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When i was especially manic back in i think 2017 I was visualizing all human interaction in the social space, as series of negotiations, which were more concrete to me at that point than the physical.
It led to some rather amusing reflections**, but I still hold some of the insights i gained from that experience.
There's a whole dark web of human networking we typically don't exploit fully. We treat it as ancillary when not ignoring it entirely, and that's negotiation.
Everything is one. Even now, I'm selling you on the idea that everything is a negotiation, even - nay especially - the conveyance of ideas.
** At one point I found myself laughing hysterically at a laptop due to its continued insistence on existing despite all of the negotiations that had to take place between design, manufacture and purchase for it to be there, sitting on my bed. Yet there it was. I laughed.. It was hilarious. Each negotiation, each planning session so fungible. Anything can happen. Anything could turn that laptop into something else. Boss wore a cornflower blue tie instead of the usual red so they developed a gaming rig instead. Maybe I decided I was sick of laptops and bought a TV. Who knows? But there it was just sitting there, on my bed.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I don't think this was manic at all, but rather an important insight. You'd sell me on the idea depending on your definition of "social space", because there are aspects of human interaction that are not negotiated, where one side effectively says, "Do this or die." Apart from that, negotiations can be implicit rather than explicit, but they're still the backdrop.
"Do this or die" interactions are immoral. It would make a good sci-fi novel (if it hasn't already), but imagine beings with a shield that can't be penetrated. The shield can be enabled instantly (or perhaps slightly retroactively to defend against surprise attack). When enabled, the shield immediately repels anything but has no offensive capability. How would this society function differently than our own?
I wouldn't find a laptop hysterical, though. Even though it's arguably the outcome of a long series of "negotiations", that series had to lead somewhere, and it just so happened to be the laptop. At least in this universe.
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I was indeed manic. But I got a lot of important insights in that state.
Sometimes I miss being unmedicated.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: I'm selling you on the idea that everything is a negotiation, even - nay especially - the conveyance of ideas.
I believe you are fundamentally correct, it's just that as you say, we ignore it almost always. If you're conscious of it, any human interaction, including ideas, is a deep well of sympathy and antipathy that we're often not even aware of. The "negotiation" begins with what we like and don't like in the interaction, carries forward enough to create either a reactive response or a "thoughtful" response. So we first negotiate with ourselves, and the more conscious I am of that inner negotiation, the more I have a chance of "acting" rather than "reacting."
The next negotiation is the external process of responding to the other person. This is a complex dance of acceptance, rejection, empathy, sympathy, analysis and synthesis, to name a few. We have the complexity of expressing our response, verbally or otherwise. A functionally empathetic person will be monitoring (with various degrees of awareness) two things -- how well they are actually communicating the response that they want to communicate, and their sense of how well what they are communicating is actually being received and understood by the other person.
So again, we negotiate with ourselves to modulate how we express ourselves, often in a non-verbal real-time negotiation and revision based on the other person's response. The other person, in the meantime, is going through the other process -- feelings of sympathy and antipathy arise, and the process repeats for them.
The middle area, what we normally call "negotiation" between two people is actually only a small aspect of the entire form of communication, which can be visualized as a lemniscate (a figure 8) of internal activity transformed to external activity which then becomes internal activity in the other person and is transformed to external activity, received by us and processed again through initially internal activity.
Which, in some circles, when done with as much consciousness as can be mustered, is called Goethean Conversation[^].
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Marc Clifton wrote: Which, in some circles, when done with as much consciousness as can be mustered, is called Goethean Conversation
Interesting!
Real programmers use butterflies
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@marc_clifton The link to the Spock article in your blog post seems broken: here's the source (?): [^]. Note: this site, and Spock, are associated with, and promote, the esoteric anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, the roots of which include some of the most far-out occultists of the modern era (Annie Besant, Madame Blavatsky).
The school of psychotherapy I once trained in, and was licensed to practice (Moreno's psychodrama), was based on belief that the personality, and behavior, of people was modulated by interaction of internal roles, as well as by group dynamics, and the formal constraints of the context/environment.
cheers, Bill
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
modified 28-Jan-20 14:37pm.
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We had better hallucinogens (Sandoz) in the 1960's, but, no laptops to laugh at 
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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With me the drugs help me stop seeing stuff
Real programmers use butterflies
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"Being normal takes courage."
First of all, normal is default. Anyone can fall into it.
Second, what's outstanding about being normal? Is it really some kind of acheivement?
Is there any way to interpret this argument as something other than rationalizing never leaving one's comfort zone?
"It's brave to never branch out! It's brave to follow the crowd. War is peace. Ignorance is strength!"
Real programmers use butterflies
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Quote: First of all, normal is default
Normal = Boring!
I pride myself: I am not "normal". What is normal anyway? Please tell me so I can avoid it. 
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I agree and have said before that normal is essentially a synonym for boring.
Normal never changed the world.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Quote: Normal never changed the world
Correct! But let's not throw normal people under the bus. They are the laborers who bring in the farmer's crops, the teachers who teach your kids, etc. etc.
But the people who change the world: The Bill Gates, Bezos, Moore (of Intel), Einstein, these are not "normal" by any measure, are they?
Both these types of people play a vital role in making society what it is - not so? Let's spare a thought for both!
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Agreed.
Real programmers use butterflies
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All the inventions in the entire history of the world are based on the genius of maybe fifty people.
The rest of us are, and always will be, cr@p, by comparison.
But much noisier.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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honey the codewitch wrote: Normal never changed the world.
Spot on.
Normal are the ones that keeps the society running.
But whenever there is a "catastrophy" happening, of whatever kind, it's the others that saves the day.
I saw a very interesting program on TV a while ago, where a psychologist explained why people with ADHD, bipolar disorder and so on, exists from an evolutionary perspective. It was in Swedish, otherwise I'd link it.
Apparently bipolars have the right mindset to become very productive programmers.
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Jörgen Andersson wrote: Apparently bipolars have the right mindset to become very productive programmers.
I know my mania served me for years in the field (like most schizoaffective people I was bipolar first, probably since i was a teen but i hadn't been diagnosed - it wasn't as common to diagnose it back then)
Real programmers use butterflies
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Hah! I am perfectly normal!
It's the rest of the population that aren't.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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On the Internet, "normal" is avaricious, jealous, arrogant, self-absorbed, loud-mouthed, insensitive, childish, petty, and probably sorely lacking in attention to personal hygiene.
So I'll have to agree that it would take courage to go out into the real world, if you're that sh1tty a person.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Fortunately I think most people don't behave on the internet how they would in polite company.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Within how many standard deviations?
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Leave it to you to be difficult.
Real programmers use butterflies
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At any given time, there will only be one person that is "normal", everyone else will fall on either side. And its a moving target.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: there will only be be no more than one person that is "normal",
FTFY 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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What is normal?
Is it analogous to Average?
Then what makes average? Is it a mode, median, or the mean? Or is it that we are in a pre-defined range?
So... my NQ (Normally Quotient) is based on the deviance of others. yep
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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honey the codewitch wrote: acheivement
Now that's definitely not normal.
/ravi
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