The Girl at the Counter

August 11, 2026August 11, 2026 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

“தெய்வத்தான் ஆகாது எனினும் முயற்சி தன் மெய்வருத்தக் கூலி தரும்.”

Even when the gods withhold, effort pays the wage of the body’s labour. Thiruvalluvar, Kural 619 (my rendering)

This post covers five things.

What I saw at a takeaway counter in Blacktown, and what my wife said about it.
What admiration of work means
What the numbers say about how we rank and price this kind of work.
Why the admiration is older than the salary, by a few hundred thousand years.
Where my own admiration falls short of the standard I am about to set.

Before I argue, the concessions.

My wife was right. A grown man standing still in a crowded restaurant, smiling at a young woman he does not know, is a scene that reads one way, and she does not get access to my inner monologue to read it another. Optics are not a conspiracy against innocent men. They are the accumulated evidence of men who were not innocent.

Admiration is not advocacy. Nothing I felt that evening shortened her shift, raised her pay or lightened her load. Warm feelings are the cheapest currency in circulation.

I have never worked a service counter at pace. I am describing a craft from the audience, which is where the least qualified critics always sit.

And one busy evening in one restaurant is an anecdote, not a dataset. The data comes later, and it stands or falls on its own.

The counter

Last week we went to Radhe Chatpata in Blacktown. The place was heaving, so I ordered takeaway and stood to the side to wait.

Behind the counter was a girl running the whole front of house. Orders coming in over the counter and over the phone. Food arriving from the kitchen in no order that matched the queue. Bags to pack, dockets to match, payments to take, names to call. Every stream moving at once, none of them waiting for her convenience.

She dropped nothing. She matched docket to container to bag to customer at a pace I would struggle to narrate, let alone perform. There was a rhythm to it. Reach, check, fold, staple, call, tap, next. I stood there watching with a smile on my face.

My wife came over and said, “Don’t do it. She may mistake you.”

She was right, and I stopped. But the question stayed in the car with me all the way home. What exactly was I looking at?

Admiring

Here is the distinction the whole post rests on, because the two get blurred and the blur does damage in both directions.

Desire wants to possess the person. Admiration wants to witness the skill. Desire is about what she could be to me. Admiration is about what she is regardless of me. The first makes her an object. The second is one of the few ways one stranger honours another.

We have collapsed the two, and I concede men built the collapse. Enough men have used watching as the opening move of wanting that a woman behind a counter cannot afford to assume the difference. That is her rational caution, not her failure of imagination. But notice what the collapse costs. When every gaze is presumed to be appetite, there is no legal way left to stand in front of excellence and simply take it in. Run the symmetry test. If she had been a sixty year old man, my smile would have been read as warmth. Same smile, same skill, same distance. The reading changed because the identities changed, and that tells you the problem is in the reading.

What I was actually watching

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi spent decades paging people at random moments and asking what they were doing and how they felt. The pattern that kept emerging was a state he called flow, which appeared when three conditions lined up: a clear goal, immediate feedback, and a challenge sitting right at the edge of the person’s skill. His research found that flow occurred more often during work than during free time. Not on the beach. Not on the couch. At work.

The girl at the counter was inside all three conditions at once. The goal could not be clearer, right order to right customer, hot. The feedback is instant, a wrong bag announces itself in seconds. And the challenge sat exactly at the edge of her capacity, which is why it was worth watching at all. Nobody stands and smiles at a man watching television.

The product manager in me noticed something else. She was running a textbook operation. Batching the packing, sequencing by pickup rather than by order time, keeping her work in progress low so nothing sat half done. I have watched funded teams with dashboards and standups manage concurrent demand worse than one person at a chaat counter on a Saturday night. Nobody wrote her playbook down. She derived it under load.

Prestige against worth

Now the second blurred pair, because the first one was personal and this one is structural. Prestige is what a society says a job deserves. Worth is what the job actually demands and delivers. We treat them as synonyms. They are not even correlated in the direction we pretend.

Sociologists have measured occupational prestige since the 1940s, and the method gives the game away. The most influential scale, Duncan’s Socioeconomic Index, derived its prestige scores from weighted indices of education and income. Read that again. We did not discover that low paid work has low prestige. We defined prestige as a function of pay and then acted surprised when the counter girl ranked below the consultant. The circle is complete and it was drawn on purpose.

So what does the pay side of the circle look like in this country, for this work?

Measure	Figure
National minimum wage from 1 July 2026	$26.44 per hour
Minimum wage over a full time week of 38 hours	$1,004.72
Average full time ordinary weekly earnings, late 2025 (ABS)	$2,051.10
Minimum full time week as a share of the average	49 percent

The 2026 wage review lifted the national minimum wage to $26.44 an hour, and a Level 1 food and beverage attendant under the Hospitality Award starts at exactly that rate. Average full time ordinary earnings reached $2,051.10 a week in late 2025. The arithmetic is short. A full week of the work I stood admiring earns 49 percent of the average full time wage. Less than half, for a job I could not do at her standard, and I say that as someone paid well above the average to do things that produce considerably less visible value per minute.

I am a social democrat. My declared bias is that this gap is too wide, and I held that belief before I looked up a single number. The numbers survived the bias. They usually do on this topic, which is precisely why nobody in my income bracket likes looking them up.

Older than money

Here is the frame that stops this being a mood.

Coined money is roughly two and a half thousand years old. Hands portioning cooked food and passing it to another human are older than that by several hundred thousand years at minimum, older than our species if the cooking hypothesis holds. The skill came first. The wage is a recent annotation on it, a sticker on a museum piece. When we let the sticker stand in for the piece, we have the relationship exactly backwards.

I have always watched work this way, before I had the argument to defend it. I watch my daughter when she plays, fully absorbed, narrating a world with a logic only she audits. I watched a friend present once and stopped hearing the content because the delivery itself was the performance. I watch my wife paint, the specific hesitation before a brush touches canvas, and the absence of hesitation after. The same posture every time. Standing slightly outside someone’s concentration, taking in a thing money did not create and does not measure.

What was I looking at, at that counter? A human being at the exact edge of her capacity, holding it. That is one of the oldest sights our species produces. We used to gather around it. Now we check whether it pays well before deciding whether it deserves our respect.

Where I fall short

And now the part where I stop pointing outward.

I admired her, and then I paid the exact menu price and left. My admiration cost me nothing and paid her nothing. It did not even reach her, because my wife was right that it could not safely be delivered.

Worse. If my daughter comes to me at eighteen and says she wants to run a counter, I already know the first thing I will feel, and it will not be reverence for flow states. It will be the salary. The lens I have spent this post accusing society of holding is installed behind my own eyes, and one evening in Blacktown did not uninstall it. I can see the beauty of the work. I am not yet the man who would let someone I love be paid 49 percent of average for producing it. Until I can close that gap, this post is an observation, not a principle.

References

Fair Work Ombudsman, minimum wages and Hospitality Industry (General) Award pay guides: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay-and-wages/minimum-wages
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Average Weekly Earnings, Australia: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/average-weekly-earnings-australia/latest-release
Csikszentmihalyi, M., Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990). Overview of flow theory: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/flow-theory
NORC at the University of Chicago, Measuring Occupational Prestige on the 2012 General Social Survey: https://gss.norc.org/content/dam/gss/get-documentation/pdf/reports/methodological-reports/MR122%20Occupational%20Prestige.pdf
Hughes, B. T. et al., “Occupational Prestige: The Status Component of Socioeconomic Status”, Collabra: Psychology (2024): https://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article/10/1/92882/200020/Occupational-Prestige-The-Status-Component-of
Thiruvalluvar, Thirukkural, Kural 619.

The evening with nothing at stake

August 3, 2026August 4, 2026 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

“When you do dance, I wish you a wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do nothing but that.” Florizel to Perdita, The Winter’s Tale, Act IV Scene IV

My family was at a dance show. A very close friend of ours was performing. That was the reason we went. There was no other reason, and it took me not long to work out that the absence of a reason was the point.

Look at the last few months in our house and you will find nothing that was not work. The jobs. The move. My daughter’s tennis. Every hour was allocated to something with a result attached to it. Our happiness came from work. Our pressure came from work. When the source of your joy and the source of your strain are the same object, you have built something efficient and you have built something brittle. We did not notice. People in that state never do.

So we went to watch dancing. No score. No ranking. Nothing to be measured afterwards.

I want to set out five things in this post.

What the evening actually was, and the distinction I think it turns on.
What I saw on my daughter’s face, and why it took me by surprise.
What a treatise worked out about audiences two thousand years before anyone was put in a scanner.
What the research does and does not establish about dancing and about watching.
Where I fall short of the standard I am about to set out.

Acknowledgements

Before the argument, the concessions.

I cannot dance. Not modestly, not badly. Not at all. Whatever I am about to say about the pleasure of watching is said by someone with no access to the pleasure of doing.

I have no expertise in neuroscience, and the studies I cite below are small, mostly conducted on Western undergraduates, and in several cases contradict each other. I will say where.

The performance I watched was amateur. Children and mothers, not a company. That matters, and I will come back to it, because almost nothing in the literature is about people like them.

And I am an anti theist writing approvingly about a text embedded in a devotional tradition. I am taking the aesthetics. I am leaving the temple, the priest and the caste order that carried the manuscript. The Natyashastra is a piece of thinking. It is not a reason to respect the apparatus that preserved it.

Expression against achievement

The pair at the centre of this is performance against achievement, and almost everyone blurs them.

