is a scientific fact. The context for that prediction is the notion that a future Einstein might someday demonstrate that our common sense understanding of the passage of time is flawed. If that happens, every part of our observed reality will be debunked, sort of. Instead of focusing on evolution, I could have predicted that the history of your daily commute to work will be debunked. It's the same point but less catchy.
By now you are probably thinking that my prediction has nearly zero chance of being right. I'll let you in on an industry secret: You're correct. You know all of those books on the market that predict various economic bubbles, social upheavals, and disasters of all kinds? Most of those authors don't believe their predictions are likely to pan out. They're making calculated bets that in the unlikely event they guessed right, they will become famous. That's worth a fortune in future speaking gigs and book deals.
My contrarian prediction about evolution being debunked in my lifetime was the same sort of bet. It's unlikely that I'll be right. But if I get lucky, I'll be the one person who predicted it. And because of the "in my lifetime" condition, I can't be wrong until I'm too dead to care. This is the sort of thing I do that really, really, really pisses off some people, especially the anti-creationist bearded taint guy.
Keep in mind that Einstein debunked humanity's common sense understanding of gravity, and no one saw that coming. Your great grandfather probably thought the planet was exerting an invisible sucking force called gravity to keep him from floating away. But Einstein figured out that mass curves spacetime. That sounds different than an invisible sucking force. I'm just saying anything can happen.
Let's take a moment to call back the discussion of how the messenger changes the message. A large number of you are reading my explanation of the evolution rumor and dismissing it as my pathetic attempt at revisionist history. I'm back pedaling! I got caught being a moron and now I'm trying to save face!
See how this works? The messenger with a strong self-interest is automatically non-credible, and should be. There are some types of information that can only be communicated by an unbiased messenger. And the most unbiased messenger in the world is one that is imaginary, such as my invisible friend, PlannedChaos. Speaking of him, let's get back to my interview to mop up some lingering questions.
PlannedChaos: Isn't it fundamentally dishonest, and therefore immoral, to debate under an assumed name?
Scott: Yes. On the scale of immoral behavior, where genocide is at the top, and wearing Spanx is near the bottom, posting comments under an alias to clear up harmful misconceptions is about one level worse than Spanx.
PlannedChaos: Are you saying the ends justify the means?
Scott: Yes, sometimes. The types of people who act solely on principle are the ones who burn Korans and wonder why something went wrong.
PlannedChaos: How do we know this whole scheme isn't a Dogbertian prank. You have a dark history of doing exactly this sort of thing.
Scott: There's no way for you to know if it's a prank. The only person who knows the answer to that question is me, and I'm not credible. But for the record, my non-credible answer is that the entertainment value of this endeavor was only a side benefit. With that said, I have to confess that giving verbal wedgies to people who desperately deserve them, in a public forum, is a lot more fun than you imagine.
PlannedChaos: Didn't you once wear a professional disguise, including a wig and mustache, and pass yourself off as a famous consultant named Ray Mebert?
Scott: Yes, several years ago at Logitech's meeting of top management. I led them through a Mission Statement workshop that I manipulated to create the world's worst Mission Statement. The president of Logitech was in on the prank, and the San Jose Mercury sponsored the whole thing.
PlannedChaos: So you've been a douche for quite some time?
Scott: Apparently.
PlannedChaos: Are you a fame whore?
Scott: Yes, but I have ambitions to become a high-priced fame prostitute. In my job, fame is just one of the tools. The main reason you've heard of Dilbert is that I'm a tireless self-promoter and I've been able to work with some of the best PR professionals in the industry. (I'm off the leash at the moment. You might have noticed.)
PlannedChaos: Are you just a troll?
Scott: If I understand the term, trolling involves off-topic comments with no purpose other than to get people worked up. My main purpose is generally to add context to the stuff that trolls and issue advocates have posted online about me. My primary motivation is economic as opposed to evil. But I do have a twitchy trigger finger when I run into sadists and bullies online. So while I generally enter an online conversation with the intent of suppressing damaging misunderstandings, I've been known to empty my clip once I'm there. I'm not proud of that. I'm also not proud that my personal hero is the bigger kid in this video. I'll own that.
PlannedChaos: I called you a genius on Metafilter. Is that proof that you are an ego-maniac?
Scott: No, that is not proof. But as circumstantial evidence goes, it's pretty good. The proof that I'm an ego-maniac is that I'm interviewing myself in my own blog. I don't think I can be any clearer on that point.
