Time revisited
While searching my blog for something, I ran across this previous post:
http://padsterprogramming.blogspot.ch/2008/08/times-curious-thing.html
In particular, the first part - August-2008-me talking about 2013-me looking back at August-2008-me.
So to reflect on August-2008: I don't think I was too much of a fool. Maybe a bit. Not a huge amount though, thankfully, except for thinking that 2013-me would be odd - 'weird' is a much better word. I was a bit more...emo/whiney I guess - posts like this and this remind me that, after all, I had only just graduated back then. Still, that balances out with posts on credit or inverse darwinism that seem fine, and I'm still thankful that past-me took a photo of the rubbish bin (or not) at uni.
To August-2008-me, I say: I wrote more posts than you thought I would. I think back then I already had a job offer at Google, and thought I'd be a researcher in New York by now, so working in Zurich isn't too bad. I think I'm less musical and maths/algorithmic-y as I would have guessed, but more traveled and know more German, which is probably a good thing. I also don't know the answer to my question in that 2008 post - although my initial reaction reading it this time was the same.
I am curious about August-2018-me now though - I hope I'm still blogging, and the 2018 world cup that just finished went well. I can't really guess where I'll be or what I'll be doing, but my money is on not being in Australia, and not being at Google (statiscs-wise). I just hope I enjoy reading about my past travels then, otherwise I will think 2013-me was quite boring.
To finish up with, a question to stump myself in 5 years time: What's the best way to break out of the stereotype cycle? That is, where group G is stereotyped to have an association with behaviour B: the cycle comes from people inside G, who want to increase their membership in G, then adopt behaviour B, and vice-versa: people outside of G avoiding the behavior in order to avoid being labelled as G. Similarly, knowing the stereotype, observers of G are more likely to remember when they see B, and vice versa for observers of non-G. Kind of like the filter-bubble but for behaviours instead of attitudes, it's re-inforcing and problematic for those who don't fit the association (or even for those who do), but there seems no good predictable cycle breaker, or at least weakener. Tricky stuff!
http://padsterprogramming.blogspot.ch/2008/08/times-curious-thing.html
In particular, the first part - August-2008-me talking about 2013-me looking back at August-2008-me.
So to reflect on August-2008: I don't think I was too much of a fool. Maybe a bit. Not a huge amount though, thankfully, except for thinking that 2013-me would be odd - 'weird' is a much better word. I was a bit more...emo/whiney I guess - posts like this and this remind me that, after all, I had only just graduated back then. Still, that balances out with posts on credit or inverse darwinism that seem fine, and I'm still thankful that past-me took a photo of the rubbish bin (or not) at uni.
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| The treachery of rubbish bins |
I am curious about August-2018-me now though - I hope I'm still blogging, and the 2018 world cup that just finished went well. I can't really guess where I'll be or what I'll be doing, but my money is on not being in Australia, and not being at Google (statiscs-wise). I just hope I enjoy reading about my past travels then, otherwise I will think 2013-me was quite boring.
To finish up with, a question to stump myself in 5 years time: What's the best way to break out of the stereotype cycle? That is, where group G is stereotyped to have an association with behaviour B: the cycle comes from people inside G, who want to increase their membership in G, then adopt behaviour B, and vice-versa: people outside of G avoiding the behavior in order to avoid being labelled as G. Similarly, knowing the stereotype, observers of G are more likely to remember when they see B, and vice versa for observers of non-G. Kind of like the filter-bubble but for behaviours instead of attitudes, it's re-inforcing and problematic for those who don't fit the association (or even for those who do), but there seems no good predictable cycle breaker, or at least weakener. Tricky stuff!
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| Another particularly relevant photo from an older post given the upcoming election |
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