What books are you reading now?

[angelfromanotherpin]

When your character is intentionally setting up well-meaning people to take the fall, they're not a hero then.

I expect it's strongly influenced by the Dying Earth adventures of Cugel the Clever, one of the most amoral gits ever.

[Maxus]

When your character is intentionally setting up well-meaning people to take the fall, they're not a hero then.

I expect it's strongly influenced by the Dying Earth adventures of Cugel the Clever, one of the most amoral gits ever.

Says on the copyright page that it's based on an AD&D campaign of Gygax's.

[PoliteNewb]

When your character is intentionally setting up well-meaning people to take the fall, they're not a hero then.

I expect it's strongly influenced by the Dying Earth adventures of Cugel the Clever, one of the most amoral gits ever.

Says on the copyright page that it's based on an AD&D campaign of Gygax's.

Yeah, but AD&D was heavily influenced by Vance...says so right in the DMG. Hell, that's why we have the term "vancian spellcasting".

So yeah, I'd agree Gygax probably has the literary belief that protagonists like Cugel are cool, despite the fact that they are utter tools to the people they meet.

[Maj]

Ess got a recommendation to read Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts {OK, amazon, books, psychology}, so I figured I'd check it out of the library. I didn't realize it was cowritten by Elliot Aronson, who I'm a big fan of. So far, it's an amazingly interesting read about the power of cognitive dissonance, and the positive and negative aspects of self-justification.

[Prak]

Just finished rereading volume 8 of Transmetropolitan, now I have to wait for the rest to get reprinted...

I love those books, The City would make a great location for some SciFi gaming, even without crossing paths with Spider.

[Cynic]

Isn't Cugel the clever just another early example of Bunny ear lawyer**.

I mean that doesn't take away from saying he wasn't a git, but I've been noticing that trend in pretty much most "awesome" tv characters. House, Alan Shore, Monk, Scrubs characters, and now the new tv show "The Glades" has its' main character persona as Jackass savant.

** - tv trope link. -- BEWARE

edit: had to add the **

[angelfromanotherpin]

Isn't Cugel the clever just another early example of Bunny ear lawyer**.

No. Cugel is not a quirky individual who remains employed somehow. He is an unemployed con man. Most of his stories are about non-sustainable cons in isolated communities that he's never been to before and never plans to come back to. He's not even particularly good at it, his success rate isn't very high.

Cugel also doesn't care about people, so his schemes are frequently ludicrously exploitive and destructive to people's lives. He's more of a Smug Snake shading occasionally into Magnificent Bastard if his scheme is audacious enough.

[Maxus]

Isn't Cugel the clever just another early example of Bunny ear lawyer**.

No. Cugel is not a quirky individual who remains employed somehow. He is an unemployed con man. Most of his stories are about non-sustainable cons in isolated communities that he's never been to before and never plans to come back to. He's not even particularly good at it, his success rate isn't very high.

Cugel also doesn't care about people, so his schemes are frequently ludicrously exploitive and destructive to people's lives. He's more of a Smug Snake shading occasionally into Magnificent Bastard if his scheme is audacious enough.

Gord's something like that in this Gygax book.

Except his schemes work.

Some of them are fairly harmless. When he was in his late teens, he masqueraded among the aristocracy as several personalities for gambling. A little cheating to help things out, and he was able to stay solvent and live well. Then he stole most of the money from his two partners and left them, when he felt that their arrangement wasn't going to be permanent due to in-fighting.

Others...Well, screwing over people who honest-to-goodness adopted you as one of their own in recognition for your services and talents? That ain't cool, man.

[Maj]

Ess got a recommendation to read Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts {OK, amazon, books, psychology}, so I figured I'd check it out of the library. I didn't realize it was cowritten by Elliot Aronson, who I'm a big fan of. So far, it's an amazingly interesting read about the power of cognitive dissonance, and the positive and negative aspects of self-justification.

I know I already posted about it, but I don't think there's a forum out there more in need of this book than this one. Not only can it be used to spot disturbing trends in our own behavior, but it explains a lot of the stupid we see on the news.

