Fear them!

The Great Swamp of Morris County

Chupacabra were rampant!

GreatSwamp

Skepticism in the workplace

Recently, I was helping out on a training program at work for auditors. The main message was to help auditors avoid problems in their reasoning/judgement that would impact their work. These problems included confirmation bias, overconfidence, and anchoring. All of these common psychological tendencies in humans are serious problems when it comes to interpreting financial data with clients. It was a very strange experience for me actually. Usually during a virtual class, I am tuned out to what the presenters are saying and more focused on the tech support side of things. But in this case I actually felt like I was back in critical thinking class in college. Personally, I think skepticism is very important. It provides a clear method to evaluate the truth of a claim.

For example, it's important to understand why there isn't an invisible leprechaun in your closet. There are no conditions that would falsify your Irish comrade being that he/she is invisible. We are all susceptible to these errors in thinking. This is why the majority of people believe in supernatural things: astrology, psychics, ghosts, angels, demonic possession (maybe not everybody haha, but I know people who do ok), medicine (new age and any for that matter), claims made by people on Oprah etc. I am not saying all of these things are not true. Just that without proper evidence, the best we can say is "I don't know." Of course the things that are testable in principle and failed when we did so would get a "No." Certainly our knowledge will change over time as we make progress. But this is the most practical system to ground belief and provides the clearest picture of what we can know at any given time.

So it's great to see that skepticism is valuable in my job. I am not an auditor, but I do support them with virtual training. It's good to be part of something that encourages people to think critically and raise awareness about common errors in thinking even if it just pertains to auditing stuff. Is it weird that I am thinking it might be cool to be an auditor?

Hey Jude Flowchart

Talent Show Video

I participated in a talent show last Friday night at work. There was quite a wide variety of acts including: Full rock bands, modern dance, opera, vocal, and instrumental. It was a very positive experience for me even though I did not win. Specifically, I was able to remain in a more "giving" state of mind (as opposed to being critical and nervous while performing). It was really fun actually! I would like to thank everyone for coming and being incredibly supportive! Below is the video of my performance:

Annoying phrases series post 1 - "It is what it is"

I thought about starting a series about annoying phrases we say/hear day to day. The purpose would be twofold: namely to determine whether these phrases have value or not, then if not to come up with an alternative phrase to take its place. There are several other advantages as well besides the wonderful opportunity for me to bitch, which should not be overlooked :) You can also suggest particular phrases that annoy you as well and we can bring those to the discussion. Yay! So before I begin let me first say that my intentions are not to single anyone out here. There is no "It is what it is" person that I am referring to specifically. All of these phrases are pervasive enough that they go beyond any particular person.

Alright so lets get started. I am sure everyone is familiar with this one, but let me lay out an example of how I typically hear it used. After all this is my blog. It is what it is! Oops, I jumped the gun there. Sorry about that. Anyhow, the times I most often hear "It is what it is" (lets go with iiwii from here out) are when someone is discussing a less than ideal situation that must be accepted in its current state. There is no opportunity to change things for the better. iiwii signifies the proverbial throwing in of the towel. For example, say you are a sports fan and your team is doing terrible this season (if its football, please read the MG article comparing it with dogfighting 2 posts ago). Your team keeps playing poorly and losing game after game, even with teams they usually beat. There is no chance they will make it to the playoffs or whatever the appropriate Harry Potter-esque final showdown is. IIWII!!!!!!! Theres always next season. I am sure you could think of countless other examples as well where iiwii would be appropriate.

My observation is that nothing is added to the discussion by dropping the iiwii. You have to set some context with someone before you pull an iiwii on them. If you just walked up to your best friend and iiwii-ed them, they would probably be like, "What the hell are you talking about?" or "Thanks buddy, it most certainly is what it is. Unless of course one of the "it's" is the shadow-self of the other "it" and is actually the evil it" A situation must be laid out clearly first. iiwii is grammatically correct but actually meaningless. I think it would be more effective to lay out the situation. Then, replace the iiwii conclusion with "We/I just have to accept it/this." At least then you are taking it a step further in terms of content and also communicating more effectively. Unfortunately that is more characters and words than iiwii. Hey, It is what it is...

What do you think? Convince me to end this annoying phrase series, haha.

The Weirdest Clouds that You’ll Ever See

Check these out. These are amazing.