I will add some context though. Keep in mind that creating the hapless Dilbert character largely in my own image launched a twenty year career of daily self-deprecation. Likewise, about half of what I write outside of the comic is unambiguously self-deprecating. I'm a short, near-sighted, bald, over-the-hill guy with a bad sense of direction and an astonishing lack of competence at 99% of life's challenges. It is also objectively true that I sometimes have good days. That last part is a thing called arrogance.
Another bit of context is that most of what I write outside of the comic is meant to be entertainment for a certain type of reader who likes to be exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints no matter how ridiculous. With the blog in particular, the explicit model is that I write down whatever dumbass theory pops into my head and try to sell it as God's final word. Then my readers shred it in the comment section, or sometimes say it's an old idea that's already been done. Taken out of context, many of my blog posts and even my Wall Street Journal articles would look like the crazy rantings of a guy who thinks he has all the answers to fix the entire world. At best, that's only half true.
And the last piece of context is that I created you, PlannedChaos, specifically to say things that are relevant to the debate but would be grossly inappropriate for me to say about myself. By analogy, if critics of President Obama start calling him stupid, it wouldn't be appropriate for him to whip out his SAT scores. But if one of his spokespeople reminds the public that the President has a law degree from Harvard, which by any objective measure puts him in the genius category, that's a legitimate response. Context is everything.
PlannedChaos: Are you going to go full-Sheen or is this mental breakdown more of a temporary thing that you can fix with rehab?
Scott: No promises, but I think I'll be okay if I lay off the crack pipe for a few days.
PlannedChaos: Why wouldn't it be better to just defend yourself online using your real name?
Scott: You're not a good listener. Watch what happens now that I have. Every part of this post will be taken out of context and twisted to its opposite meaning.
PlannedChaos: Are you going to smugly claim that you orchestrated everything that happened, including getting caught, and it is all part of your oh-so-clever plan? You do that sometimes.
Scott: Not this time. My plan came off the rails when I learned the hard way that Metafilter doesn't have a privacy policy. I assumed, incorrectly, that the worst thing that would happen is that I'd correct some rumors online, amuse myself, and get discreetly booted off the system by the administrators. Instead, the moderators acted on a tip, probably because I left bread crumbs in my comments the size of tractors, snooped into my not-so-private sign-up information, and threatened to make my identity public unless I did so myself. On the scale of immoral behavior, I think everyone involved scored about the same that day, unless one of us was also wearing Spanx. And if the moderators of Metafilter think the ends justified the means, for business or other purposes, I support that choice.
PlannedChaos: What's the point of trying to correct inaccurate rumors online when you often say no one is persuaded by new information?
Scott: That's a brilliant question. Are you a genius?
PlannedChaos: Just having a good day.
Scott: Rarely is anyone persuaded by new information once a strong opinion has been formed. But I like to think that some people haven't yet formed opinions on the question of whether I am a Holocaust Denier, to pick just one example. That's an actual rumor floating around the Internet. I hope to influence the undecided.
The second benefit of joining a debate that I might prefer had never happened is that once inside I can shift the conversation from something awful to something less so. We humans are wired to think that the most important fact is the one that gets repeated and discussed the most. This scandal started when I went to Metafilter to kill the rumor that I'm anti-science. But after I stirred up things, what are people discussing most often now?
PlannedChaos: They're mostly appalled that you invented a fake identity to call yourself a genius.
Scott: Wait for it...
PlannedChaos: Damn it! You're doing it again! You arrogant bastard!
April 14, 2011
Secondary Market for Plans - Update
Another Update:
This comment from Jason was worthy of promotion. Good luck with your startup!
------------
"Two websites to share with you based on this post -- Check out Room77.com. I think this may solve your problem of wanting to see pictures of the view from your hotel room before you book. It's a very impressive site. Warning: This next site is my own personal travel-startup. I hope you don't mind my self-promotion. I completely agree with the idea of selling your personal trip plans or itineraries. My site is Unanchor.com and anyone can write and then sell their travel itineraries on the site. Thanks! Jason"
--------------
Update: Doh! As a number of you correctly pointed out, I blogged on this topic in January. In my defense, literally everything I have ever written seems creepily familiar to me when I write it. That's because ideas float around in my head for months or even years before they escape. By the time I write something down, I always think I must have written it before. So I've trained myself to ignore that feeling. That doesn't always work out.
---------- Redundant post ------------
Some people are good vacation planners. I envy them. They can plan a vacation down to the last detail. These super planners find the best places to go, the easiest forms of transportation, and the best timing. If there were a secondary market for plans, I would go there to buy used vacation plans as a starting point for making my own plans.
