Also: unstable and not fit for public release
Weird how that attracts a certain crowd
Counterpoint:
Humans in a civilized (meaning urbanized) society… are domesticated, are basically in captivity, from the comparative framework of wild animals.
CounterCounterpoint:
Using studies on captive wolves as a fundamental basis for how human societies do or should work…
… Is maybe really stupid compared to, I don’t know, using Sociology as a basis to understand human societies.
Sociology being the field that focuses on the social dynamics of uh, humans, which are markedly different from wolves, and other distinct, largely non sapient animals.
Its uh, kinda in our name, homo sapiens sapiens.
You have to use parables to teach moral concepts to most people. Sociology is very valuable as a science, but if you come at the general public with unvarnished findings you are going to have a bad time, few will listen to you.
The old alpha male trope is a parable that serves some narrow interests. The newer counter parables about how that is BS are based in observations from sociology, later generations of more rigorous animal behavior studies and related fields.
You are correct that good scientific work is the source of what we need. The equally difficult truth is that those findings will only make their way into general consciousness through parables.
This one weird fact drives nerds crazy, but for newer, better ideas to take hold in society they have to be translated into simple stories.
You have to use parables to teach moral concepts to most people.
This one weird fact drives nerds crazy, but for newer, better ideas to take hold in society they have to be translated into simple stories.
As a person with a career in data analytics…
You are completely correct.
When talking to non nerds, non autists, non data wonks…
Yep, 100% you absolutely must be able to present your data as a narrative of some kind if you want to have any hope of most people having any reaction other than confusion or their eyes glossing over.
I have learned this the hard way in my own life, and its why people like Sagan and Nye and Tyson were/are science communicators, which is a different skillset from being an actual scientist in whatever field.
People of science understand, without the parables, because they have the working and “book” knowledge to interpret the relative meaning of the presented data. To communicate the meaning relative data, without the background knowledge, and without taking the time to learn (or even package for small, focused learning) it is easier to understand, if put into a relative comparable, with similar, relative distance, or changes. Especially when people are already overloaded with *gestures towards everything. The way to eat an elephant, small bites. It’s an elephant to people without all that back knowledge or ability to interpret the science, so you gotta break it into small bites for them, using your understanding.
One of the most discouraging moments in my training was when I was looking into the literature around Decision Support Systems, in the context of Geographic Information Systems as a tool for supporting complex efforts.
Over and over, no matter the specific focus of a study, the authors would reiterate that no matter the quality of the information produced by the decision support system, decision makers were more likely to go with solutions supported by people the decision makers considered to be peers, even when the hard data showed that the opposite course was more justified.
In short, CEOs and similar almost always care more about the opinions of other CEOs than being true to the scientific ideal.
So to go back to the name of our species, ‘homo sapiens’ as a name is aspirational, not reflective of fact.
Perhaps ‘homo recumbens’ would be more appropriate as a descriptor, but I prefer we keep the current name so as to at least give us something to strive for.
The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens (‘wise man’). In any case it’s an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee.
Terry Pratchett
Over and over, no matter the specific focus of a study, the authors would reiterate that no matter the quality of the information produced by the decision support system, decision makers were more likely to go with solutions supported by people the decision makers considered to be peers, even when the hard data showed that the opposite course was more justified.
In short, CEOs and similar almost always care more about the opinions of other CEOs than being true to the scientific ideal.
Extremely ironically, what this means is that the actual prime candidate for a job to replace with AI…
Is CEOs, C Suite.
They are the most expensive employees, after all.
Maybe not replace them with LLMs as we currently have them, beyond possibly being used to generate a narrative, human readable explanation of their decision making process and policies…
Where the actual decision making and policy determinations would themselves be decided by basically a much more specialized algorithm, that is made out of code a human can actually read.
Like, we’ve already got Zoom entirely seriously trying to get AI-LLMs that train themselves on your work emails and chats, then make an avatar emulation of ‘you’, then send that to digital meetings, then output the chat log ‘results’ of this ‘meeting’.
So, there you go.
C Suite doesn’t really do anything beyond networking and corpo politics, this can simulate that, minus the off the record corruption, which shouldn’t be a problem, right?
… Its always been about power and social status.
If otherwise, they’d all be developing something along the lines of what I just described, putting themselves out of a job, and retiring on their already massive wealth.
No, they don’t do that.
They are addicted to being superior, to being able to ruin people.
They’re dangerous petty narcissistic sociopaths.
Alpha means “first”, it does not mean “wolf who fights other wolves while in captivity according to one study.”
Do people not know this?
