Kia ora and welcome to !newzealand, a place to share and discuss anything about Aotearoa in general
Rules:
FAQ ~ NZ Community List ~ Join Matrix chatroom
Banner image by Bernard Spragg
Got an idea for next month's banner?
Checking in from the West Island - playing my dual-citizen card today. Go Black Caps!!
I work in IT, and many (feels like half) of my colleagues are Indian. The banter in the office today is pretty funny. Kiwis don't have enough representation, but I'm doing my best. I figure this may be a sympathetic audience.
Thought for the day
How willing are you to be wrong.
Are you the type of person that defends your position, even though you know in the back of your head that you don't have the knowledge to defend that position.
I love to find something I don't know yet, this maps to accepting that I am wrong about things all the time. The realization, that not knowing something yet means by definition I'm wrong about that thing; has increased my already insatiable appetite for learning.
Not knowing about something is surely very different than being wrong about it. Being wrong to me means not having, or believing, correct and established knowledge about that subject.
I am always open for new input and never try to bluff my way past an unknown.
Most people will have an opinion on something despite not knowing anything about it....
Having a partial knowledge of something, of course will allow the opportunity for someone to form an opinion about it. But not knowing anything, and yet still forming such an opinion, does seem a bit out of place to me.
This is something I can never fully understand about human nature. I mean, I know it's a thing but I can't relate.
If a person "does not like to be wrong" why do they double down on a wrong position?
Pretending to be right doesn't bend reality.
If you really don't like being wrong, surely the best option is to get out of the state of being wrong by assimilating more information so that you can reformulate your ideas and be genuinely right.
This is something that is quite easy to answer for most cases.
A lot of people tie their sense of self (values) incorrectly to specific beliefs; rather than general concepts. If information comes in that contradicts those beliefs; then by definition this information is attacking their sense of self and thus their whole being; it is much easier to argue that the new information is wrong than to admit that their whole world view is wrong.
A really good example of this is politics, especially in America but increasingly around the world. When someone says "I'm a national/labour/green/act voter" rather than "I support these policies and they align with the national/labour/green/act party"; if their particular brand makes a decision that they disagree with, on a subconscious level they have to change the one belief to keep the bulk of their identity intact.
It is easy for someone who doesn't tie their self worth to external sources to change their views, because their values and sense of self is not contingent on external validation.
This makes sense for me on the big/philosophical things (politics, abortion, religion, etc) because they do tie into worldview, but not on the small/simple matters of fact things (distance in km between NZ and Australia, whether Nicholas Cage is in a film).
It's the people who dig their heels in for the second category that really perplex me.
It comes back to the same thing, what value are they protecting?
Maybe they feel that admitting they are wrong will disturb their sense of self respect "I can't possibly have remembered that incorrectly".
So, their self respect sort of relies on thinking they are infallible? Seems like an unrealistic/delusional basis.
I can see what you mean though, insofar as I've noticed that people in positions of authority can get like that because they see being question as a challenge to their position and their right to that position - it's the hallmark of a bad teacher, for example, to never admit to not knowing things.
Still, it's very weird. If being right makes you feel good about yourself, wouldn't it make more sense to actually ensure that you are?
It should be essential.... But ensuring you actually are correct is not part of the feedback loop. The loop seems to be: l was challenged -> I told them where to go -> therefore I was correct -> my self respect gets a wee tickle
It just sounds like magical thinking.
Thanks for explaining it. It's not like I have Spock levels of rationality either: I have emotional and cognitive biases myself, but the "therefore I was correct" step boggles my mind.
Lying to yourself is an own goal.
I can't remember where I heard it now, I think maybe on a course, but [citation needed] people only change their values by living them.
For example, you may think people with a different coloured skin are bad people. You may have been raised to think this, and it's one of your core beliefs. No amount of data or arguing can change that view if it's a core belief. The only way to change it is by living the value and finding out that your values are conflicting with your own experience. With the above example, this may mean becoming friends with someone of a different skin colour. Your core belief is that people with that skin colour are bad people, but your friend is not a bad person, so you have a conflict that may change your value. Seeing someone do something good on TV is not going to change your value, because you can just assume they are doing it with self-serving motivations.
Another example is that you may strongly believe that guns should not be restricted, until your toddler shoots themself and then suddenly your core value has been challenged.
The media is full of stories of people who believed one thing and then life proved them wrong (was there a subreddit about leopards eating faces or something?)
Changing your values is hard, and for some people they will hold onto those shitty values throughout their entire lives.
The fact that these types of stories make it through to the media, says something about the difficulty of change in this regard.
In general I also love to learn I'm wrong, it's surely better than not knowing I'm wrong. But I think there's a good and bad way to tell someone they are wrong.
I'm not above pulling out my phone in the middle of a conversation and looking things up, so discussions of this nature are a lot shorter these days than they were 20 years ago.
I also love to learn I’m wrong, it’s surely better than not knowing I’m wrong
Me too, it feels like good fortune.
Hopefully I will get to do some paperwork and chores of my own, depends on what the homeowner is doing though.
The lemon tree borer holes are all filled in now. Discovered the hard way that scented candle wax does not go hard like real wax though! Had to rethink my first plan and had fingernails that smell like fake peaches all day.
Found out fees for doctor appointments just shot up from $19.50 to $35.00, so I'm a bit glum. I will miss it.
Do you qualify for disability allowance? If you go to the doctor regularly, you might be able to get it covered.
I have a disability allowance, but you are only allowed costs related directly to your disability so 4 visits per year - ordinary stuff like lung infections and breast lumps are not included.
Unfortunately untreated infections tend to make my underlying condition worse so I'm kind of over a barrel.
I will ask for it to be updated (you have to provide receipts and doctor signatures for each thing). Updating is a bit dicey because sometimes other things drop off due to clerical error. Also, they seem to pride themselves on only paying partial costs, e.g if the medicine costs $19 they might pay you $11.
Ah that sucks. My experiences with WINZ are that things could be a lot simpler but they almost seem designed to be unnecessarily dificult.
Yeah you're right, it's partly the design, KPIs, and lack of transparency, but I think it's also an institutional culture of lack of accountability - staff aren't trained very well, but they also feel free to act arbitrarily. I've witnessed behaviour that would have got the staff member a written warning at my former workplace (an institution).
I have an actionable plan to disestablish WINZ, all the government needs to do is ask 😆
Sounds good!
Today I had a croissant and was bored of just toasting with cheese so looked up how to eat a croissant. wikiHow told me:
Dunk a croissant in coffee before each bite for a delicious pick-me-up.
So I tried that. Not sure that it was really for me.
Yes this was about the most exciting thing that happened to me today.
Not sure I'd want to ruin either a good coffee or a croissant...