Imagine going on vacation and documenting your entire trip in photos, videos, and a log of what worked and what didn't. It might be easy someday. Let's say your phone/camera has an app that creates your trip diary almost automatically. All you do is snap pictures when you get the urge, add some notes about what you liked, what worked and what didn't, and check that your app accurately identified your whereabouts when photos were taken. Optionally, the app could blank out the faces on photos of your family for privacy reasons.
In theory, your camera could automatically detect what flight you took based on your GPS position at the airport gate and the time you were there. It would know the hotel you stayed in, the restaurants you visited, and lots more. Armed with that information, the app could link to the hotel and restaurant websites and create an entire map and trip itinerary after the fact. Your job would be limited to editing the plan for accuracy and adding your own tips, tricks, and opinions.
At the end of the trip, you upload all of your trip details to a website that offers them for sale to anyone interested in a similar trip. Let's say a trip plan costs $1 on the site and you split it with the website operator. In time, as the database grows, customers could buy trip plans that are perfect fits for their needs.
I was thinking of this idea when I learned that there's an app to tell you the current wait time for each ride at Disney World. That's the sort of trip detail that can totally change your experience.
It would also be great to see photos taken by travelers from the hotel windows of particular rooms. That allows future travelers to request rooms with better views. Hotels tend to be vague about the quality of their views.
The secondary market for plans wouldn't be limited to trips. Sometimes you just want a good idea for theme parties, anniversaries, kid birthdays, and that sort of thing.
Secondary Market for Plans
Some people are good vacation planners. I envy them. They can plan a vacation down to the last detail. These super planners find the best places to go, the easiest forms of transportation, and the best timing. If there were a secondary market for plans, I would go there to buy used vacation plans as a starting point for making my own plans.
Imagine going on vacation and documenting your entire trip in photos, videos, and a log of what worked and what didn't. It might be easy someday. Let's say your phone/camera has an app that creates your trip diary almost automatically. All you do is snap pictures when you get the urge, add some notes about what you liked, what worked and what didn't, and check that your app accurately identified your whereabouts when photos were taken. Optionally, the app could blank out the faces on photos of your family for privacy reasons.
In theory, your camera could automatically detect what flight you took based on your GPS position at the airport gate and the time you were there. It would know the hotel you stayed in, the restaurants you visited, and lots more. Armed with that information, the app could link to the hotel and restaurant websites and create an entire map and trip itinerary after the fact. Your job would be limited to editing the plan for accuracy and adding your own tips, tricks, and opinions.
At the end of the trip, you upload all of your trip details to a website that offers them for sale to anyone interested in a similar trip. Let's say a trip plan costs $1 on the site and you split it with the website operator. In time, as the database grows, customers could buy trip plans that are perfect fits for their needs.
I was thinking of this idea when I learned that there's an app to tell you the current wait time for each ride at Disney World. That's the sort of trip detail that can totally change your experience.
It would also be great to see photos taken by travelers from the hotel windows of particular rooms. That allows future travelers to request rooms with better views. Hotels tend to be vague about the quality of their views.
The secondary market for plans wouldn't be limited to trips. Sometimes you just want a good idea for theme parties, anniversaries, kid birthdays, and that sort of thing.
Imagine going on vacation and documenting your entire trip in photos, videos, and a log of what worked and what didn't. It might be easy someday. Let's say your phone/camera has an app that creates your trip diary almost automatically. All you do is snap pictures when you get the urge, add some notes about what you liked, what worked and what didn't, and check that your app accurately identified your whereabouts when photos were taken. Optionally, the app could blank out the faces on photos of your family for privacy reasons.
In theory, your camera could automatically detect what flight you took based on your GPS position at the airport gate and the time you were there. It would know the hotel you stayed in, the restaurants you visited, and lots more. Armed with that information, the app could link to the hotel and restaurant websites and create an entire map and trip itinerary after the fact. Your job would be limited to editing the plan for accuracy and adding your own tips, tricks, and opinions.
At the end of the trip, you upload all of your trip details to a website that offers them for sale to anyone interested in a similar trip. Let's say a trip plan costs $1 on the site and you split it with the website operator. In time, as the database grows, customers could buy trip plans that are perfect fits for their needs.
I was thinking of this idea when I learned that there's an app to tell you the current wait time for each ride at Disney World. That's the sort of trip detail that can totally change your experience.
It would also be great to see photos taken by travelers from the hotel windows of particular rooms. That allows future travelers to request rooms with better views. Hotels tend to be vague about the quality of their views.
The secondary market for plans wouldn't be limited to trips. Sometimes you just want a good idea for theme parties, anniversaries, kid birthdays, and that sort of thing.
