You are a delusional monkey.

 Written after an interesting, albeit short, discussion at my workplace about our unique individuality and impression of who we are.

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    You. An individual. A unique, special person, with a complex personality, and part of the most powerful species on the planet. That is what you are. Or maybe...?

    We all like to perceive ourselves as unique and special, and that is pretty much expected; having such an impression of yourself not only helps you overcome psychological difficulties of the everyday life, like stress, but can even have an evolutionary benefit compared to someone who just perceives themselves as merely a common member of the group. 

    Our impression of ourselves as special and significant is the starting point of cultural phenomena such as religions promising us an eternal life (how significant are you if your existence is temporary?), and the individual-uber-alles modern western way of life . 

    The general assumption is that no two persons are completely alike, and that everyone is unique. Neuroscientifically speaking, no two brains have the very same structure and synapses between the cells, but this seems to be  the case for life forms we typically perceive as "lesser", such as rats. Yet even if it wasn't so and unique brains were limited to humans, it soon becomes clear that being unique is rather commonplace. 

    Really, how much does uniqueness matter if there are at least eight billion unique personalities on the planet?

    And if we bother thinking a little deeper, even our uniqueness is up to debate; yes, our brains indeed differ, but most of that difference doesn't seem to have much of an impact on our behavior and capabilities. After all, if we were fundamentally different, how would we ever be able to form up societies and collaborate, or even communicate with one another?

    It seems like all humans are variations of a common theme. Unless highly neurodivergent (e.g. the mentally ill), we all share the same emotions, see the same colors, hear the same sounds, and have pretty much the same capabilities at various degrees. Use and understand language, extract information by looking at symbols, have a certain understanding of numbers, and making more or less successful predictions of the behavior of the ones around us. 

    Not only our general capabilities, but even our special personality traits are not really unique or even ours. Most aspects of your personality and behavior are "lent" to you by the people you came in contact, or even your favorite Netflix character. 

    Your opinions, the way you talk, the way you show your interest to someone, the way you show your frustration or anger, the tone of your voice, even the way you pronounce particular words in particular contexts, most of what constitutes what we call a personality is taken by the people one came in contact with, watched behaving -like a Netflix character-, or empathized with -like a book character. What makes you somehow unique, is which aspects of other peoples personalities you choose to adopt. 

    In any case, even if we accept we are somewhat unique, unique is not a synonym to special or significant, and for my part I can't find something negative about that. It is OK not to be significant. Grasping this will make you overcome your existential dread. We are the products of a series of statistical accidents, and that is nothing to mourn about. 

    We are more or less delusional monkeys. We have "extended" the capabilities and traits of Chimpanzees and just "override" some of them (if you are a Java developer, you get the meaning here a little better). There doesn't have to be any real uniqueness or significance in us to take care of ourselves or enjoy life.

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PS: You are not even the most powerful species on the planet; species of bacteria are. 

Apor med atomvapen.

Det är nog allmänt vedertaget att det som pågår nu i Ukraina kan leda till tredje värdlskriget, och även om det inte utbryter nu då ska det i all sannolikhet ske om några år.

    Innan vi fortsätter, det är bra att förklara en liten grej på förhand: livet är ingen Netflix-serie. På Netflix-serier och Hollywood-movies, finns det alltid "good guys" och "bad guys", och det är alltid klart vem är vem. De "bad guys" är "bad" hela tiden, och samma gäller de "good guys". Men i livet så är det inte alltid så -det händer oft att det handlar om "bad guys" vs "bad guys", och det händer ibland att några "bad guys" agerar som "good guys", eller vice versa. 

    Det som pågår i Ukraina just nu är egentligen "bad guys" (Ryssland) vs "bad guys" (NATO, som använder Ukraina som proxy), varav båda visste att båda har atomvapen och att det finns nukleara reaktorer i sina länder. Med tanke på att båda visste att ett krig mellan dem kan hota männskligheten,  men ingen ville sluta provocera den andra som och valde istället att bråka,  är det otänkbar att vilken som helst sida kan betraktas som "good guys". 