No, alpha is the anglicization of the first letter of the greek alphabet. It doesn’t mean ‘first’ any more than the letter A does.
Gee. It’s almost like language evolves!
Get bent you rape apologist
It does! However, alpha still means “first”, as it always has. The word predates the study by centuries.
Normally you would be right, that’s not the case here, just looking at ALPHA, outside of the content of the above statement, is problematic at best…The statement does indeed talk to the behavior of pack animals…Do You Not Know This?
I’m right still, you are wrong! Alpha is not problematic in any way. It’s in the Bible (the best selling book on Earth, at least at one time), it’s used in pop culture while not referring to the study in any way. So now annoying people use “alpha” just like “king” and “prince” and “the best” and “the greatest”.
You’ll all get over it soon, as usual. I promise.
p.s as per your question, yes I do know of it, as stated in my post that you responded to. I’m sorry that referring to it was an inadequate indicator that I knew of it, so I’m guessing your question is a joke? I mean, it’s obvious.
“I am the alpha and the omega” only means “I am the beginning and the end” because alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Alpha does not mean “first” in Greek you smug dipshit.
What’s it like living inside of your own asshole?
It’s just nonsense for people who are too asocial and alien to the human experience to make sense of the world and feel better about themselves by having some sort of binary ‘strict goals’. You’re supposed to be somewhere ‘in the middle’ for best results: kind but not a doormat, confident but not arrogant, engaging but not domineering, etc etc.
Among dogs there is certainly the one dog that has the respect of the other dogs. The other dogs will happily wag their tail and show their belly. The ones that challange it will be chased away. I think each sex in the community has a ‘leader’ of their own.
I think the equivalent in humans are charismatic individuals that command respect over their surrounding.
People who self-proclaim ‘alpha’ usually lack charisma, are agressive, dysfunctional individuals that live in a fantasy. Noone respects them. They may see them as crazy and hence fear them.
i mean we’ve got that one cat that beats up all the other cats and dogs in the neighborhood and everyone knows to keep their distance. pecking order I think it’s called.
You’re probably talking about literally the same: random dogs thrown spacially together where they naturally would avoid each other if they could. Which, in the modern days, they can’t. Especially not when leached.
I observe this in the stray dog population. There is always one calm and confident dog like this.
And? Of course there is. They’re also on a spectrum. Everyone is everything to some degree.
I know, not scientifically real, but you have to admit, there are in fact alpha and beta folks in the human population, both men and women. We used to call them type A and type B personalities, same difference.
Anyway, I’m in some kinda weird half-and-half place. :) “On the spectrum”, if you will. Dominant in some ways, but not enough to stomp people out of my way, empathetic enough to be seen as a “good guy”. Whatever. I’m just happy I didn’t land on either far side. Can you imagine being a wuss and having dreams of “alpha”? The mind recoils.
Anyway, I’m in some kinda weird half-and-half place. :) “On the spectrum”, if you will.
Hey, maybe people are not binary and everyone is “on the spectrum”? Maybe that’s why trying to put everyone into A and B boxes doesn’t make much sense?
There are not only two personalities
both men and women
There are also not only two genders
There’s only two of anything if you define broadly enough. There’s only two kinds of people: • those who have passed a kidney stone and those who haven’t • those who currently have a single testicle and those who don’t
There are two types of people, those who admit they pee in the shower and liars.
I have a signed document pledging the right testicle of a highschool friend that I technically own and will collect upon his death. I don’t know how many testicles I have.
I didn’t make that up for a hypothetical. This is how I live.
you and me should be friends. what’s a life without an ambiguous number of body parts?
Let’s do it, but only if this online friendship doesn’t lead to a chance meetcute where my friend dies and the will is contested, and you happen to be the best damn testicle lawyer this side of the Mississippi River.
I’ve already given up on love and nothing will thaw this icy heart. Not even the best damn testicle lawyer this side of the Mississippi River.
Oh, my brother is the best damn testicle lawyer this side of the Mississipp. I’m just a collector.
Blood related, adopted, or is it more of a spiritual relationship? (For sex reasons)
does my jar collection count
Different people have different personalities? That’s how humans work. It’s not neatly categorizable. Not even on a single sliding axis. Multiple sliding axis for different traits is more like it.
Anyway, I’m in some kinda weird half-and-half place.
Like everyone else then.
We used to call them type A and type B personalities,
Who’s “we”? A quick glance at Wikipedia gives me the impression that it’s the American tobacco industry and “scientists” on their payroll. Hopefully you are not one of them.
Who’s “we”?
Probably OP Commentor is using the Pluralis Majestatis (the royal we)