My daughter performs on a tennis court. Every stroke is evidence, submitted for judgment, resolved into a number by the end of the afternoon. A woman on a stage in a suburban hall is also performing. Nothing she does resolves into a number. Nobody leaves knowing who won.

Both are called performance. They are opposite activities. One converts effort into a verdict. The other converts effort into expression and stops there. We have taken a word that once meant “to carry through” and let the corporate and sporting sense of it, performance as measured output, colonise the artistic sense entirely. When a parent says their child performs well, nobody thinks of a stage.

The evening had no outcome of significance. That is precisely why it did something to us that months of successful, outcome laden work had not.

What my daughter’s face gave away

My daughter smiled. That is the entire event.

Not a polite smile. Not the smile at the end of a match, which is a smile about a result and evaporates when the result is examined too closely. This was a face with nothing behind it. No friction. No calculation of what the smile would cost her if the next point went badly.

I looked at it and felt something closer to indictment than to joy. Because I could not remember when I had last seen it.

I hold that free will is an illusion, and this is one of the places where that view does real work rather than sitting decoratively in an argument. She did not decide to be free that evening. Nothing in her chose it. We had removed the conditions that were producing the friction, and the friction stopped. That is all. Which means the friction the rest of the time is not her character and not her attitude. It is our engineering. We built the environment that produces the guarded face, and we can dismantle it, and until that evening it had not occurred to me that it was ours to dismantle.

Blaming a child for a tight jaw is like blaming water for the shape of the glass.

Bhava and rasa, two thousand years early

The Natyashastra separates two things that English collapses into “emotion”.

Bhava is the state the performer enacts. Rasa is what arises in the person watching. They are not the same substance and the second is not a copy of the first. The theory is explicit that the spectator is not a receiver: the rasa experience is co created between performer and an audience capable of receptivity, and the word for that audience member, sahrdaya, means one who has heart. The stated purpose of performance is catalytic. It provokes an emotion already present in the person watching.

Catalytic. That is the word I was missing.

I had wanted to say that the fun in the room was not conserved, that it multiplied instead of being divided. That is a nice line and it is bad physics, and someone would have told me so in the comments. Fun is not a conserved quantity because it is not a quantity. The honest description is catalysis. The dancer does not transfer joy to me. She lowers the activation energy for something that was already sitting in me, unreacted, since the last time I let it move.

The mothers on that stage were not giving me anything. They were making it cheap for me to feel what I had been too busy to feel.

What the evidence shows

Here is the part where I have to be careful, because this material is quoted badly everywhere.

The strongest finding is not about watching at all. It is about moving in synchrony with other people. Tarr, Launay, Cohen and Dunbar separated exertion from synchrony in a single design and found that each independently raised pain threshold, used as a proxy for endorphin release, and each independently raised reported bonding. The replication sharpened it: people who danced in synchrony showed elevated pain thresholds, while partial synchrony and asynchrony produced no analgesic effect at all.

Then they tested the mechanism by breaking it. Strangers danced in synchrony after receiving either a placebo or naltrexone, which blocks opioid receptors, with neither the participants nor the researchers knowing which. The naltrexone group showed significantly increased pain sensitivity. Block the opioid system and the effect disappears. That is as close to a demonstrated mechanism as this field offers.

For watching rather than doing, there is one good experiment. Dunbar and colleagues found that people who watched an emotionally arousing film had higher pain thresholds and a greater sense of group bonding than people who watched a neutral one.

Claim	What it rests on
Dancing in synchrony triggers endorphin release	Replicated, and confirmed by blocking the receptors
Dancing in synchrony makes people feel closer	Established, but self reported
Dancing in synchrony makes people behave better	Tested in an economic game and not found
Dance improves balance and motor symptoms in Parkinson’s	Sixteen randomised trials, 636 participants, moderate quality
Dance therapy reduces depression and anxiety	Small and consistent in the tighter subset, d = 0.30
Watching arousing performance raises pain threshold	One good experiment, on film rather than live dance
Mirror neurons explain why audiences feel it	Contested, and weaker than the popular accounts admit
Dancing cuts dementia risk by 76 percent	Not supported at anything like that strength

Two of those rows deserve their own paragraph, because they are the rows where people I am otherwise aligned with are cheating.

The 76 percent figure appears in newspapers as recently as this January. It comes from a cohort study of 469 people over 75, followed for a median of 5.1 years, in which the hazard ratio for physical activity was exactly 1.00. The 76 percent is not in the paper. It comes from a dance instructor’s summary of a frequency table, and it survives because everybody wants it to be true. It also has an obvious problem that nobody quoting it mentions: people in the early years of dementia stop going out dancing. The arrow may well point the other way.

The mirror neuron story is the second. Hickok’s critique is that there is no monkey data directly testing the action understanding theory, and that the missing evidence is any demonstration that damaging the system causes deficits in understanding. He does not deny the cells exist. He denies the leap. The sentence “mirror neurons make us feel the dance” is not a finding. It is a press release with a paper stapled to it.

What the evidence does not show

My central question was why people who cannot dance feel released watching people who can. The literature has failed, so far, to answer it, and has failed in an interesting direction.

Calvo-Merino and colleagues scanned ballet dancers, capoeira dancers and non dancers. Expert dancers showed greater activation in premotor cortex and related regions when watching movements they were trained to perform than movements they were not. On that finding, I should get less from watching, not more.

Cross and colleagues found close to the opposite. People with no dance training showed stronger parietal engagement for movements they rated as both highly enjoyable to watch and extremely difficult to reproduce. Other studies find liking tracks how well people believe they could reproduce a movement.

So the field has good evidence that we like what we can do and good evidence that we like what we cannot. Nobody has resolved it. I find this more useful than a clean answer would have been, because the clean answer would have been imported from somewhere and would have been wrong.

There is a larger absence. Almost every study here uses professionals, undergraduates in laboratories, or clinical populations. What I actually watched was mothers and children of mixed ability performing in front of an audience that knows them personally. The mothers dancing are not in the data. The single most common form of live performance on earth, the amateur recital in a local hall, is close to unstudied.

And group dance appears in every human culture that has been looked at. The endogenous opioid system it runs on is shared with other primates and predates our species by a long way. Whatever happened in that hall was old before there was anyone to write it down, and the research literature on it is forty years deep and mostly conducted on people who signed up for course credit.

What I did with it

Here is where I fail my own standard, and it is worse than usual.

I went to an evening chosen specifically because it had no outcome. I sat there and watched people do something with no result attached. And within about seventy two hours I had turned it into a research project, a reading list, an argument about a misquoted statistic, and this post. I converted the one thing in months that was not work into work. That is not a charming irony. That is the exact pathology the evening was supposed to interrupt, reasserting itself immediately and using the evening as raw material.

I do not think I know how to stop doing that. I am not going to end on a line about learning to be present, because I have not learnt it and I would be lying to you in the last paragraph of an essay about being honest.

What I can say is smaller. Somebody else’s daughter, mother, wife, sister had practised for months for an evening that produced what we saw, and my daughter’s face changed because of it. The people who make that possible are not compensated in anything I can measure, which is the whole point and also the reason the rest of us keep failing to value it properly. I am grateful to them. I am aware that gratitude expressed in an essay is the cheapest form available, and that the more useful response would have been to show a form of patronage. Hopefully, that day will come too.

References

Tarr B, Launay J, Cohen E, Dunbar R. Synchrony and exertion during dance independently raise pain threshold and encourage social bonding. Biology Letters, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0767
Tarr B, Launay J, Dunbar R. Silent disco: dancing in synchrony leads to elevated pain thresholds and social closeness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2016. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27540276/
Tarr B, Launay J, Benson C, Dunbar R. Naltrexone blocks endorphins released when dancing in synchrony. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 2017. https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/14588/1/Fulltext.pdf
Dunbar R et al. Emotional arousal when watching drama increases pain threshold and social bonding. Royal Society Open Science, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160288
Calvo-Merino B, Glaser DE, Grèzes J, Passingham RE, Haggard P. Action observation and acquired motor skills: an fMRI study with expert dancers. Cerebral Cortex, 2005. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/3041/1/1243.pdf
Cross ES, Kirsch L, Ticini LF, Schütz-Bosbach S. The impact of aesthetic evaluation and physical ability on dance perception. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2011. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00102
Hickok G. Eight problems for the mirror neuron theory of action understanding in monkeys and humans. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2009. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2773693/
Carapellotti AM, Stevenson R, Doumas M. The efficacy of dance for improving motor impairments, non motor symptoms and quality of life in Parkinson’s disease. PLOS One, 2020. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236820
Koch SC et al. Effects of dance movement therapy and dance on health related psychological outcomes. A meta analysis update. Frontiers in Psychology, 2019. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01806
Verghese J et al. Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly. New England Journal of Medicine, 2003. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022252
Powers R. Dancing makes you smarter. Stanford, 2010. https://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/smarter.htm
Bhava. Encyclopedia of Art, Impart. https://imp-art.org/articles/bhava/
The Rasa theory of Bharata. INFLIBNET. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/icp04/chapter/the-rasa-theory-of-bharata/

Playbook for dealing with organisational politics

February 5, 2026August 3, 2026 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

“Power comes from perception, not authority.”

Jeffrey Pfeffer

A former colleague once asked me how I stayed sane through a particularly ugly programme. My answer was unhelpful at the time. I told her I had stopped trying to win. That sounded like resignation. It wasn’t. Somewhere between my first consulting engagement and my last leadership role, I worked out that I cannot change a difficult person. I can only change the incentives and the psychology around them. Everything I have written below is an extension of that one realisation.