April 13, 2011
But First...
If you add it all together, I spend about a month every year doing my taxes. And I don't even do the hard parts myself. Yesterday is a good example.
My accountant's instructions told me to pay my California taxes online. That sounded like an efficient process to me, so I waded right in and started signing up for a username and password. The state's website system naturally has a high level of security and asks a lot of questions. I type, type, type, research, type, type, type, and get to the point where I think I must be near the end. But the system has one more question. It demands that I enter my California Gross Income from any past tax return so they verify that I am really me. Unfortunately, that information is stored far away on a high shelf of a storage room.
So now I have to get dressed, put on shoes, find a step ladder, and find an old tax return. But I can't find my step ladder. Then I remember it's in my wiring closet because I didn't have a long enough cable for one piece of equipment to reach a proper place to rest. The step ladder was my temporary solution.
So now I need to fix things in the wiring closet so I can free up the step ladder so I can go to the storage room and find a tax return to enter a figure to finish my sign up. All of this activity gets the attention of my dog, Snickers. She's trained to know that when I leave my home office at about that time of day it means it's time to go outside and play fetch. And she will not be dissuaded. She makes such a big deal of it that I feel guilty and change plans.
Now I'm outdoors playing with the dog. I realize I'm so hungry that I really need a toasted bagel before I can get back to the hunt for my tax return. That puts me in the kitchen. All of you married work-at-homes know the kitchen is a trap. If you leave your office, you're fair game. I was like a caribou at the only drinking hole in lion country. I was deep in the heart of honey-do territory. This could have easily turned into a trip to the roof to find the source of the scratching noise, or an hour of cleaning cat vomit off of the couch. But Shelly was on the phone and even her note-writing hand was busy. I shoved the toasted bagel down my throat and scurried toward the storage room.
Armed with the last bit of information I needed for my signup, I finished the process. Or so I thought. The website informed me that it would send a confirmation email. I would need to open that email and click a link to finish the signup. Now, for the benefit of my readers who are not from Earth, let me explain what it means when a website says they will send you an email: It means they will not send you an email. Or it will go into a spam folder you never even knew you had. And if you try to sign up again, the system will reject you for already being in the system. If you try to call someone to fix things, you will find yourself lost in an audio menu tree that will end with a disconnection. If you try to email someone on the contact list for the website, your response will go to the same imaginary place as your confirmation email. If by some miracle you reach a human, that human will ask for some sort of identification code that doesn't exist, such as the Taxpayer Assessment Property Social Security Code.
But I'm an optimist. I checked my inbox every few minutes for the next hour. I couldn't move on to a new task because everything I do is equally complicated. I worried that my tax documents would sink to the bottom of the piles on my desk until I forgot they were there. I would become a delinquent taxpayer and lose my house. I might go to jail.
You might wonder why I don't make lists of things I need to do. I've tried that. And it's no exaggeration that the list is so long I don't have enough time in the day to maintain it or even read it to figure out my priorities. I usually do whatever is on top of the piles on my desk and is an immediate threat to my health or my freedom.
In my corporate days, I took a course on time management. One of the secrets involved "touching" each task once then moving on. In my world, I can't touch ANYTHING once. The simplest frickin' thing in the world can transform into a full-blown project.
My solution that day was to pay my taxes online without signing up for an account. You can do that if you enter most of the same information again from scratch. That took care of my personal taxes. Then I needed to pay my California corporate taxes online too...through an entirely different website.
That evening I decided to take care of the speeding ticket I got a few weeks ago. I planned to pay it online (kill me now) and take an online traffic school course to clear the ticket from my record. That's two more websites I needed to sign up for.
I'm what you call a good test taker. I tore through several chapters of traffic information and multiple choice tests. At the end, the website surprised me by saying it needed to verify my identity through yet another website that does credit checking. Now I'm signing up for my third website so far just to clear this ticket. The credit checking website determines that I do not exist and the traffic school expels me, effectively deleting all of my work that night. But it gives me one more option: I can print out an entirely new test, take it to a Notary, do the test in front of him, ask him to fax it someplace for grading, and maybe someday get a response I can use to clear my ticket.
In the time it will have taken me to clear just two items from my to-do list, eight more have been added. If you wondered what the life of a cartoonist is like, yesterday was typical. The majority of my time is spent unscrewing endless tax problems, dealing with insurance issues, negotiating contracts, and piles of paperwork. Last year I paid seven different lawyers for about two dozen different issues. I suppose I could hire a business manager to handle that stuff. But the economist in me knows that no one in his right mind would take on such an ugly job unless he was planning to do some serious embezzling to make it all worthwhile.
