I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Hyde....

My alter-ego is complaining that she doesn't get to go outside like Tyrone, Ramone and now Katla get to. She's also adamantly opposed to copying people, so I think her desire for self-actualization won out over her professed interest in intellectual honesty.

She would rather be uniquely wrong than boringly correct. Which results in each of her blog posts being a rehash of every single complaint that's been made about humanity for the last 3000 years. She's self-righteous, cynical and tends to overreact. A lot of my posts should have been made as Boudicca, simply because I sound more nasty in print than I actually am. Or according to Boudicca because I'm a complete coward, afraid to confess to socially undesirable beliefs. She's also probably deeply in love with Tyrone, but I haven't asked her -- we don't have that sort of friendship.

Her world-view is totally skewed so any insights she has are obscured by her warped personality.
Here's hoping that she'll shut up:

"People are hopelessly confused about life and the universe; most come to terms with their complete and utter ignorance, except for the rare few that manage to befuddle themselves into thinking that they understand a small section of it.

They are so deluded as to believe that only they have consistent beliefs and with ineffable hypocrisy decide that they should be allowed to rule the world, simply because they think about things... the nerve. Of course they don't rule the world, power-hungry sociopaths rule the world. The title is usually hereditary; I can visualize a long, distinguished line of autocratic brats being groomed for the throne and macerating the world under their prepubescent greasy thumbs.

This social order is quite predictable given that human rhetoric almost never is in agreement with our actual desires. Our ideas -- accrued over the millenia of adaptation to the cruel psycho-social realities of this world -- become outmoded more quickly than we can develop new rationalizations for our behavior. Maybe deep down, we're all sociopaths ,we're just not smart enough to always get our way.
We try to distance ourselves from these embarrassing beliefs, either by deceiving ourselves or explicitly lying. In an added layer of honesty, we do talk about these beliefs, but generally add suitable disclaimers, possibly even creating an imaginary personality for people to spend their ire on. Which shows us to be complex, urbane and considerate, while remaining uncontroversial and still in agreement with the majority (whatever our chosen in-group is.)

Were I not the cognitive minority, I would have no need of this crude dissociative element. I am delighted to be an outsider. Not because it gives me a feeling of superiority and not because it lessens any responsibility that I might incur from belonging to a group. It's simply because I don't have to worry about clouding my beliefs in a respectable miasma of jargon and politeness. We would all be better off with more honesty in the world."

I was wrong... no. 1

Really good point circulating in the econ blogosphere, Fessing up to Mistakes

I ought to admit when I'm wrong, partly because I value honesty and partly because it makes it easier to correct my mistakes.

Or maybe I just don't want to look stupid:

because people who hold heterodox opinions are just confused

Specifically: I ought to admit to holding mutually inconsistent opinions or reconcile apparently contradictory positions by reexamining and reformulating my statements of belief.

first one I can think of:

0: "Just because everyone's doing it, doesn't make it right" (I've heard various, extremely colorful variations on this, but I'm representing the condensed and umm, sanitized version....)

1: Or the bayesian-thingy...'Since you can't hope to arrive at every answer by yourself, it's best to rely on information collated and interpreted by experts, by compiling information and giving greater weight to the views of other better informed people, you should arrive at the best understanding of the situation possible.'

I think this can be pretty easily reconciled, since '0' concerns people ("who should know better" or relative experts) who are not merely listening to a majority, but an ill-informed, unwise majority.

...but if you're incompetent (relatively or absolutely,) how will you know if your assessment of other people's expertise is even remotely accurate?

I don't think that you can hope to consistently arrive at a better answer (i.e. without guessing) than the 'best experts,' you still need new information. Of course you learn from other people, anyone will admit that; I don't know that there are very many people who want to try and develop thousands of years worth of accumulated knowledge ex nihilo. My conclusion, they're both wrong (I have to wait for quantum computing to develop.)

This is already too long (meaning: I can't think of anything else right now, so I'm going to try to back out of this gracefully,) but this is probably the first of a series; considering that it's highly unlikely that I'm going to stop making mistakes, and even less unlikely that I'm going to stop blabbing about them ("a fool flaunts his folly.")

If we had only known......

People do stupid things, even if they know that they are stupid things to do; it's a kind of predestination.