I want to be clear about my position before I start, because I don’t think this subject can be discussed honestly without it.

I loathe office politics. I am not writing this because I admire the game.
I have been on the receiving end of it badly enough to need medical help. I have written about that elsewhere.
I have also played it, sometimes well and sometimes shamefully.
Nothing here is novel. Almost every technique below has a named source in the research and I have listed them at the end. What is mine is the framing and the application.

The objective of this playbook is not to defeat anyone. It is to reach the destination without losing your sanity on the way.

Acknowledgements before the argument

There are a few things I want to concede up front, so that the rest doesn’t get dismissed as manipulation dressed up as psychology.

Politics is not optional. Anywhere two or more people compete for finite budget, headcount or attention, politics exists. Telling people to “just focus on the work” is advice from someone who has never had their work quietly killed in a meeting they weren’t invited to.

These techniques can be misused. Every one of them can be turned into manipulation by someone who wants a bad outcome. The technique is neutral. The intent isn’t. If you are using the IKEA Effect to get a colleague invested in a plan you know will fail them, you are not practising organisational aikido. You are lying.

Some situations cannot be fixed with psychology. If the environment is genuinely toxic, if the leadership is dishonest, if the character assassination has already started, no amount of clever framing will save you. Leave. I stayed too long once and paid for it for years.

I am not a psychologist. I am a product manager who reads a lot and has been in enough rooms to notice patterns.

The core principle

With senior leadership the aim is aikido. Use their momentum, their ego and their weight to move the project where it needs to go, rather than meeting them with direct force. You cannot challenge them openly without cost, so you change the environment around them instead.

The middle and external layers, which is to say clients, their trusted advisers, and your own team, need a different approach. These people rarely hold final authority. What they hold is friction. Friction is slower and more corrosive than a straight no, and it is far harder to escalate.

The techniques

The Presumptive Close

Senior people who are vague are not always disengaged. Often they are avoiding the accountability that comes with a decision. So stop asking for one.

Instead of “What should we do?”, say: “I am proceeding with X unless you feel Y is a higher priority.”

This forces one of two outcomes. Either they agree, which is the path of least resistance, or they accept responsibility for changing the plan, which requires effort they may not want to spend. Either way you get to move.

Source: Rackham, on assumptive language increasing commitment.

Mirroring

When a senior leader is aggressive, repeat the last three words they said, as a question.

Them: “This roadmap is completely unrealistic.”

You: “Completely unrealistic?”

Them: “Yes, we don’t have the development capacity for the API layer.”

You: “Just the API layer?”

They keep talking. Eventually they reveal the actual source of the stress, which is almost never the thing they opened with. You have not argued once. This is Chris Voss and it works uncomfortably well.

The Social Proof Anchor

Clients are rarely afraid of a bad idea. They are afraid of being the first to fail with one. So don’t tell a client their pet feature is bad. Tell them it is unconventional.

The phrasing is: “Most of our high growth partners are actually moving away from this towards [your preferred approach], to avoid [the common pitfall].”

You are triggering their fear of being an outlier rather than attacking their judgement. Cialdini did the work here decades ago and it has not stopped being true.

The Pre Meeting Whisper

Never walk into a meeting with a peer you don’t trust without speaking to them first.

The move: “I am going to propose X. I wanted to check it doesn’t tread on your toes before I say it publicly.”

Even if they hate the idea, they are far less likely to attack you in front of others, because you respected them by coming first. This costs you five minutes and saves you a quarter.

The IKEA Effect

If a team member is resistant to the roadmap, ask them to design a small part of it.

The move: “I am struggling with the logic for the onboarding flow. You have a better grasp of the edge cases. Could you sketch out the ideal state?”

Once they have spent effort building a piece of it, they will defend the whole thing, because it now contains their work. Norton, Mochon and Ariely named this. Anyone who has assembled flat pack furniture and then refused to throw it away already understands it.

The Objective Third Party

In any conflict with a senior or a peer, attribute the bad news to an inanimate object.

Instead of “I think your idea is too expensive”, use “The data suggests the return on this might be lower than we require.”

Instead of “You are slowing us down”, use “The timeline is looking tight. How might we adjust?”

By blaming the data, the roadmap or the budget, you remove ego from the equation. You are not fighting them. You are both fighting the constraint. This is Fisher and Ury, separating the people from the problem, and it is the single most useful thing in this list.

The Negative Interest Frame

If a senior leader is pushing a bad idea, frame the rejection as a delay rather than a refusal.

The logic: “If we do this now, we lose the ability to do X later.”

You are leveraging loss aversion. You are not saying their idea is bad. You are saying the timing will cost them something else they want. Kahneman and Tversky established that losses land harder than equivalent gains. Use it.

Fogging

When a nitpicker or an aggressor attacks your work, do not defend it. Agree with the grain of truth in the attack and let the adrenaline drain out of it.

The attack: “This report is a mess. The data looks completely skewed.”

The fog: “You are right that the data in section three looks different from last month. Let us work out why the source changed.”

You are not a wall they can strike. You are a fog they pass through. Manuel Smith wrote about this in 1975 and nobody has improved on it.

The Choice of Two Evils

When a client is being unreasonable, give them two options that both lead to your desired outcome, but make one of them clearly more painful.

Option A: “We hold the current scope and launch in time for your board meeting.”

Option B: “We add the new feature, push the launch by three weeks, and you explain the delay to the board.”

They will almost always choose A, and they will feel they made the executive decision to stay on track. Which, in fairness, they did.

The Political Cleanse

To stay sane, remember the point I opened with. You cannot change their personality. You can only change the incentive structure around them.

Feed the ego. If they want status, give them a title or a special project.
Starve the chaos. If they want to micromanage, give them so much data and documentation that they become full and stop asking.
Anchor the blame. Always point back to the roadmap, the budget or the data as the villain.

The catalogue

Below is the expanded set of archetypes and the moves that neutralise them. I have met every one of these people. In at least three cases I have been them.