My accountant's instructions told me to pay my California taxes online. That sounded like an efficient process to me, so I waded right in and started signing up for a username and password. The state's website system naturally has a high level of security and asks a lot of questions. I type, type, type, research, type, type, type, and get to the point where I think I must be near the end. But the system has one more question. It demands that I enter my California Gross Income from any past tax return so they verify that I am really me. Unfortunately, that information is stored far away on a high shelf of a storage room.
So now I have to get dressed, put on shoes, find a step ladder, and find an old tax return. But I can't find my step ladder. Then I remember it's in my wiring closet because I didn't have a long enough cable for one piece of equipment to reach a proper place to rest. The step ladder was my temporary solution.
So now I need to fix things in the wiring closet so I can free up the step ladder so I can go to the storage room and find a tax return to enter a figure to finish my sign up. All of this activity gets the attention of my dog, Snickers. She's trained to know that when I leave my home office at about that time of day it means it's time to go outside and play fetch. And she will not be dissuaded. She makes such a big deal of it that I feel guilty and change plans.
Now I'm outdoors playing with the dog. I realize I'm so hungry that I really need a toasted bagel before I can get back to the hunt for my tax return. That puts me in the kitchen. All of you married work-at-homes know the kitchen is a trap. If you leave your office, you're fair game. I was like a caribou at the only drinking hole in lion country. I was deep in the heart of honey-do territory. This could have easily turned into a trip to the roof to find the source of the scratching noise, or an hour of cleaning cat vomit off of the couch. But Shelly was on the phone and even her note-writing hand was busy. I shoved the toasted bagel down my throat and scurried toward the storage room.
Armed with the last bit of information I needed for my signup, I finished the process. Or so I thought. The website informed me that it would send a confirmation email. I would need to open that email and click a link to finish the signup. Now, for the benefit of my readers who are not from Earth, let me explain what it means when a website says they will send you an email: It means they will not send you an email. Or it will go into a spam folder you never even knew you had. And if you try to sign up again, the system will reject you for already being in the system. If you try to call someone to fix things, you will find yourself lost in an audio menu tree that will end with a disconnection. If you try to email someone on the contact list for the website, your response will go to the same imaginary place as your confirmation email. If by some miracle you reach a human, that human will ask for some sort of identification code that doesn't exist, such as the Taxpayer Assessment Property Social Security Code.
But I'm an optimist. I checked my inbox every few minutes for the next hour. I couldn't move on to a new task because everything I do is equally complicated. I worried that my tax documents would sink to the bottom of the piles on my desk until I forgot they were there. I would become a delinquent taxpayer and lose my house. I might go to jail.
You might wonder why I don't make lists of things I need to do. I've tried that. And it's no exaggeration that the list is so long I don't have enough time in the day to maintain it or even read it to figure out my priorities. I usually do whatever is on top of the piles on my desk and is an immediate threat to my health or my freedom.
In my corporate days, I took a course on time management. One of the secrets involved "touching" each task once then moving on. In my world, I can't touch ANYTHING once. The simplest frickin' thing in the world can transform into a full-blown project.
My solution that day was to pay my taxes online without signing up for an account. You can do that if you enter most of the same information again from scratch. That took care of my personal taxes. Then I needed to pay my California corporate taxes online too...through an entirely different website.
That evening I decided to take care of the speeding ticket I got a few weeks ago. I planned to pay it online (kill me now) and take an online traffic school course to clear the ticket from my record. That's two more websites I needed to sign up for.
I'm what you call a good test taker. I tore through several chapters of traffic information and multiple choice tests. At the end, the website surprised me by saying it needed to verify my identity through yet another website that does credit checking. Now I'm signing up for my third website so far just to clear this ticket. The credit checking website determines that I do not exist and the traffic school expels me, effectively deleting all of my work that night. But it gives me one more option: I can print out an entirely new test, take it to a Notary, do the test in front of him, ask him to fax it someplace for grading, and maybe someday get a response I can use to clear my ticket.
In the time it will have taken me to clear just two items from my to-do list, eight more have been added. If you wondered what the life of a cartoonist is like, yesterday was typical. The majority of my time is spent unscrewing endless tax problems, dealing with insurance issues, negotiating contracts, and piles of paperwork. Last year I paid seven different lawyers for about two dozen different issues. I suppose I could hire a business manager to handle that stuff. But the economist in me knows that no one in his right mind would take on such an ugly job unless he was planning to do some serious embezzling to make it all worthwhile.
