"they often make heavy use of technical terminology because it's the most concise and accurate way to convey their thoughts."
If you get your point across by using terms no one understands, you're not getting your point across. It's not efficient at all, since you'll have to explain yourself further. But we all do this, not just "geeks". We're inferentially distance from each other. Who doesn't compress their understand of the world into their own specialist jargon?
Geeks can't see when they're lowering the status of the other person. In fact, they're inept at knowing when to play higher or play lower. I do improv acting. I find improv acting provides an incredibly useful lens to view social interactions.
I do speaking. Here a quick tip: Use prompting questions.
In your notes ask yourself questions that prompt you to make your points, instead of listing out those points directly. Try "So why do I like Git?" instead of "DVCS's are good because the can help avoid some political infighting over code."
Slightly off topic but the Git model is generally interesting. I'd like to see it used for writing, publishing and sharing ideas (like it can code). To me it seems like it could be a great system.
Check out flashbake. It's a set of Python scripts for automating git and adding various metadata to commit messages, and was written as a personal writing tool for Cory Doctorow.
This is my favorite monologue of all time. Inspiring. In it, James Burke sums how sci/tech is fundamental to changing the world. Then he ties Eastern & Western philosophical views. And the explains how the computer revolution will could radically change society: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB8_wPei2ZM (5mins)
In improv acting we explicitly learn how status transactions work. Note that "status" in this context means something slightly different: http://greenlightwiki.com/improv/Status
Understanding status changed how I fundamentally view interactions. I've wanted to submit (or even write) something on this for HN, but I haven't figured an angle to do it from.
Yes, it seems like improv, is really good at emphasizing and making explicit human interactions. This might be applicable to AI agent research and design.
Yeah, the first AI would pass the Turing test by insulting the researchers. :)
But seriously, depending on what you mean by AI (general or narrow), you're right. If it was interacting in a realistic social way with humans, it'd have to understand "status".
Actually, I know of some people working on AGI that are aware of the "status" concept. Although they seem to conflate the improv meaning with general social status. On Less Wrong.com they talk about it from time to time.
A lot here are from SF. It's an improv hub. BATS Improv has classes, and I highly recommend them for really anyone. But specifically "nerds" would immensely benefit.
Improv basically teaches you to be relentlessly prosocial. You learn what an interesting social interaction (or scene) looks like. You learn conversation and organization skills; how to lead, how to follow, how to work on teams, how to speak. It's all roleplaying.
Actually, you learn the gist of what they would teach your in the "seduction community". Those are more specialized skills. But there's no social stigma attached. And that's not a knock on them either.
If you've ever laughed at improv being performed, it is nothing like the rush of performing improv, especially when it's not done well.
One of the more clever and disturbing ways to gain 'power' over an individual is to play the student in the master-student role. E.g. by having them teach you something - which is doing you a favor, you can gain their favor.
Roleplaying as a "student" is playing a low status role, to the high status role of "teacher". In that instance you get what you want by playing low. But in another situation you might play high (for another to play low) to get what you want. You could bark orders at someone, and if they follow through they played low to your high. Of course, if this was a serious and non-consensual interaction it'd wear on the players after a while. Improv, since it's fundamentally about roleplaying, parallels BDSM.
Having a boss who was too serious about his high status role would suck, for instance. The fun ones are the ones who joke about their role.
Interesting read, thanks for sharing. While the context of this info is in improv acting, do you find the same status transformations applying to day-to-day life?
Has anyone used "status transformations" to their advantage in a real-world transaction? (haggling over the price of a car, for example). Personally, I don't think I could really alter my innate behaviour to achieve any sort of social advantage, but in the end this sort of information was useful for me to reflect on my interactions with others in my life.
Oh, absolutely. Altering "status" is something people do all the time to get what they want, albeit mostly unconsciously. Here's an improvisers view of the mechanics behind making a sale: http://biz-improv.com/wordpress/?p=22
I have a bunch of web resources (on improv) pertaining to status transactions. Feel free to email me, everyone.
That was already quite interesting to read out of context, but I'd definitely look forward to something you've written about it for an audience more like this one.
(Yeah, you did. ;)) And as an aside I think that upvoting and downvoting in practice becomes mostly about status raising or lowering. Subconsciously it's about the gain or loss of prestige of a comment (and person).
Also, it's interesting to read (HN) headlines with status transactions in mind. When reading a headline ask yourself, who got lowered? Who was raised? Take Microsoft takes a loss to Firefox The obvious thing is FF>MS, but who else is lowered or raised?
Yeah, that's a lot of trouble to get your stuff (possibly) noticed. I'm sick of this expectation. Technology should address this as a problem. Am I really expected to do a blog to be part of "the conversation"? Am I only listened to when I do the social media dance? I don't like this world.
Something needs to replace the blogger/commenter dynamic. Something that puts people on equal footing by default. The blog dynamic too easily devolves into a high status/low status game.
To steal a line, nutrition is younger than it seems. We screwed it up fundamentally. This is just another example.
This study contradicts the glycemic index theory which claims glucose, specifically rice and potatoes, are the worst carbohydrates sources because they're high-GI. Truth is, we're better adapted to glucose. The body converts all carbohydrates (except fiber) sources to glucose, and then to glycogen. There's a reason blood sugar is glucose. The body prefers it.
Fructose - Glucose Study Showdown [1]
(a)13.9% increase in LDL cholesterol but doubled Apoprotein B (b) 44.9% increase in small LDL
[1] Dr. Davis is a cardiologist that has reversed atherosclerotic plaque in thousands of patients. He recommends a diet where most calories come from fat. Here's his analysis of studies relating fructose to heart disease: http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Fructose
The idea behind GI theory is not (I believe) that glucose is bad for you, but that too much in one short hit is bad for you. Yes, the body converts all carbohydrates to glucose, but it takes much longer for complex carbs to turn into straight glucose than it does simpler ones, spreading out the absorption. It isn't about fructose vs glucose, but rather fast absorption vs slow absorption.
If you get your point across by using terms no one understands, you're not getting your point across. It's not efficient at all, since you'll have to explain yourself further. But we all do this, not just "geeks". We're inferentially distance from each other. Who doesn't compress their understand of the world into their own specialist jargon?