The more educated, might be less likely to make mistakes, but are also likely to get cocky overestimate their competency. If information gives us an increased ability to "predict" the future, then we use our more accurate knowledge (or decreased level of risk) to make riskier choices, like the Peltzmann effect. Maybe the stock market is a picture of real life....

I would tend to say that more knowledge is an improvement, but not when people start to think that their models (whether they be economic, cosmological or psychological) actually exist, rather than being useful approximations of reality. It becomes ludicrous, people start with nativism vs. behaviorism type wars and when things cool down you get the people in the middle of the two camps and the only thing that they have right is that they believe that the first two camps were wrong.

Maybe we make poor choices because we don't have enough information? Do people like doing stupid things or are we just wired that way?

Maybe it initially requires "too much" effort to anticipate your making mistakes and minimizing the damage caused by them.....

Most "Great Divides" are pretty average

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/08/questions-for-great-divides.html

Our fight, of [A] against [B] over [C], is but one battle in the ancient war over [F], along the great divide between [D] and [E]. Many do not realize how many of our apparently mundane conflicts are, in reality, battles in this ancient war. Today is a crucial day in this war, so we must not give up, and we must not lose hope, or someday [D] may lose [F] forever. Fight, fight!

.....as a painfully green blogger, I can't restrain myself:

First, if you have any opinions worth talking about, they will eventually develop into disagreements with others. Rhetorical belligerence may not be attractive, but at what point do you consider it a "conflict"?

People seem to derive self-worth from professing their beliefs; so if you disagree it's not simply an attack on their idea, they view it is an assault on 'their being.' Exaggerating the conflict makes it seem more important that it actually is and so gives an individual and corporate ego-boost (honestly, who cares whether you use Gentoo or Ubuntu?)

Also, people don't deal well with ambiguity; clearly defining who's "a good guy" makes you a more effective 'combatant.' Many divides are sub-issues, used as a supporting argument for a 'greater divide;' (i. e. it might be worth alienating a small number of people on your own larger-issue divide if it increases group cohesiveness in the remaining members.)

Secondly, a number of people hold beliefs (this might be too strong a term,) that they care very little about, so it's necessary to determine which divides they care about, not just what side of the divide they are on.

Thirdly, 'Intellectuals vs. Manualists' (or whatever you want to call it) isn't covered, which is strange since this is one of the oldest and most widespread "great divides."in recent history 'intellectuals' have won the propaganda war, primarily because 'Manualists' (when not allowed to eradicate intellectuals) have a very limited number of defenses, and have to confront intellectuals on their 'home-ground' to even argue with them. It's currently much cooler to be a nerd making a jock look stupid.......

1. "How is this division a key division underlying many others?"

People develop different strategies to maximize their effectiveness; it's natural that some people would think to save themselves work and that others would work to save themselves thinking........

2. "How do people acquire their sides in this conflict"?

.....you might be born a 'thinker,' or a 'worker;' your juvenile environment might reward one-type of strategy over the other, you might self-interestedly align yourself with a cause.

3. "How has this conflict lasted so long, without one side winning?"

If you take a nativist view, there is no way to change the fact that the divide exists, if you view it as cultural strategy, one could argue that diversity is (in the long run) more stable. Or you can say the the intellectuals are in fact winning, and probably will win (unless the Mayans are right, or zombies invade New York -- the center of the known universe.)

4. "How could one side finally win such an old conflict?"

Marginalizing your opponent to the point where people think that he/she/they is/are in the minority, is just about the only way to win one of these "epic struggles between good and evil." I hesitate to mention the Overton window, but cultural drift is the only way to win. (Rhetoric does not require factual accuracy; it's not actually necessary that they really be in the minority-----though it's really stupid to try this tactic against a majority-----if you are trying to bring back the worship of Bacchus, don't appeal to the idea that "everybody's doing it.")

5. Why is one side better than the other in an absolute sense?

Intelligence saves people work. Though this does not seem to be effective for people who are unable, unwilling or haven't been trained to think.

6. Why can’t those folks be persuaded that their side is bad?

Because the only people that will try to persuade them are on the other side, so in order to 'switch' beliefs, they must be convinced of 2 things, not merely that they are wrong.

Or people like to feel better than everyone else, they enjoy being entrenched jingoists, there are probably some hard-wired preferences.