April 11, 2011
The Education Complexity Shift
Some of you might have seen my opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday on the topic of teaching entrepreneurial skills to kids. It was inspired by a blog post you might have seen here.
As I wrote the article, I wondered why our school system is so mismatched to the educational needs of modern students. This leads me to a hypothesis that I will call the Education Complexity Shift.
I'll begin by stipulating that any field of study is helpful in training a student's mind to become more of a learning machine. Two hundred years ago, when life itself was simple (feed the horse, plant the corn) you needed to make school artificially complicated to stretch a student's mind. Once a student's mind was expanded, stressed, stretched and challenged, it became a powerful tool when released back into the relatively simple "real world."
The Education Complexity Shift observes that the real world has become more complicated than school. Imagine trying to teach a young child how to do the routine adult task of planning the most efficient trip by plane, or getting a mortgage, or investing. How about planning a wedding? How many pieces of software do you use for your job?
Today, life is more complicated than school. That means the best way to expand a student's mind is by teaching more about the practical complexities of the real world and less about, for example, the history of Europe, or trigonometry.
I'll pause here to acknowledge that both history and trigonometry are useful for students who plan to become historians or rocket scientists. For the other 99.9% of the world, little from those classes will be retained. The only benefit from much of what is taught in school is generic training of the mind, and for that we now have a better and more complicated option: the real world.
Some of you will argue that learning history is important on a number of levels, including creating a shared culture, understanding other countries, and avoiding the mistakes of the past. I agree. And if the question was teaching history versus teaching nothing, history would be the best choice every time. But if you compare teaching history with, for example, teaching a kid how to compare complicated financial alternatives, I'd always choose the skill that has the most practical value. You get all the benefit of generic mental training plus some real world benefits if any of it is retained.
I'd still teach history in school. But I think the world will survive if some of the details are skipped to make room for more relevant coursework.
As I wrote the article, I wondered why our school system is so mismatched to the educational needs of modern students. This leads me to a hypothesis that I will call the Education Complexity Shift.
I'll begin by stipulating that any field of study is helpful in training a student's mind to become more of a learning machine. Two hundred years ago, when life itself was simple (feed the horse, plant the corn) you needed to make school artificially complicated to stretch a student's mind. Once a student's mind was expanded, stressed, stretched and challenged, it became a powerful tool when released back into the relatively simple "real world."
The Education Complexity Shift observes that the real world has become more complicated than school. Imagine trying to teach a young child how to do the routine adult task of planning the most efficient trip by plane, or getting a mortgage, or investing. How about planning a wedding? How many pieces of software do you use for your job?
Today, life is more complicated than school. That means the best way to expand a student's mind is by teaching more about the practical complexities of the real world and less about, for example, the history of Europe, or trigonometry.
I'll pause here to acknowledge that both history and trigonometry are useful for students who plan to become historians or rocket scientists. For the other 99.9% of the world, little from those classes will be retained. The only benefit from much of what is taught in school is generic training of the mind, and for that we now have a better and more complicated option: the real world.
Some of you will argue that learning history is important on a number of levels, including creating a shared culture, understanding other countries, and avoiding the mistakes of the past. I agree. And if the question was teaching history versus teaching nothing, history would be the best choice every time. But if you compare teaching history with, for example, teaching a kid how to compare complicated financial alternatives, I'd always choose the skill that has the most practical value. You get all the benefit of generic mental training plus some real world benefits if any of it is retained.
I'd still teach history in school. But I think the world will survive if some of the details are skipped to make room for more relevant coursework.
April 10, 2011
Best Work
Have you ever wondered why so many famous musicians, writers, and creators of all types have been one-hit wonders? Let's broaden that thought to say that creators generally do their best work during a phase of their lives, and that phase usually corresponds to youth. What's up with that? Why doesn't experience count for more than youth? I'll list some obvious reasons just to get them out of the way before telling you what I think is really happening.
Focus. When you're young, you can work intensely on a project and ignore everything else. As you get older, that becomes nearly impossible. Over time, your life naturally becomes more complicated. Your brain and your schedule accumulate so much clutter that concentration simply gets harder.
Risk. Young people can take bigger risks because they have less to lose. And the young are probably wired for riskier behavior in general. Big successes generally follow big gambles.
Hunger. You're always hungriest before you succeed. Everything else being equal, the person with the greatest motivation will come out ahead.
Youth is Interesting. When a young person creates something great, the public is interested. Humans are wired to be more interested in youth. Hypothetically, if your grandmother wrote the best song in the world, no one would care.
Creativity. Young brains are more creative. I'm not sure that this particular advantage is big enough to overcome the extra skill and experience that a creator gains over time.