Scenario	Personality trait	Technique	Sample communication
The Idea Thief. A senior leader who presents your work as their own in big meetings.	Narcissism or insecurity. They crave the hit of being seen as the innovator.	Inception. Frame your ideas as a logical extension of their past comments. If they feel they co authored it, they will champion it.	“Building on what you mentioned last month about scalability, I have drafted this plan to execute that vision. Since it is your direction, how would you like to present the first milestone?”
The Shiny Object Executive. Drops a disruptive idea mid sprint that derails the roadmap.	High impulsivity. They enjoy the start of things and hate the grind.	The Impact Tax. Never say no. Ask them to choose what gets sacrificed. Opportunity cost framing.	“That is a fascinating angle. To give it the resources it deserves, should we pause Project A or Project B? I want to make sure we don’t dilute the impact of your new idea.”
The Perpetual No Man. A senior stakeholder who blocks everything to avoid any risk of failure.	Loss aversion and high anxiety. More afraid of a one percent mistake than excited by a ninety nine percent success.	The Pilot Frame. Rebrand changes as experiments. It lowers the stakes and reduces the perceived threat.	“I hear your concerns about the risk. To mitigate it, we aren’t doing a full launch. It is a fourteen day learning experiment for five percent of users. We kill it if the data looks off.”
The Information Hoarder. A gatekeeper who keeps you in the dark to maintain power.	Need for indispensability. They believe information equals security.	The Expert Consultant Loop. Make them feel like a mentor. People love being asked for their wisdom, and often hand over the data they were hiding.	“I am navigating some tricky data for the Q3 report and I know you have seen how these cycles play out better than anyone. Could I get your historical perspective on this?”
The Nitpicker. A powerful person who gets lost in fonts and colours while the house is on fire.	Control. They feel out of their depth with the big picture and retreat to small things they can own.	The Decoy Duck. Deliberately include one minor, easily fixable detail for them to find and correct.	“I have highlighted three areas in the interface where I would love your final call on aesthetics before we lock the backend. Your eye for detail is exactly what this phase needs.”
The Client Whisperer. A consultant or trusted friend of the client who gives bad advice.	Validation seeking. They need to prove their value by fixing your ideas.	The Co Author Trap. Bring them into the draft phase early. If they help build it, they cannot criticise it later without looking like a failure.	“Since you have such a close pulse on the client’s vision, I would love your strategic steer on this draft before they see it. Does it align with what you have been hearing?”
The Yes Man Client. Agrees to everything in the meeting, then complains to your boss afterwards.	Conflict avoidance. They lack the courage to give direct feedback.	The Negative Constraint Probe. Force them to find a flaw in a safe environment. Give them permission to disagree.	“I am worried this plan might be too aggressive for your team’s current capacity. If you had to pick one thing here that feels like a stretch, what would it be?”
The Hero Engineer. Over complicates tasks so that only they can solve them.	Fear of being replaceable.	The Legacy Frame. Appeal to their reputation. Frame simplicity as a higher form of engineering mastery than complexity.	“Anyone can build a complex system. I have seen your ability to simplify. Can we make this robust enough that it runs itself while you focus on the next architectural shift?”
The Over Promising Sales Rep. Sells a feature that does not exist in order to close a deal.	Short term reward. They are incentivised by the win, not the delivery.	Commission at Risk. Connect the behaviour to a loss of future sales.	“If we ship this half baked to close one deal, the churn risk in six months is huge. How do we message it as a beta so we don’t burn your reputation with the rest of your pipeline?”
The Gatekeeping Peer. A peer who will not share resources or data.	Territoriality. They view your success as their loss.	The Reciprocity Bridge. Give them a small win first. People are wired to return a favour.	“I noticed your team is struggling with that reporting problem. I have some data that might help. By the way, when you have a second, could you look at the resourcing question for me?”
The Devil’s Advocate. Stops every meeting with “just playing devil’s advocate” to stall progress.	Status seeking. They want to appear the smartest person in the room.	The Timed Critique. Give them a formal, limited stage. This satisfies the ego without allowing the stall.	“I want to reserve the last five minutes for your risk assessment. Let us get through the flow first, then we will look to you to poke holes in the logic.”
The Martyr. Constantly sighs about how swamped they are to avoid new work.	Need for validation. Busyness used as a shield against accountability.	The Priority Mirror. Don’t offer help. Offer a choice. It removes the victim narrative.	“I can see how much is on your plate. Since this new task is the top priority, which of your current items should we move to the backlog to make room?”
The Ghoster. Ignores emails, then gets angry when a deadline slips.	Avoidance and decision paralysis. Overwhelmed and afraid of a wrong choice.	The Presumptive Deadline. Shift the burden of action from them to you. Silence equals consent.	“I know you are slammed. To keep us on track for Friday’s launch, I will proceed with Option A unless I hear otherwise by Wednesday at four.”
The Back Channeler. Quiet in meetings, vocal to your boss afterwards.	Passive aggression. Fears direct confrontation but wants their view known.	The Spotlight. Call out the silence early and safely. Force the feedback into the public record.	“I noticed you had some thoughts on the last project that surfaced later. I would love to get those on the table now so we can address them together.”
The Status Seeker. Insists on being in every meeting and copied on every email, and adds nothing.	Insecurity. They equate being in the room with having power.	The Executive Summary Out. Give them the status without the time. Frame it as protecting their time.	“I want to respect your bandwidth. How about I leave you off the daily syncs and send you a Friday decision log so you have the final picture?”
The Insecure Expert. A long tenured employee who blocks new technology for fear of becoming obsolete.	Ego preservation. Their identity is tied to the old way.	The Legacy Bridge. Frame the new tool as a way to scale their wisdom rather than replace it.	“This automation isn’t replacing your process. It finally gives us a way to digitise the approach you have used for years so it becomes the company standard.”
The Scope Creeper. Adds one small thing every single day.	Poor impulse control. They don’t see the cumulative cost of small.	The Visual Trade Off. Show them a physical board. If they add one item, they must move one out.	“That is a good addition. Since the current sprint bucket is full, which of these three should we move to phase two to make room?”
The Boundary Crosser. Messages you at ten at night expecting an immediate reply.	Urgency addiction. They confuse fast with important in order to manage their own anxiety.	Stop the Reinforcement. Reply only during working hours, but reply well.	(At nine the next morning) “I saw your note last night. To give it the focus it deserved I waited until I was at my desk. Here is the data you need.”
The Blamer. Always has an external reason why the work is late.	External locus of control. Taking agency would make failure personal.	The Daily Checkpoint. Break the work into small, daily confirmations. External factors get harder to invoke.	“Let us skip the weekly update. Can you send me a done or blocked status on this one task by four each day? I want to clear any hurdles for you.”
The Absent Sponsor. Signed off on the project and has not been seen since.	Diffusion of responsibility. They believe delegation ends their involvement.	The Decision Log. Send decisions rather than requests. Absence becomes endorsement, on the record.	“Recording here that we proceeded with the phased rollout on the basis of the June sign off. Shout if you want that revisited before we commit the build.”

Conclusion

None of this is manipulation, provided the outcome you are steering towards is one you would defend in the open. Every technique here does the same thing. It takes the ego out of the exchange, points the conflict at an objective constraint, and makes the productive outcome the path of least resistance.

I want to end where I started, and with a limit rather than a flourish. You cannot control other people. You can control the choices you present, the framing you use, and the incentives you build around them. That is a much smaller lever than most playbooks pretend, and it will not save you from a genuinely rotten organisation. I know that from experience rather than theory.

The objective is not to become a political player. It is to become fluent enough that resistance stops surprising you, so you can spend your energy on the work that actually matters. Political fluency is not about winning the games. It is about not being dragged into them.

Whether I have managed that consistently is for the people who have worked with me to judge. From where I stand, the record is mixed.

References

#	Concept	Source	Work	Core idea
1	Social proof	Robert Cialdini	Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984)	People look to others’ behaviour to decide what is correct
2	Loss aversion	Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky	Prospect Theory (1979)	Losses feel stronger than equivalent gains
3	Presumptive close	Neil Rackham	SPIN Selling (1988)	Assumptive language increases commitment
4	Mirroring	Chris Voss	Never Split the Difference (2016)	Repeating the last words encourages disclosure
5	The IKEA effect	Norton, Mochon and Ariely	The IKEA Effect (2012)	People overvalue what they helped create
6	Separating people from the problem	Roger Fisher and William Ury	Getting to Yes (1981)	Focus on objective criteria, not personal positions
7	Reciprocity	Robert Cialdini	Influence (1984)	People feel compelled to return favours
8	Commitment and consistency	Robert Cialdini	Influence (1984)	People act consistently with prior commitments
9	Fogging	Manuel J. Smith	When I Say No, I Feel Guilty (1975)	Agreeing with partial truth neutralises aggression
10	Status and power dynamics	Jeffrey Pfeffer	Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t (2010)	Power comes from perception, not authority
11	Face saving	Erving Goffman	Interaction Ritual (1967)	People protect social identity in interactions
12	Decision architecture	Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein	Nudge (2008)	Choice framing influences outcomes
13	Psychological safety	Amy Edmondson	The Fearless Organization (2018)	Safety enables honest feedback
14	Cognitive load and decision fatigue	Roy Baumeister and others	Ego depletion research (1998 to 2010)	Mental fatigue reduces decision quality
15	Territorial behaviour	Michael Hogg	Social identity theory	Group identity drives protection of the in group
16	External locus of control	Julian Rotter	Locus of control theory (1966)	People externalise responsibility to avoid agency
17	Attention and status signalling	Adam Galinsky	Power and status research	Visibility is often mistaken for influence
18	Coalition building	Henry Mintzberg	Power In and Around Organizations (1983)	Informal coalitions shape outcomes
19	Opportunity cost framing	Daniel Kahneman	Behavioural economics	Trade offs clarify priorities
20	Reinforcement	B. F. Skinner	Operant conditioning	Behaviour is shaped by reinforcement

Antibacterial parenting – Creating the next generation whiners

February 21, 2019February 21, 2019 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever seen a parent who always sanitises the child’s hand every time the child touches the ground and is always behind the child to make sure it doesn’t fall? Have you ever seen a parent who complains to the school every time their child is upset about something that happened? If you are a parent or a school staff, there is a high chance you have met one.

Have you ever felt the urge to smack a whiny, self-absorbed, perennially offended colleague? If you have met one, then there is a high chance you have felt the same. I have and it is perfectly normal to feel so or ask the colleague to grow up.

This colleague of yours is the child from the first incident. The parenting which results in this behaviour is antibacterial parenting. A hyper-protective parent who ensures nothing bad ever reaches or happens to their child. They want a sterile environment where no one is hurt and everyone gets a cookie. These are the parents who think everyone is special and competition makes them not feel special. The parent who thinks it is the world’s fault that the child is not feeling special. The parent who wants to control what is said in the world. The parent who thinks hatred is bad and somehow can be eliminated.

The next time a child whines for anything or complains about something others are doing which is not to their liking think of this annoying colleague. While I won’t ever advocate running a rat race, eliminating competition is against the very fabric of development. I most definitely am not going to advocate physical threat. Both these are counterproductive in the long run.

How did we reach here?

In the 1970s there was a movement in the US called the Self Esteem movement. This Self Esteem movement created helicopter parents and the children grew up self-absorbed. The kids of the helicopter parents grew up with artificially inflated self-esteem became the new bunch of anti-bacterial parents. The satellite television followed by social media has contributed to that immensely. The parents now find the need to hyper protect their kids and smother them to the extent that the kids grow up to become socially incompetent. Then if the child doesn’t turn out to be the best in everything then they feel it is the society and the system which is at fault. This has become a civilisation risk. While I have taken a US example, it is not uncommon for you to see this in most countries. Social psychologist Roy Baumeister has done research to show that this movement contributed to lowering the school grades.

The field of child psychology has also contributed to this paranoia. After witnessing what was horrible in the world, the psychologists I believe have devised strategies to fix these ailments. They created measures which will create a society they think they want. The only issue is they industrialised the approach without running any experiment. With no proper mechanism to undo or learn these experiments are causing massive social damage. For example, continue to tell the child that they are special. Instruct a child to never utter the word hate. This doesn’t help the child learn.

Where should we be?

There is a popular proverb in Tamil ” களவும் கற்று மற” which means ‘Learn to steal and then forget it. The essence of the proverb is to communicate the essence of making mistakes and more importantly learning from it. The author underlined the idea of individuals learning for themselves by doing and introspecting over being servile.

As a parent, I want to ensure my daughter has the following abilities to enable her to enjoy her life to the maximum.