Some of the things explained in this book include why we become so entrenched in our own opinions - especially in the face of contrary evidence; rewriting memories of things we read, see, hear, and experience in order to justify our opinions; and the conundrum faced by authorities when reality doesn't match up with what they've been taught and/or told others.

This book has gone from a good read to a must own.

[Crissa]

I've read a couple reviews of it, but I don't know how far I can make it through that...

-Crissa

[Maj]

Why?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Why?

It is.. difficult to go through a book telling you why you're such a dumbass .

[Crissa]

That. And you end up saying, 'well, I knew that' but it doesn't really stop you from doing it again.

I know the stove is hot. But I still need to reach in and grab my food. So sometimes I still get burned.

-Crissa

[Maj]

So you're not going to learn because inevitably you'll fail at being able to apply it to your own behavior?

You know, that's discussed in the book too... The whole thing where people who are bad at something or feel like failures actually feel worse for having succeeded at something.

[Crissa]

I don't think that books are a good way to improve yourself. They're merely references.

-Crissa

[The Lunatic Fringe]

So you're not going to learn because inevitably you'll fail at being able to apply it to your own behavior?

You know, that's discussed in the book too... The whole thing where people who are bad at something or feel like failures actually feel worse for having succeeded at something.

Coincidentally, I ordered the book off of amazon a few days ago. It won't arrive for a few days. In the meantime, could you summarize the etiology of this phenomenon?

[Maj]

Coincidentally, I ordered the book off of amazon a few days ago. It won't arrive for a few days. In the meantime, could you summarize the etiology of this phenomenon?

In essence, it boils down to cognitive dissonance (that's the core of the book's philosophy). The idea is that people don't like dissonance and will do anything to end the discomfort brought about by the conflict, from reinterpretation of events to rewriting their own memories.

In the case of a person who feels worthless - in general, or specifically like being bad at math - they have to resolve the dissonance that arises when faced with a success. On the one hand, there's a huge personal pressure that says, "You suck. You can't do anything right. No one loves you. You are a failure." On the other hand, there's an example of a success - you were the only one who knew how to do the Heimlich, your dream girl asked you out on a date, you got an A on your math test.

People tend to resolve dissonance in the favor of their opinion of themselves (who wants to claim that they don't know who they are?), and so they will interpret events so that it reinforces their view. It wasn't that doing the Heimlich saved the person at the restaurant - they probably coughed up whatever they were choking on by themselves. The only reason the girl asked you out was the fact that she'd already been turned down, not because she likes you. The A on the math test was because the teacher dumbed down the test to help the struggling class, not because of extra studying.

In short, it's more comfortable for a worthless person to feel like they know themselves than to believe that they aren't worthless.

And you end up saying, 'well, I knew that' but it doesn't really stop you from doing it again.

Case in point.

[Wesley Street]

I'm currently reading Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley. British cyberpunk written in the late '90s. Tailored viruses as drugs, fascist Britain, Paris Disneyland used as a staging ground for eunuch worker clones who manufacture drugs in their bodies... that sort of thing.

[Crissa]

I think cognitive dissonance is an overblown theory among intellectuals.

People who aren't intellectual hold conflicting opinions all the time.

'Government hands off my Medicare' anyone?

-Crissa

[Maj]

I think cognitive dissonance is an overblown theory among intellectuals.

People who aren't intellectual hold conflicting opinions all the time.

'Government hands off my Medicare' anyone?

Please, please don't go off on a subject like this until you've done some more research. Just let the thread go back to people talking about books.

[Crissa]

No, really. I'm an intellectual. I think about things. Therefore, I can't stand when I've got things which don't match. So consciously I work around it, and I assume that happens unconsciously as well.

But the evidence shows that a large umber of people hold entirely contrary ideas without cognitive dissonance. Instead of explaining it away, they refuse to think about it or talk about it. My flippant quote was merely one example - that someone profits off of another's ignorance is immaterial to the point.

I think that it is true that people don't want to face painful things and cognitive dissonance is painful; but I think that it isn't as prevalent as this book (among others) believes.

There are studies that show that when solid evidence is shown, people are more likely to double down in their position than re-examine. Instead of giving up their cognitive dissonance, they choose not to face it at all.

-Crissa

[Kaelik]

And you end up saying, 'well, I knew that' but it doesn't really stop you from doing it again.