The Halving Effect. A publishing rule of thumb is that a non-fiction author will sell half as many books with each successive effort. An author's first non-fiction book is generally the best ideas of his or her entire life. The second book is the stuff that wasn't good enough to be in the first book.
Some non-fiction writers defy the Halving Effect. And the biggest names in fiction do it routinely. When you see that happening, it often means ghost writers have taken over the heavy lifting while the famous author is more of a project manager.
Drugs. Young people do more drugs than older people. And artists probably do more drugs than the average young person. That might be a correlation without causation. I doubt there's a scientific study on that topic.
Comparison Effect. If an artist produces something great, followed by something that is 90% as great, the second effort will register as a disappointment to fans. The Comparison Effect works to the advantage of an artist such as Britney Spears whose early fame exceeded the quality of her music. She had lots of room to improve her music and surprise fans on the upside.
Fan Fatigue. If a creator keeps mining the same vein, it all starts to feel the same to fans, even if the new work is as good as the old. If a creator tries to game the system by moving to something completely different, the Comparison Effect kicks in and fans say he should have stuck to his "day job."
My personal view is that one-hit wonders exist for the simple reason that you can only do one best thing in your life. If that one best thing happens when you are young, you might be lucky enough to be a struggling artist who can capitalize on it. But if your one best piece of work was going to happen at age 60, again by chance, you'll never find out. You'll probably be forced to change careers decades before your luck has a chance to happen.
This is a variation on the observation that you always find a lost item in the last place you look. It feels like a coincidence and yet it can't happen any other way. A creator who doesn't find success early will likely change careers. And for someone trying to make it big, anything less than a great effort early on probably won't get traction.
In this context, your best work also involves timing. If someone wrote the best hip hop song of all time in the Middle Ages, he had bad timing. A creator's best work is usually a lucky intersection of timing and talent. And by definition, you only get to have your best timing once.
When it comes to creativity, younger is probably better. But it might be overrated.
Focus. When you're young, you can work intensely on a project and ignore everything else. As you get older, that becomes nearly impossible. Over time, your life naturally becomes more complicated. Your brain and your schedule accumulate so much clutter that concentration simply gets harder.
Risk. Young people can take bigger risks because they have less to lose. And the young are probably wired for riskier behavior in general. Big successes generally follow big gambles.
Hunger. You're always hungriest before you succeed. Everything else being equal, the person with the greatest motivation will come out ahead.
Youth is Interesting. When a young person creates something great, the public is interested. Humans are wired to be more interested in youth. Hypothetically, if your grandmother wrote the best song in the world, no one would care.
Creativity. Young brains are more creative. I'm not sure that this particular advantage is big enough to overcome the extra skill and experience that a creator gains over time.
The Halving Effect. A publishing rule of thumb is that a non-fiction author will sell half as many books with each successive effort. An author's first non-fiction book is generally the best ideas of his or her entire life. The second book is the stuff that wasn't good enough to be in the first book.
Some non-fiction writers defy the Halving Effect. And the biggest names in fiction do it routinely. When you see that happening, it often means ghost writers have taken over the heavy lifting while the famous author is more of a project manager.
Drugs. Young people do more drugs than older people. And artists probably do more drugs than the average young person. That might be a correlation without causation. I doubt there's a scientific study on that topic.
Comparison Effect. If an artist produces something great, followed by something that is 90% as great, the second effort will register as a disappointment to fans. The Comparison Effect works to the advantage of an artist such as Britney Spears whose early fame exceeded the quality of her music. She had lots of room to improve her music and surprise fans on the upside.
Fan Fatigue. If a creator keeps mining the same vein, it all starts to feel the same to fans, even if the new work is as good as the old. If a creator tries to game the system by moving to something completely different, the Comparison Effect kicks in and fans say he should have stuck to his "day job."
My personal view is that one-hit wonders exist for the simple reason that you can only do one best thing in your life. If that one best thing happens when you are young, you might be lucky enough to be a struggling artist who can capitalize on it. But if your one best piece of work was going to happen at age 60, again by chance, you'll never find out. You'll probably be forced to change careers decades before your luck has a chance to happen.
This is a variation on the observation that you always find a lost item in the last place you look. It feels like a coincidence and yet it can't happen any other way. A creator who doesn't find success early will likely change careers. And for someone trying to make it big, anything less than a great effort early on probably won't get traction.
In this context, your best work also involves timing. If someone wrote the best hip hop song of all time in the Middle Ages, he had bad timing. A creator's best work is usually a lucky intersection of timing and talent. And by definition, you only get to have your best timing once.
