Disperser Tracks

This is getting ridiculous . . . I’m now getting — on average — one request a day for “feedback”. Companies wanting to know if I’m satisfied, companies asking to rate my experience, companies asking for a piece of my time. 

I’ve written about it before, but it’s getting worse. When I call a business — and before I even get to pick from their dang automated menu — I’m asked if I’d be willing to stay on the line at the end of the call for a brief survey. 

A couple of the companies have systems that call you back after the call has ended wanting you to let them know how they did.

The thing is, while they say it’s to serve me better, there’s nothing on the survey that’s aimed at serving me better. Even their supposed concern for my satisfaction is bull droppings; they aren’t asking me how happy I am with the company or the product. They’re asking how the support person did. 

Nowhere on the surveys is there an option for “the representative was great but unfortunately your product sucks and I have no confidence in you as a company.“

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Sunday . . . traditionally a short post day. 

I’m not one to buck traditions.

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Some (no one, actually) might have noticed my lack of writing-related entries, new fiction, or even topics peripherally related to writing. 

Well, I have some things to edit but have been putting it off. I also haven’t sent anything out for a while now. 

I may have to change my About page and remove the writing part. Except . . . I do write a lot. Not strictly fiction, but certainly aimed at entertaining readers. 

There’s also this Project 313 which won’t end until sometime in February of 2019. 

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I recently had a common experience (for me) and coincidentally came across a phrase that describes it to near perfection . . . the phrase is “curse of original belief”.

The way the phrase was used closely parallels the concept of cognitive bias. In the case I encountered, it refers to the propensity of denying evidence in favor of imagined knowledge anchored on “things figured out” through one’s own reasoning. Meaning, “I believe so therefore it must be so”.

Typically, in such instances, the thought of admitting error is so damaging to one’s fragile self-image that one adheres to one’s distorted view of reality against all evidence to the contrary.

Most people recognize such propensity in others (for example, religious people, conspiracy theorists, non-socialists, people not you) but can’t imagine it might apply to one’s self.

One might assume they are the victims of the “curse of knowledge” but it’s not the same thing. The curse of knowledge happens when one assumes the other person has the same information one possesses when in fact, they do not. 

The experimental evidence for the curse of knowledge is easy to duplicate for yourself. In fact, I discovered the same fact many years ago (and can reliably duplicate the effect to this day) and it made me realize a few things applicable when debating someone suffering from the curse of original belief. 

The most important thing is to agree on basic definitions, establish facts both parties can agree on, and agree on the parameters of the claims and counterclaims.  

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I’m writing this a few days before the hurricane (I forget its name) is supposed to pass to the South of the island. Another one is on its heels and we don’t know yet what kind of mood that one’s in. 

We’ve been here over two years and this is our third hurricane season. Basically, we’re very complacent because, hey, we’ve been here over two years and are still alive. Plus, we got Spam. The way I see it, a few days of bad weather might give us an excuse to crack open a few cans. 

Once again — and I know this is wrong because it could be dangerous to some — I’m hoping for awesome waves.

We’ll see.

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