Case in point.

No, that's not a case in point. I know about most cognitive errors. That doesn't mean I am never susceptible to cognitive errors. So if someone wanted me to go to the library (or worse, pay actual money) for a book listing and explaining cognitive errors, it makes perfect sense for me to not do that. I already know them, waste of time if my goal is to stop having cognitive errors.

It might be entertaining, but that's entirely different.

[Zinegata]

No, really. I'm an intellectual. I think about things.

Thinking does not make you an intellectual. It only makes you not brain-dead.

Stop derailing the thread.

[Maj]

No, really. I'm an intellectual. I think about things. Therefore, I can't stand when I've got things which don't match. So consciously I work around it, and I assume that happens unconsciously as well.

But the evidence shows that a large umber of people hold entirely contrary ideas without cognitive dissonance. Instead of explaining it away, they refuse to think about it or talk about it. My flippant quote was merely one example - that someone profits off of another's ignorance is immaterial to the point.

I think that it is true that people don't want to face painful things and cognitive dissonance is painful; but I think that it isn't as prevalent as this book (among others) believes.

There are studies that show that when solid evidence is shown, people are more likely to double down in their position than re-examine. Instead of giving up their cognitive dissonance, they choose not to face it at all.

Crissa, the reason I told you to do more research is because there is nothing you are saying here that is not related to dissonance theory. You are explaining perfectly the results of cognitive dissonance.

In fact, I already mentioned that the book specifically talks about the phenomenon you discuss in your last paragraph there:

Some of the things explained in this book include why we become so entrenched in our own opinions - especially in the face of contrary evidence; rewriting memories of things we read, see, hear, and experience in order to justify our opinions; and the conundrum faced by authorities when reality doesn't match up with what they've been taught and/or told others.

You are not saying anything except, "I don't want to read this book." Not wanting to is completely legit. But arguing against reading a book because of some assumptions you've made up does nothing but provide yet another example of entrenchment. You are, essentially, making up shit to justify a demonstrably false position. I'm going to guess it's because you value your personal opinion and being right over some random internet person's book recommendation.

If you don't want to read the book, don't. But if you're going to try to give reasons why you shouldn't, at least be armed in advance with the basics of the theory from Wikipedia.

No, that's not a case in point. I know about most cognitive errors.

But does Crissa?

That doesn't mean I am never susceptible to cognitive errors. So if someone wanted me to go to the library (or worse, pay actual money) for a book listing and explaining cognitive errors, it makes perfect sense for me to not do that. I already know them, waste of time if my goal is to stop having cognitive errors.

Crissa has stated that she does not think that books are a good way to improve yourself. "They're merely references." This implies to me that even if a book includes information on how to change something about yourself (And this book claims it does, but I'm not quite through it yet, so I don't know if that's true or not - I'll report when I'm done) that she's not going to make use of it as a source for eliminating something she doesn't like about herself.

In other words, she would rather continue through life with the expectation that she will keep making the same sorts of blunders she's been making because there is no book that will give her the information/power/ability to change this behavior. Reading is stupid because at the end of it, she still sucks.

And that happened to be a precise example of the behavior I was talking about in my post to the Lunatic.

[Kaelik]

Crissa has stated that she does not think that books are a good way to improve yourself. "They're merely references." This implies to me that even if a book includes information on how to change something about yourself (And this book claims it does, but I'm not quite through it yet, so I don't know if that's true or not - I'll report when I'm done) that she's not going to make use of it as a source for eliminating something she doesn't like about herself.

In other words, she would rather continue through life with the expectation that she will keep making the same sorts of blunders she's been making because there is no book that will give her the information/power/ability to change this behavior. Reading is stupid because at the end of it, she still sucks.

And that happened to be a precise example of the behavior I was talking about in my post to the Lunatic.

I'm not defending the other crazy stupid stuff that Crissa says in this thread, especially not stuff she said after that one point.

She claimed to know about the cognitive errors already, and therefore reading a book wouldn't change whether she commits them.

Now, you could say "She's a liar." But that's different than her actual statement being an example of what you are talking about. If you already know the material in the book, reading the book isn't going to help you.