7. Why can’t peaceful compromise replace conflict?

Maybe it can and has. We certainly don't burn heretics any more (in many parts of the world at least.)

Of course we could also be at the furthest reach of the pendulum's swing, and we wouldn't know.

Procrastination and Perfectionism/ flawed time valuation

Procrastination as a side effect of perfectionism on Meteuphoric, she has a good poing but

I don't know that it is perfectionism, so much as a failure to realize that your idealization of the future will not affect the "future present," and your effectiveness and the amount of effort required will not change by letting time pass.

"Driven" people probably have the opposite problem; they idealize how much they can do and plan a minimum amount of time and then put forth maximum effort, which often involves extra time ----- so they are always busy.

Or they are organized and work hard, but they attribute value to things that aren't necessarily more important to most people because of their own peculiarities i.e. they find that they are tired from sorting all of their canned goods alphabetically and then everything seems like really hard work......

this is all probably inaccurate, or at least a drastic oversimplification.....but I'm all for chunking.

Jobs vs. "being nice"

Meteuphoric's Are Meaningful Careers Cover Stories post, started me thinking......

Maybe it's as simple as the fact that jobs make more consistent demands on time, if it's just a useful hobby people might question your commitment.

But I think it ignores a tendency to underrate altruistic jobs. I would think that this is because altruistic jobs demand a lot of time, rather than flashes of brilliant insight. If you are an average intelligent and caring person, your intelligence might be used better in a "non-altruistic" job, and if your job isn't altruistic enough for your taste (or for appearances) you can spend the rest of your time 'doing good.' People will then admire you for your efficient prioritization and for your kindness.

If you make the conscious decision to enter into an altruistic job, there is the possibility that you will be classed with people who are in altruistic jobs precisely because the jobs don't require flashes of brilliant insight; then (even if your hobby involves splitting atoms) no one will care about your hobby, because you will be hanging out with people at work that can't split atoms and the folks at the Domestic Atomic Association are probably not as nice as you are.

If you are a successful software consultant and you read to disadvantaged students on the weekend, people think that you are a great guy; if you are a social worker that writes Java applets, chances are people think that you're some chick that couldn't get a private sector job (note the heavy-handed use of subliminal linguistic gender stereotypes.)

How can "poverty" invest in prosperity?

Merci Beaucoup (pronounced correctly thanks to Obama) to the French; the food is wonderful, but besides imparting fabulous technique and lots of butter to African cuisine, they didn't do much else for Louisiana. (Not that we have either, mind)

Driving through Louisiana, is kind of like driving through the beginning of Omega Man.
The dilapidated parking lots, lack of road signs and/or people able to give directions to "foreigners"
There's the charred sugar-cane stubble, with the petrochemical and fertilizer factories to add an slightly piquant industrial aroma, that successfully detracts from any natural beauty that the countryside might have. The wealth that flows (or used to flow) through New Orleans does not seem to affect it much; though the appearance of living in the 1860's does make it an attractive tourist destination. But why is it stuck? An enormous amount of wealth flows (or used to flow) through New Orleans, perhaps there is the difficulty of resource-rich entities being unable to create sustainable economic growth (in that large amounts of resources go through New Orleans because it is there not because there are necessarily buyers.

France did not have the infrastructure that Britain and later Germany (or Prussia etc.) had, they had a larger population and there was not as much incentive to create labor-saving devices. Is it contagious or something?

Does Louisiana suffer from being ignored? Or is it like Baltimore a place who's time has past, but can't adjust?

Besides the annual manic outburst the state seems to live in perpetual depression. Poverty seems to work like that, depressed people can't be bothered to make to try making themselves happy. It's probably just that it is more difficult to invest in prosperity if you are poor (somewhat obviously.)

The infrastructure can be solved, cultural changes take more time, and can't exactly be legislated (though they do try in California................)

in addition: recognize I must, that word order is often essential in english, "how poverty can invest in prosperity," implies that instead of being a pontificating fool, I actually have suggestions on how to improve the living standards of Louisianans. So I decided to rewrite history, as a result this post is dated wrong.
(by the way, I have no hard feelings after the HOURS spent driving along the left bank of the Mississippi, after not paying $20+ to enter a ramshackle plantation in the middle of NOWHERE, and getting lost because of an AWFUL map----I just feel a particular pity for the people that have to live there.)