Ability to reason
Ability to handle adversity
Ability to overcome failures

These three abilities will help her be civil, maximise her potential and live a fulfilling life. Parents need to create an environment which fosters the development. This environment has to be imperfect and hard. Just like how a body develops immunity only by fighting germs, the mind develops a character only by practising. The best part of this is that the environment actually exists unless artificially altered. Parents just need to ensure they don’t ruin it.

How do we do it?

When left on their own, it is very common to see kids do the following.

Pretend play
Make games, create rules
Fight over rules
Break the rules and tell stories to coverup

This teaches the children to do the following.

Making sense of a situation
Figure out solutions
Having conflicts
Deal with conflicts
Arguing
How to tolerate dissidence in an argument
Failing
Standing up and continuing after a failure
Tell lies to escape a tough situation
Dealing with the consequences of telling lies
Teamwork
How to be friends with people who don’t agree with you always

Next time, when your child comes from the play and says that another child tells she/he has lost the game, don’t go back and tell people how to play without winners. Don’t tell the other kids to give up once. Don’t tell your kid failing is fine. Don’t tell your kid to not play. Don’t tell your kid that she/he is also a winner. Tell the kid to go back and do better next time. They have to learn to deal with issues themselves.

So, what should the parent do and don’t? Here are a few simple rules I want to follow.

Give kids ample time to play with other kids
Explain why on every moral without asking them to obey
Explain the value of honesty and truth over feelings
Let kids have unstructured time to discover
Give them outcome goals and let them figure out how to reach there
Help them understand concepts and let them train themselves
Make them feel loved
Teach them the value of self-defence
Teach them the value of giving up in a negotiation
Help them carve a path for their career

Don’t

Compare your child with others and push them for that
Justify whining or glorify victimhood
Ever not listen to them
Ever ask them to obey you on something you can’t explain
Protect them from failures
Respect their feelings more than truth
Instil fear of falling sick or making mistakes
Tell them you will protect them always, especially financially
Always interfere when kids fight
Fear calling them out when they make a mistake

Conclusion

The reason to write this blog is not just for others but to also honestly admit that I have failed in doing or not doing some of the things I have given below. It is never too late. As parents, we have a duty to ensure the kids continue to live in this society and take it forward. If we can’t do it, we are doing a disservice to society and the child.

Neil deGrasse Tyson – victim of a post-truth mob culture

December 20, 2018December 20, 2018 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson has recently been accused of sexual misconduct and rape. This was preceeded by the accusation on Dr. Lawrence Krauss for groping and non-consensual sexual advances. I wanted to write about the allegations of Dr. Karuss but never found time to do it. Now with Dr. Tyson I feel there is a need to discuss this matter.

Since I am going to address a rather sensitive topic here, I want to begin by acknowledging a few points.

Women have been poorly treated by all communities in the past.
Some communities still continue to discriminate women just for being women.

I have written plenty about the above topics. I don’t find the need to further clarify my stance.

I also want to give the women accusing any man the benefit of the doubt. Shaming victims is a trend which has got huge consequences and ignoring them is just as bad. So, I want to always listen to the victims but analyse the merit of the accusations before convicting anyone.

In this article, I want to discuss the accusation on Dr. Tyson and present my opinion on both this case and what I feel is a bigger social movement. I want to break this article into four sections.

Analyse the accusations against Dr. Tyson
Analyse of Dr. Tyson’s response
Other articles on this subject
Highlight the dangers of this trend

The accusations against Dr. Tyson

The accusations against Dr. Tyson first appeared in a blog in an online magazine called Patheos. They disclosed three incidents involving him as an evidence for his sexual misconduct. Let us go through each of those incidents in detail first.

Incident #1: Dr. Katelyn N. Allers

Dr Allers is an Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Bucknell University.

Event

The groping incident allegedly took place at an after-party following the AAS meeting in 2009, which took place in Long Beach. This was supposed to be a lighthearted social event to show that astronomers could have fun, according to Dr. Allers.

“Tyson was there, and he was dancing and drinking and all of that at the party, so a friend and I decided to get pictures with him,” she told me.

But after the first picture was taken (above, left), Tyson decided to explore Dr. Allers’ tattoo. It features a realistic solar system that stretches from her arm to her back and collar bone area.

“After we had taken the picture, he noticed my tattoo and kind of grabbed me to look at it, and was really obsessed about whether I had Pluto on this tattoo or not… and then he looked for Pluto, and followed the tattoo into my dress.”

Accusations

Dr. Allers said her experience was public and didn’t rise to the level of assault, but that it did show Tyson was capable of some “creepy behavior.”

“My experience with him is he’s not someone who has great respect for female bodily autonomy,” she told me in a phone interview.

Dr. Allers didn’t feel like she was in danger during her encounter with Tyson, but she did describe it as “uncomfortable and creepy.” That interaction also made her think twice about allegations brought by Tchiya Amet, a musician who says Tyson raped her in his apartment when they were grad students together.

“I think that he is someone that could use his position of fame and power in a way to try and take advantage,” Dr. Allers told me.

My Opinion

As already admitted by Dr. Allers herself, Dr. Tyson was searching for the existence of the planet Pluto in her tattoo. He did that in public. Further, we have to be clear on what “into my dress” means. He was checking her shoulder. I personally wouldn’t behave this way. I definitely realise it can creep a lot of women. I am with Dr Allers when she calls the behaviour “uncomfortable and creepy”.

However, the rest of the accusations are completely made up. She herself admits that she didn’t feel like she was in danger. This doesn’t translate into the rest of her accusations. I want to list the accusations one by one.

Accusation #1: “I think that he is someone that could use his position of fame and power in a way to try and take advantage.”

The choice of words here is very clever. One can say this about anyone. I can accuse Dr Allers as someone who sounds too creepy and could manipulate a situation to her advantage. Such a point cannot win the opponent a libel case even when the accusation has no basis. However, reading them in a sentence sends an extremely strong message. Going further, what does she mean by taking advantage? What evidence does she possess? It is an exaggeration of a creepy act beyond proportion.

Accusations #2: “My experience with him is he’s not someone who has great respect for female bodily autonomy”

I don’t see any other experience she has mentioned with Dr. Tyson other than the one at the party. She has then generalised it as someone who doesn’t respect female bodily autonomy. Is there evidence to believe that Dr. Tyson wouldn’t have done it if a guy wore a T-Shirt and showed off his solar system tattoo? What do she mean by respect for female bodily autonomy?

Irrespective of one’s gender every individual would have done something in life which could be perceived as creepy or sometimes is creepy. Doing something creepy doesn’t extend to other forms of guilt. In 60 years of his life which includes a lot public interaction and scrutiny, if people can only find a couple of creepy mistakes he made, then I consider that a very well lived life. It is also very important to note that one behavior is not a pattern. We can accuse him of that only one incident but not extend it to pronounce him guilty of mistakes we don’t have any evidence.

Incident #2: Ashley Watson

Ashley Watson was a former assistant to Tyson.

Event

Watson says she had been working directly under Tyson, who called out Trump in 2016 by saying he would grab him by the crotch when they met, and that they got along well. That all changed, however, when he invited his underling to his apartment at around 10:30 P.M. to “share a bottle of wine” and “unwind for a couple of hours.”

Watson, who said she felt pressured to impress her superstar boss, told me she agreed to come in for a glass of wine instead. Upon entering his apartment, Tyson allegedly took off his shoes and shirt, remaining in a tank top undershirt. Unfortunately, the night only got more awkward as Tyson, who is married, reportedly put on romantic music and replayed the most graphic parts.

She says Tyson soon brought out a cutting board and a knife to cut blocks of cheese that he decided they would share. But before slicing the snack, he allegedly gestured toward her with the knife and made a comment about stabbing.

Watson says Tyson started talking about how every human being needs certain “releases” in life, including physical releases. He reportedly mentioned how difficult it had been for him to be away from home for several months.

Watson says Tyson asked her if she needed any releases, and she responded with a story about sexual harassment she endured in the past. It was a smart way to diffuse a tense situation, but she says he was unfazed.

“It was like talking to a wall,” Watson said.

She was getting up to leave when Neil allegedly stopped her, saying he wanted to show her a “Native American handshake” he knew. That involved holding hands tightly, making eye contact, and feeling for each other’s pulse, Watson told me.

When she broke off the awkward and incredibly intimate handshake, which he allegedly said represented a “spirit connection,” she attempted to just get up and leave.

Tyson then allegedly put his hands on her shoulders, and said he wanted to hug her, but if he did, he’d “just want more.”

Watson says she left Tyson’s apartment quickly after the inappropriate sexual comments and that, the next day, she confronted him because she felt he had betrayed her as a mentor. He reportedly told her in that meeting that she’d never rise through the ranks in her career because she was too “distracting.”

Accusations

Watson said Tyson occasionally made “misogynistic comments,” and that he kept a list of overweight actresses on his phone to prove that women aren’t inhibited by portrayals in the media when it comes to health and fitness. He allegedly said it was untrue that women feel pressured to be skinny based on societal standards.

Watson says she took the comment as a bad joke, but it’s important to note that this type of “joke” is exactly what people in power need to keep in mind when dealing with subordinates. And it set the stage for a night filled with subtle intimidation and sexual advances.

“It was definitely a very weird power move,” she said.

My Opinion

There are two accusations here.

Accusation #1: Misogynistic comments

How did Dr. Tyson keeping a list of overweight actresses in his phone and stating that women aren’t inhibited by portrayals in the media become a misogynistic comment? If anything he is being critical of the media portrayal of women and suggesting women are not pressured to feel skinny. He is arguing for normal women here. Misogyny is defined as the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women. On a different note, this accusation seems to be a case of misandry. It looks like a case of confirmation bias. If the starting position is ‘I believe men like Dr. Tyson are misogynists’, then it is not a big leap of faith to consider this comment he made about overweight women has to be misogynistic. Also, it is important to note that she has accused him in hindsight. This is not what she felt when she first made the comment.

