Related to: Willpower Hax #487: Execute by Default, The Physiology of Willpower Making your own decisions makes you procrastinate more and quit sooner than when you're following orders: Key quote: > Making choices led to reduced self-control (i.e., less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure, more procrastination,...
Imagine Omega came to you and said, "Cryonics will work; it will be possible for you to be resurrected and have the choice between a simulation and a new healthy body, and I can guarantee you live for at least 100,000 years after that. However, for reasons I won't divulge,...
I'll have to take your word on how it would bother you, but I think a crucial difference is that in the instance of the cute salt shaker, the instinct is to protect - notice that the word used, "cruel," is dependent upon how it's received by the anthropomorphized salt shaker. If I tell the soup, "You're too cold and have too high a potato-to-clam ratio!" - is it seen as cruel or mean? It seems more like it's seen as, like you said, hostile - a statement more about my feelings in intent than the "feelings" of the salt shaker in consequence.
I also understand that I may be putting too... (read more)
My point is that it's perceived as nasty and cruel at all, rather than bizarre or slightly rude or honest. Imagine it was an excessively large salt shaker - say, several feet tall. And faced it and said, "You're worthless because you're too large to be useful." People would give me a quizzical look, like, what's wrong with this guy? But the instinct wouldn't be to protect the large salt shaker.
I actually included that because of exactly that response from various girls about objects like hotel shampoo bottles, Japanese candies, a very small salt-shaker, a tiny spoon, etc. It usually goes something like, "Look at that salt shaker; it's so cute." And then I look at the salt shaker and say, "You're worthless because you're too small to be useful." And the girl will go, "Don't say that!" and then immediately grabs the salt shaker.
One time I drew pictures on a piece of scratchpaper in such a way that when a Japanese candy was placed in the middle of it, it looked like I had the candy strung up by chains and was being tortured via electric shock. My co-worker snatched the candy and still hasn't eaten it; it's still in her desk.
tl;dr: Cuteness is the word that we use when we want something to experience a feeling of safety or otherwise be more confident than we think they would feel without special effort to make them feel that way.
Thanks for expanding. I want to throw out a warning that we're treading dangerously close to the foul line, but I think we're still in-bounds.
Using the word "cute" sarcastically is a very different use of the word with a completely different meaning.
I understand the general point that words can have different meanings, and I'm open to the possibility that I'm falling victim to the typical mind fallacy. I don't have any alternate meanings... (read 741 more words →)
I just failed the Wason selection task. Does anyone know any other similarly devilish problems?
This is the moment when Clippy jumped the shark.
Her real name is Carmen Sandiego.
It seems very oversimplified to say, "We think babies are cute because we have to." "Cuteness" casts a pretty wide net when you start thinking of all the things we say are "cute." A sample list of things I've heard described as cute:
It seems like we reserve the word for "things that are vulnerable/harmless/ineffective and don't realize it, which then triggers an urge to keep the thing's inaccurate self-perceptions about its own effectiveness intact."
You can barely signal humility, though.
Related to: Willpower Hax #487: Execute by Default, The Physiology of Willpower
Making your own decisions makes you procrastinate more and quit sooner than when you're following orders:
Making choices led to reduced self-control (i.e., less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure, more procrastination, and less quality and quantity of arithmetic calculations). A field study then found that reduced self-control was predicted by shoppers' self-reported degree of previous active decision making. Further studies suggested that choosing is more depleting than merely deliberating and forming preferences about options and more depleting than implementing choices made by someone else and that anticipating the choice task as enjoyable can reduce the depleting effect for the first choices but not for many choices.
Imagine Omega came to you and said, "Cryonics will work; it will be possible for you to be resurrected and have the choice between a simulation and a new healthy body, and I can guarantee you live for at least 100,000 years after that. However, for reasons I won't divulge, your surviving to experience this is wholly contingent upon you killing the next three people you see. I can also tell you that the next three people you see, should you fail to kill them, will die childless and will never sign up for cryonics. There is a knife on the ground behind you."
You turn around and see someone. She says, "Wait!... (read 519 more words →)
This argument would have to apply to people who were born completely blind, or completely deaf. Just imagine that all humans are echolocation-deaf/blind.