When it comes to creativity, younger is probably better. But it might be overrated.
April 5, 2011
Money Making Scheme
I have an idea for making lots of money but I'm too lazy and frightened to do it myself. The idea is to become a consumer advocate against a confusopoly. A confusopoly is any group of companies in a particular industry that intentionally confuses customers about their pricing plans and products. Confusopolies do this so customers don't know which one of them is offering the best value. That way every company gets a fair share of the confused customers and the industry doesn't need to compete on price. The classic examples of confusopolies are phone companies, insurance companies, and banks.
To get things rolling, you pick a confusopoly to target and you build a web page explaining the problem. Then you collect signatures of support. and demand legislation to standardize how prices are presented to customers. Then you wait for the lawyers and lobbyists from your targeted industry to pay you to go away.
It seems entirely legal to lobby the government for regulatory reform. And I'm not aware of any law preventing companies from paying you to leave an issue alone. Perhaps they'd need to do it in some sort of stealth manner, just for PR purposes. I could imagine, for example, that one of the companies would offer you a job trying to organize a simpler pricing scheme, which is exactly what you're asking for. You'd work for a few years, get no cooperation from anyone in the company, fail miserably at your task, and collect a big paycheck. If you work from home, the failing will be far more efficient, requiring no more than a few emails and some unreturned phone calls. You could do the whole thing in your pajamas, start to finish.
As always, I don't recommend taking advice on anything important from cartoonists.
To get things rolling, you pick a confusopoly to target and you build a web page explaining the problem. Then you collect signatures of support. and demand legislation to standardize how prices are presented to customers. Then you wait for the lawyers and lobbyists from your targeted industry to pay you to go away.
It seems entirely legal to lobby the government for regulatory reform. And I'm not aware of any law preventing companies from paying you to leave an issue alone. Perhaps they'd need to do it in some sort of stealth manner, just for PR purposes. I could imagine, for example, that one of the companies would offer you a job trying to organize a simpler pricing scheme, which is exactly what you're asking for. You'd work for a few years, get no cooperation from anyone in the company, fail miserably at your task, and collect a big paycheck. If you work from home, the failing will be far more efficient, requiring no more than a few emails and some unreturned phone calls. You could do the whole thing in your pajamas, start to finish.
As always, I don't recommend taking advice on anything important from cartoonists.
April 3, 2011
Victory
Yesterday, while out and about, my wife helpfully informed me that I had mustard on my ear. Shelly pieced together some clues and deduced that I had eaten a pretzel with mustard, got some on my fingers, and scratched my ear. That's probably how it happened. But by the time Shelly pointed it out, I had been chatting with friends for about ten minutes. Some people might be embarrassed in this sort of situation. Not me. If I spend any time around condiments and come away with mustard on just one ear, that's a win. I'm a glass half full kind of guy. If you consider my total body area, I was 99.9% mustard free.
Shelly directed me as I tried to wipe off the offending spot with my finger. "Higher. No. Left. No, right. Now lower." The mustard was stubborn. Phase two involved saliva. I licked my finger and had another run at it. Shelly continued directing "No. Higher. Lower. Higher. Lower."
Finally, Shelly gave up and said, "That's good enough. You got most of it."
VICTORY!
I don't mean victory over the mustard spot. Obviously I failed at removing it. It might still be there for all I know. The victory comes from setting the bar so low, for so many years, that Shelly was willing to settle for being in public with a husband who only had some mustard on his ear. It was a great moment. I've been working hard to solidify my reputation as incompetent, messy, disorganized, and generally hopeless. This mustard situation proved that my hard work is beginning to pay off.
Shelly still asks me to pick up things from the store. But I figure I just have to bring home shampoo instead of salad oil about three more times and that will be the end of that.
Shelly directed me as I tried to wipe off the offending spot with my finger. "Higher. No. Left. No, right. Now lower." The mustard was stubborn. Phase two involved saliva. I licked my finger and had another run at it. Shelly continued directing "No. Higher. Lower. Higher. Lower."
Finally, Shelly gave up and said, "That's good enough. You got most of it."
VICTORY!
I don't mean victory over the mustard spot. Obviously I failed at removing it. It might still be there for all I know. The victory comes from setting the bar so low, for so many years, that Shelly was willing to settle for being in public with a husband who only had some mustard on his ear. It was a great moment. I've been working hard to solidify my reputation as incompetent, messy, disorganized, and generally hopeless. This mustard situation proved that my hard work is beginning to pay off.
Shelly still asks me to pick up things from the store. But I figure I just have to bring home shampoo instead of salad oil about three more times and that will be the end of that.
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