In hindsight, there were red flags that she “chose to not pay attention to,” Watson told me in an interview.

Accusation #2: Sexual advance and predatory behaviour

I want to list all the ‘sexual advances’ that Dr. Tyson has been accused here.

Inviting to share a “share a bottle of wine” and “unwind for a couple of hours.
Took off his shoes and shirt, remaining in a tank top undershirt
Put on romantic music and replayed the most graphic parts
Tyson soon brought out a cutting board and a knife to cut blocks of cheese that he decided they would share
Made a comment about stabbing
Talking about human beings needing releases
Native American handshake
Saying he wanted to hug her, but if he did, he’d “just want more.”
Saying she was too distracting

If I look at the evidences presented above from point number one to seven, the way I perceives the situation will depend on the below points.

How well do the individuals know each other?
Was there a demand for sex or at least physical contact?
Was there a threat of repercussion if you don’t submit to his will?
Was there contact in a way which indicated requesting for a physical relationship?

It is important to note that we are living in a free world where anyone can ask another person if they are interested in having a relationship. Anyone can reject the call for a relationship. There is an issue only if you are discriminated for not consenting to the wish or if you are forced without your consent. Even if I accept that this was a move made by Dr. Tyson to have a romantic relationship, it is still a call for consent and nothing more. I am beginning to wonder if people now are against checking for consent or romance.

Finally, coming to the last point where Ashley Watson was apparently told that she was too distracting by Dr. Tyson. What does that ‘too distracting’ mean? Does it mean he is distracted by her? Did he say she was too distracted? Either opinion is his view of the situation. It wasn’t a sexist remark. I have been told that in the early years of my career by both men and women when I went to them with complaints. It had nothing to do with wanting to have a relationship. I didn’t agree with their response but it definitely doesn’t make them sexist or misandrist.

Now, let’s look at the definition of a sexual predator. A sexual predator is a person who ruthlessly exploits others sexually. Where is the evidence of Dr Tyson ruthless exploiting even one person let alone many people? This careless use of accusatory words without presenting a shred of evidence has become a cornerstone to such cases.

Incident #3: Tchiya Amet

Tchiya Amet is musician, healer, and teacher, who claims have studied Galactic Astronomy in the graduate program at the University of Texas in Austin when Dr. Tyson also studied there.

Event

Amet said the alleged assault started when she went to his apartment to visit, like she did almost every day.

He offered me a glass of water. I accepted a liquid in a cup made out of a coconut shell. I recall coming back to consciousness briefly, then next thing I remember is seeing him in the hallway the next day. I have lived in this nightmare for 30 years, and it stops today.

I know this will be difficult for many of you to believe, understand or to know. However, know that this is the truth. Those who know me well can attest to the fact that I lived with undiagnosed PTSD of [at] least 25 years.

She also said Tyson was the reason she didn’t further pursue her dream of reaching the stars and becoming a full-fledged astrophysicist, and accused him of telling students they could pass Astronomy 101 if they gave him a blow job.

He talks about obstacles to reaching his goal of astrophysicist. Did anyone slip him a mickey? Perhaps this was his way of eliminating the competition….what a scam YOU are Mr. Tyson…

How does it feel to know that YOU are the reason there is one less [black] female galactic astronomer on this planet? Yes, YOU. How many freshman students did you give A’s to when they were failing? Were they really failing, or was that just an easy way to get free blow jobs?

Accusations

Dr Tyson has been accused of raping Tchiya Amet here. This is a serious accusation.

My Opinion

I want to start by saying of the three accusations, this one is extremely important and requires proper analysis. Rape cases are extremely serious and cannot be judged on individual biases.

Firstly, Tchiya Amet says she went to Dr. Tyson’s apartment every day. Is there a point here which hasn’t been covered. Were they in a romantic relationship or just friends? Did they have any physical relationship prior to the incident or after that? These points are important to understand the circumstance of the alleged incident.

Tchiya Amet says she doesn’t remember anything after that. Is there evidence that he actually raped her? What made her believe it happened? Let us say she became unconscious, how did she reach the hallway. When there is no evidence of the actual rape, it is important to understand the circumstances before and after. This is where the lack of coherence in this story feels like statements have been cherry-picked to suit a narrative.

Tchiya Amet claims to have undiagnosed PTSD for 25 years now. What is ‘undiagnosed’ PTSD? How does she know she has PTSD? On face value, I want to take the point as true. That still doesn’t prove he raped her. It requires a huge leap for faith. Now, what Amet’s motivation in doing this? I don’t know and I don’t want to speculate. If she can provide any evidence on this then we can definitely change our opinion.

Against without either direct or circumstantial evidence of rape, accusing a person is a case of vilification and slander. It is important to investigate this incident but the starting position shouldn’t be guilty until proven innocent.

Dr. Tyson’s response

Dr. Tyson gave a response to these accusations in his facebook page.

There are a few lines I want to highlight here.

For Dr. Katelyn N. Allers

I only just learned (nine years after) that she thought this behavior creepy. That was never my intent and I’m deeply sorry to have made her feel that way. Had I been told of her discomfort in the moment, I would have offered this same apology eagerly, and on the spot. In my mind’s eye, I’m a friendly and accessible guy, but going forward, I can surely be more sensitive to people’s personal space, even in the midst of my planetary enthusiasm.

It is important to note that he hasn’t denied doing it and is more than happy to learn from his mistakes. In this case, it was a creepy behaviour at best which had no sexual dimension to it.

For Ashley Watson

We became so friendly that we talked about all manner of subjects, even social-personal ones, like the care of aging parents, sibling relationships, life in high school and college, hometown hobbies, race, gender, and so forth.

Practically everyone she knows on set gets a daily welcome-hug from her. I expressly rejected each hug offered frequently during the Production. But in its place I offered a handshake, and on a few occasions, clumsily declared, “If I hug you I might just want more.” My intent was to express restrained but genuine affection.

Afterwards, she came into my office and told me she was creeped out by the wine & cheese evening. She viewed the invite as an attempt to seduce her, even though she sat across the wine & cheese table from me, and all conversation had been in the same vein as all other conversations we ever had.

Further, I never touched her until I shook her hand upon departure. On that occasion, I had offered a special handshake, one I learned from a Native elder on reservation land at the edge of the Grand Canyon.

At that last meeting in my office, I apologized profusely. She accepted the apology. And I assured her that had I known she was uncomfortable, I would have apologized on the spot, ended the evening, and possibly reminded her of the other social gathering that she could attend.

I note that her final gesture to me was the offer of a hug, which I accepted as a parting friend.

This is another case of just mistaken intent. To make this more out of this is purely conspiratory.

For Tchiya Amet

While in graduate school I had several girlfriends, one of whom would become my wife of thirty years, a mathematical physicist — we met in Relativity class. Over this time I had a brief relationship with a fellow astro-graduate student, from a more recent entering class. I remember being intimate only a few times, all at her apartment, but the chemistry wasn’t there. So the relationship faded quickly. There was nothing otherwise odd or unusual about this friendship.

This goes back to the same question I had. If she visited his apartment every day then does that mean they were going around. Did they have any physical relationship other than the ‘rape’ every day? Was the breakup mutual?

Dangers of this trend

I am extremely sure based on the evidence presented Dr Tyson cannot be pronounced guilty. However, that is not the consent the media wants to drive. Therefore, this is a very dangerous trend. I want to assert why I consider it dangerous.

A post-truth movement

This movement is not worried about reality or at least truth based on reality. They want to act on what feels emotionally correct and not on facts. There is a difference between true predators like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes and someone like Al Franken. However, the movement doesn’t differentiate. This lack of differentiation between facts and emotions is at the root of this new climate.

A retributive movement with selfish allies

I am observing signs of war against different sections of the society. In the intersectional oppression chart a straight, white, conservative Christian male is most liable to make a grave mistake. A person who belongs to this category can be pronounced guilty even without an investigation. Then this trend continues to other groups. For example, a male is always guilty of sexual misconduct once accused. A white Christian is always guilty of white supremacy once accused. None of these accusations seems to need any evidence.

The people fighting this war do not want justice but they want retribution. They want to punish people for the generations of hostility and discrimination done by their predecessors. These retribution movements are also fed by selfish allies like Vox, Buzzfeed and Salon. The allies provide the much-needed oxygen and in turn, use the movement to propel them to the limelight.

The retributive nature of this movement is also the reason why one might see two patterns.

The attack is always on high profile people irrespective of their race or political spectrum. It hasn’t resulted in the everyday predator being impacted.
The movement is losing people who will otherwise declare themselves as feminists like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris.

High profile targets are always the best to get attention. This is the same tactic used by extremists and terrorists. This #metoo movement is not alone. It has to be looked in conjunction with other such movements like ‘Women’s March’, ‘TimesUp’. ‘Black Lives Matter’ etc.

Finally, many scholars and scientists claim that earth’s climate change is the biggest risk to our human progress. I personally feel this social climate change of post-truth is an even bigger risk to our progress. Historically other social movements were intended to take us towards truth, eliminate barriers and emancipate individuals. This is the first time we are having a social movement which wants to take us away from science, progress and development. If we let this movement win, then truth based on reality will lose its complete relevance and with that will science. Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson is a victim of this new climate and if we don’t act it could be the future we never wanted.

Harnessing the power of stories, a non JP way

October 15, 2018October 17, 2018 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

I should admit guilty of the unsolicited cheap shot at Jordon Peterson in the title of the blog. I am with Sam Harris on Dr Peterson. While I agree and respect 90% of his views, the balance 20% is shatteringly dismal. This blog is not intended at Dr Peterson though. I wanted to write about my experience with stories while acknowledging his thought-provoking methods of extracting I universal archetypes from ancient stories. I also want to share a viewpoint where an average individual who is not as smart as Dr Peterson can drift from having a metaphorical look at stories to a more dogmatic one.

Let me start in a simple fashion by defining an archetype. Archetype has its origin in Greek where ‘arkhe’ means primitive and ‘tupos’ means model. This morphed in archetype in Latin. In psychoanalysis, according to Oxford Dictionary, an archetype means a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious. Archetypes (Carl Jung, 1947) are images and thoughts which have universal meanings across cultures which may show up I dreams, literature, art or religion. Dr Jordon Peterson eloquently communicates how the religious texts of the past and other forms of fiction have communicated these archetypes by harnessing the power to stories. He quotes the works of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche a lot in this regard. The part where he loses everyone including me is when he doesn’t separate value from the truth. There are two parts to his approach.

Use of stories as a potent tool to communicate a message
Considering the story as true, because the message is valuable to humanity.

I want to address both these points, first in isolation and then as a combination.

Stories as a potent tool to communicate a message

I agree with this statement completely. I will start with a personal example first. I have found out the best way for me to communicate morality, understand concepts even mathematics is through stories. A simple story makes her pick the concept so effectively which I struggle to get through when I explain in the first person. She thinks about it a lot better. The same can be said about communicating complex subjects to adults. Some of the best examples of fiction writers are Friedrich Nietzsche, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain and George Orwell actually communicated their ideas through stories. This is also the reason why the field of performing arts is uniformly adored across the globe. It is a great way to communicate a message. A story is to message is what music is to lyrics. You can have one without the other but the combination creates magic. It is also a way the human brain processes a message easily.

A story is true because the message is valuable to humanity

The pursuit to a definition of truth is an old philosophical concept. The most commonly used definition of truth is based on the correspondence theory of truth, where truth is grounded on a set of facts proven by the basic axioms accepted by everyone. There are various theories of truth in philosophy. I have listed a few here.

Correspondence theory of truth
Coherence theory of truth
Constructivist theory of truth
Consensus theory of truth
Pragmatic theory of truth
Semantic theory of truth

Dr Peterson has a morphed view of the pragmatic theory of truth, which was later named metaphorical truth. He feels reality which isn’t morally good is not true. For example, any reality which will result in annihilation and destruction of humanity is not true. He feels the moral truth superimposes all other truth. The other truths are only true in their realms. I don’t subscribe to it for the below reasons.

There was truth before humans evolved
There will be truth after humans become extinct

The Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy will collide even if we don’t want to think it is true. There are plenty of other examples where I can say Dr Peterson’s morality based truth can even be dangerous. Also, there is a Circular reasoning fallacy in his argument. Dr Peterson’s claims that Darwin’s theory of evolution is the basis of his truth. Truth is what which helps in keeping humans alive and moral. Darwin fundamentally negated the foundation of the Judeo Christian ethics in which God created the universe and humans, around 5000 years ago. Peterson then says scientific reality is only true when it supports morality, especially the Judeo Christian one. Based on that Darwin’s theory of evolution which negates this premise should be false.

I have to discuss the nature of truth as that is the only connector in the premise. I accept something is a story. I accept there are morals valuable to humanity. Now we all have to decide which theory of truth we are using to decide if the premise is true or false. If we use the most prescribed theory of truth, the correspondence theory then Peterson’s assertion is not true. If you use his definition, then the proposition will be true. However, we have already rendered the logic of that definition as flawed.

There is definitely a possibility where one might say, I have used logic to negate the definition and Logic is fundamentally a construct of the correspondence theory. So, I have used the proposition to prove itself. It is a begging the question fallacy but again I have used logic. So anyone might see I can infinitely regress but one has to move out of the dimension of logic and reality to get into Dr Peterson’s world of truth.

A story is a potent tool, so I live my life like the story is true if it leads me to live a moral life

This statement sounds obnoxious and even a decent one at the outset. However, if you dig one level deep there are few fundamental parts of this which make it extremely diabolical. The core of the statement is moral life. Who defines what is a moral life. Let us say you define morality as something which will help humans prosper. Then the issue is what is prosperity and how to achieve that prosperity.

Now, let us take examples. A suicide bomber genuinely believes he is doing a moral act by living his life as the work of fiction he believes says. What do you say about slavery? Slavery is condoned in most religious texts across the world. These works of fiction are considered moral and are supposed to help us lead a moral life. I don’t think any sane individual wants to go back to that era.

In summary, I strongly agree with Dr Peterson that stories are a powerful tool to communicate a message. The message registers better and transcends generations. However, the validity and usefulness of the message don’t make the story true. If you start living your life like those stories are true, then you risk pledging your critical faculties to a work of fiction and live a life of servility and credulity.

10 criteria for identifying a stupid

August 22, 2018August 23, 2018 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

My friends asked me whom do I call stupid. Considering my loathe to stupidity, they wanted to understand my model. Here are my 10 criteria for identifying a person as stupid. Two questions for you. How many do you disagree? What percentage of the world do you think fall under this group?

Anyone who thinks the earth is flat or universe was created 5000 years ago.
Anyone who looks at the evidence and turns the other side to say my belief is the truth
Anyone who thinks that they have a divine commandment to impose their will on others or discriminate against them
Anyone who preaches against contraception or the empowerment of women
Anyone believes they are superior by the accident of birth
Anyone who is expecting logic to prove the non-existence
Anyone who wants to procreates indiscriminately
Anyone who acts like the reason for all their problems is someone else
Anyone who wants to take the world to the values from the Bronze Age civilisations
Anyone who looks at a new scientific evidence and claims that their faith encompasses those evidence.

So far the answer to these questions has been

Agree: 100%
Population percentage: 80% approx

I feel there are two main reasons why it is hard for people who agree with the above facts and still not able to distil it.

The erosion of the premise that the majority of the people are not decent and not stupid is beyond their realm of acceptance. It shakes the foundations of camaraderie and kinship.
People have friends and family who fall into this category. It creates a cognitive dissonance when they have to deal with the two. It is hard to call someone you love, adore, respect as stupid.

The one point I keep telling myself is reality and as an extension truth has no obligation to be to my liking. It is for me to stare, admire and feel challenged.

I am definitely looking to convert this into a model and introduce a dangerousness coefficient based on it. I will definitely update the blog after that.

The seven useless descriptors in 2018

July 22, 2018July 24, 2018 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

The one word which has been removed from the social vocabulary over the last few decades, especially in West is the ‘N word’. There weren’t any regulations against it but people just stopped using it. No one even respects an individual who uses that anymore. I do know that it is still used in some countries like India and Singapore but overall no one uses it anymore as it has become devoid of any utility.

Keeping the tradition of George Carlin’s ‘ Seven Dirty Words’, I want to share seven words of no social utility in 2018.

Racist
Fascist
Nazi
Free speech crusader
Skin colour(Black activist, brown man, white supremacist)
(Native, African, Asian, European, Indian) American
Islamaphobe

Let me address one point before I take this forward. I do not think there aren’t fascists or racists or Nazis but these words have baggage which is not applicable for a conversation in 2018. Now, I want to go through each word and share why I feel that way. I feel the main reason behind the continuous use of these phrases is that these were some of the important phenomena of the twentieth century that affected people’s lives.

Racist

This term has lost its utility because of two key reasons.

It is only used against white people and that too quite indiscriminately. I have never seen it used against people of Chinese, Indian or African origin. I have seen just as much racism in these cultures as the rest.
The term has become so abused that we are failing to distinguish between people who are really racists or in some instance genocidal against normal people with whom we disagree.

Fascist

Just like racism, I am seeing this term being used against everyone. Many democratically elected leaders from Barack Obama to Donald Trump have been called fascists. Fascism as defined as “the radical authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce“. Any pro-democratic leader cannot be called fascist.

Nazi

Similar to Fascism, National Socialism is a movement defined by the ideology of the Nazi party. The term was coined towards the end of the 18th century. Again not every socialist is a Nazi and not every racial supremacist is a Nazi. It is a significant attack on an individual when you call them a Nazi. It is one thing to call someone a Nazi sympathiser but a leap of irrational faith to call them Nazi. The movement doesn’t exist but for certain pockets. Above all most of them are banned. Even organisations like KKK are not Nazi organisations.

Free speech crusader

This is my pet peeve for this list. I am tired of unintelligent people gaining attention because they referred to themselves as a free speech crusader. I haven’t seen many free speech crusaders in my life. I most definitely don’t see any now. Most of them (even some people I like) like Sam Harris, Jordon Peterson, Douglas Murray, Maajid Nawaz, Bill Maher, Milo Yiannopoulos and Dave Rubin to name a few become free speech activists when

Something doesn’t offend them but there is a general furore around it
Something they say offends people and there are protests against it
Something someone says that they like and there are protests against it

Quoting George Carlin, narrow and selfish interests don’t impress me. I find such crusades to be repugnant just as the people whom they fight.

Skin colour adjectives(Black activist, brown man, white supremacist)

I find this particularly annoying when people refer to others with their skin colour. However, there is a particularly annoying stereotype in this as well. It is never a Black or a Brown Supremacist and a White activist. It is always the other way around when you use the skin colour adjectives. Furthermore, it is always used by people who are against racism. It is meaningless and above all counterproductive. I also want to differentiate this from people who are comfortable in a neighbourhood of a certain ethnicity. There is nothing wrong with a bunch of people of a certain ethnicity to want to live in the same neighbourhood. It is not racism or bigotry. Also, people like to speak certain languages or live in a certain way. If a bunch of vegan people decide to form a colony and live there, it is not an issue for me. Even if they think that vegans are the best and there should be a country for vegans, I am still fine. Where it becomes a problem is when they infringe on other’s right to exist or live their life a different way. If I replace vegan with white or black or brown, the core of the argument still remains the same. This makes any description of a bunch of people using their skin colour counterproductive to the broad argument that we want to make.

Native, African, Asian, European, Indian American

This one is definitely an American trait. I particularly love the response of Gérard Araud, France’s ambassador to the United States to comedian Trevor Noah’s comment on calling the World Cup winning French Football Team as ‘The African Team’. He said, “Unlike in the United States of America, France does not refer to its citizens based on their race, religion or origin. To us, there is no hyphenated identity. Roots are an individual reality.”. This was followed by people calling French as not a culture for comedy or failure to call people. It does shed light on this rather unintelligent practice of calling people from where they come from and mostly based on their skin colour. Barack Obama was called African American but he was born to a Kenyan father and an American Mother. While he does have a part of his ancestry from Kenya the other part is from England. Calling him African American is both inaccurate and unnecessary.

Islamaphobe

The final one in my list is a recent kid in the block, a 20th creation which can be thrown anywhere in a conversation without it actually adding any value. There are two main reasons why I find this descriptor particularly useless. This word is used in two circumstances.

One religious group who hate the other
Fear of terrorism

In the first point, there is no need for a special word for hatred towards a certain religion. There is no word for hatred towards Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Christianity etc. Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, it not just hatred towards Jews based on their existence, it is hatred towards Jews coming from certain religious constructs within Christianity and Islam against Judaism.

On the second point, it is a genuine problem. Most of my Muslim friends are afraid of terrorism. If calling out against radicalisation and terrorism is bad, I am not sure what is good. So, this usage is also meaningless. Actually, I feel we should rename this to “Terrorphobia” and acknowledge that it is practical.

Family separation or detention: Ugly side of partisan politics

June 28, 2018 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

As an immigrant, I want to be very clear that I am in favour of controlled legal immigration. At the same time, it is hard to look at detention centres and separation of families and not feel the ugly side of the debate. I have so far not seen a single person across the board in any country who has said, we need open borders but somehow that accusation remains. I want to write about immigration in two parts, one on the exploitation of misery of the family separation saga in the US and second on immigration itself. I will write about the former on this blog.

Sometime last week my daughter watched a supposed comedy movie clip which ended with a teenage daughter and her father being arrested and jailed. In the middle of the night, she came to my bed crying. She said that the father and daughter being jailed is bad and she is unable to sleep thinking of them. If my daughter is unable to sleep in the comfort of her bed, having watched the plight of someone being jailed in a movie, I can only imagine the impact of young kids being separated from their parents or guardians.

There is no point blaming Donald Trump alone for this. He did promise a lot of atrocious policies and he is implementing the same. This is also a result of years of propaganda. As bad as the move was, the resulting exploitation was awkward to see. There were four types of reactions, I want to highlight.

Frenzy Media
Partisan supporters
Opportunists
Partisan opponents

Frenzy Media

As depressing as the news is, it is important for the media to report on facts rather than make it into a reality show. To show crying babies is one but for the media personnel to behave like babies doesn’t inspire confidence in the news. Some of the adequately documented reports are ones where the reports understood the emotions but reported on facts. Opinions are good but that cannot reflect adrenalin rush. Further, when the reporters are trying to make a point, they need to check what they are doing. This below video tweeted by NYT is a perfect example. You don’t show late teen boys if you are trying to make a point on the unaccompanied migrant issue.

A group of seven boys, who appeared to be unaccompanied migrant children, arrived at New York’s La Guardia Airport from Texas on Wednesday night. Read more: https://t.co/6M83JFEP26. pic.twitter.com/tBASq8j0c3

— New York Times Video (@nytvideo) June 21, 2018

Partisan Supporters

I did not expect anything factual or reasonable or remotely nice from a person like Ann Coulter, especially on the subject of immigration. However, what was really appalling to see was the comparison of the immigrants to child rapists and gangsters. This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that intends to instil fear in the minds of people. Also to say we have to treat people seeking refuge humanely has nothing to do with not treating your own people badly. Treating everyone humanely cannot be considered as a ill-treatment of a few. Also, when one generalises immigrants from certain countries as criminals and rapists and criminals from other countries as individuals, it lacks any credibility. Further, no one I saw in the media actually wants open borders and uncontrolled immigration. To keep harping on that point and giving it credibility in the media is the very embodiment of fakery. It is also quite hypocritical when Tucker Carlson does this and complaints about the lack of decency in the left.

Look at the tiny tots! https://t.co/PJgMyeAhOA

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) June 21, 2018

How about letting child molesters go — as long as they have kids!!! https://t.co/VZGmgWN5VL

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) June 21, 2018

You think any of these people care about family separation? If they did, they’d be upset about the collapse of the American family, which is measurable and real. They’re not. They welcome that collapse, because strong families are an impediment to their political power.

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 19, 2018

Opportunists

As bad as they are, the above two responses are in the expected lines. To me personally, the lines of decency are crossed when one starts to utilise such a situation for their personal agenda. For example, Dave Rubin tweeted the below. It not only delegitimised the opposition for this order, it also the wrong problem to highlight your libertarian agenda.

Firstly, he calls out Senator Chuck Schumer for not wanting to discuss this in the Senate and handle it through the executive branch. He highlights this as some kind of laziness on part of the senator. He also is hinting at this driving some kind of authoritarian streak. This argument doesn’t stand for two reasons.

This situation was caused by an executive decision. So, it makes sense for the executive decision to reverse it. A bill through house and senate takes more time. It is not easy at the time of an emergency. 2000+ kids are already affected and one can’t wait for bills to be passed.
The existing immigration bills in the House are bait instruments more than bills. It combines DACA renewal with building Trump’s border wall. It is not a bill that will ever get passed.

Secondly, he sarcastically points out at Trump repealing the separation order by making fun of people who compare Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler. I do not agree with the comparison of President Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler. We are pattern seeking mammals and want to compare one thing we don’t like to the other thing we don’t. That said, Donald Trump should not get credit for reversing an order that will stop the damage which he triggered in the first place. This is called fishing for credit where credit is not due.

Trying to make sense of the child separation issue without adding to the hysteria. So lemme get this straight, Republicans offered a plan, but Dems want Trump to do it with executive action? Why is @SenSchumer afraid of doing his job instead of giving more power to Trump? pic.twitter.com/7xylNQOHqk

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) June 20, 2018

Just like Hitler did. Am I doing this right? pic.twitter.com/a9CC8RBIf3

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) June 20, 2018

Partisan opponents

This piece will not be complete without talking about Maxine Waters. Maxine is a democratic congresswoman from the state of California. Dignity and civility should not be optional traits in a civilised world. It is not an excuse to be uncivilised if you believe your opponent is wrong or even undignified. Maxine called for supporters to confront people in the Trump administration. This is a blatant call for harassment and will incite violence. You cannot become the monster you hate. If you oppose Trump’s lack of civility, you cannot retaliate with uncivil behaviour. Maxine’s behaviour definitely was uncalled for and diluted the entire opposition to this policy. The unruly opposition, in general, will only result in de-legitimising valid, civil opposition. No amount of blame transfer from Maxine can defend her call to confront and harass Trump administration officials who show up in public places.

The counter

Admiring

What I was actually watching

Prestige against worth

Older than money

Where I fall short

References

Acknowledgements

Expression against achievement

What my daughter’s face gave away

Bhava and rasa, two thousand years early

What the evidence shows

What the evidence does not show

What I did with it

References

Acknowledgements before the argument

The core principle

The techniques

The Presumptive Close

Mirroring

The Social Proof Anchor

The Pre Meeting Whisper

The IKEA Effect

The Objective Third Party

The Negative Interest Frame

Fogging

The Choice of Two Evils

The Political Cleanse

The catalogue

Conclusion

References

How did we reach here?

Where should we be?

How do we do it?

Conclusion

The accusations against Dr. Tyson

Incident #1: Dr. Katelyn N. Allers

Event

Accusations

My Opinion

Incident #2: Ashley Watson

Event

Accusations

My Opinion

Incident #3: Tchiya Amet

Event

Accusations

My Opinion

Dr. Tyson’s response

Other articles on this subject

Dangers of this trend

A post-truth movement

A retributive movement with selfish allies

Stories as a potent tool to communicate a message

A story is true because the message is valuable to humanity

A story is a potent tool, so I live my life like the story is true if it leads me to live a moral life

Racist

Fascist

Nazi

Free speech crusader

Skin colour adjectives(Black activist, brown man, white supremacist)

Native, African, Asian, European, Indian American

Islamaphobe

Frenzy Media

Partisan Supporters

Opportunists

Partisan opponents