    Kriget nu är kulmineringen av en konflikt som har pågått i decennier, och vi ser bara toppen av isberget eftersom det har funnits många hemliga möten där inga kameror fanns, samt flera hemliga dokumenter vi inte har sett. 

    Dessa innebär att det är minst sagt löjligt att låtsas att bara Putin är "the bad guy", eller att det är hans personliga fel att kriget utbröt. Konflikten mellan USA/EU/NATO och Ryssland har pågått i omkring sjutti år, och framtidens historierna (om det kommer finnas någon framtid längre fram) ska ha mycket jobb med att förklara hur och varför det blev så.

De så-kallade "think-tanks" av NATO och Ryssland kunde se kriget komma, men de förstås brydde sig inte om det. Kriget är ju profitabel för de hög-uppsatta sedan urtider, och det knappt är en tillfällighet att USA planerade slösa $700.000.000.000 (!!!) i "försvar" under 2022. Man kan lätt ställa frågan, hur ska dessa profits användas efter en mutual annihilation, men det är lättare för de rika att låtsas att ingen ska våga använda atomvapen.

NATO hade lovat i mitten av 1990-talet att den inte skulle expandera österut, men den egentligen skitade i löftet och expanderade vidare. Putin meddelande NATO redan i 2009 att han inte skulle acceptera att Ukraina skulle bli en medlem av NATO, och det var ganska förväntat. Skulle USA acceptera det om Kuba planerade bli en medlem av en anti-USA equivalent av NATO?

NATO skapades som försvar mot USSR och börde ha slutat existera efter att USSR gick sönder, men det var ganska lönsam att behålla det för att fortsätta sälja vappen till länder som Grekland och Turkiet. NATO fortsatt betrakta Ryssland som en elak fiende även om Ryssland gjorde inget mot dem, och bestämde sig att släppa Ukraina in i den för att kunna hota Ryssland. Om man funderar lite på det, det finns ingen riktig anledning till det; det handlar egentligen om att någon stark vill "show off" sin makt för någon annan stark.

    Så, trots att Putin var klar om att han inte skulle acceptera det om Ukraina blev en medlem av NATO, våra politiker i västvärlden övertalade en comedian som råkade bli Ukrainas ledare, att riskera sitt eget folk så att Ukraina skulle bli en NATO-marionett till.

Man skulle tänka att Ryssland hade inget att bry sig om. För min egen del, om jag var Putin och Ukraina ville bli en medlem av NATO, jag skulle skratta däråt och påminna om att jag har ett flertal vapen och även atomvappen ifall mitt land blir direkt hotad. Och med tanke på att NATO misslyckades även i Afghanistan, det är minst sagt urlöjligt att den skulle även försöka starta ett krig mot Ryssland på riktigt.

Men människan är egentligen bara en glorified apa, och en apa gör sin bästa för visa sin makt för att behålla sin plats i en påhittad hierarki. Därför NATO skitade i löftet att inte expandera österut, och gick vidare med att göra så delvis för pengarna, och delvis för att "skrämma bort" Ryssland genom att visa sin "makt". Nu gick Ryssland vidare med att starta ett krig för att visa sitt eget makt, och därmed "skräma bort" EU och NATO, .

Vi löper en stor risk av att sluta existera som art, och anledningen till det är att vår teknologisk advancement var inte i samma takt som vår mentala. Människan är fortfarande en apa i hjärnan, och apor ska göra sin bästa för en plats i hierarkin, samt för ännu flera bananer även om de redan har många. Så är människan, och det ser ut som att ett fåtal rika i Ryssland och västvärlden kan riskera allt för en plats i någon idiotisk hierarki, samt några pengar till.

   

    Det är ingen "good guys" vs "bad guys" som på Netflix. Det är "bad guys" vs "bad guys". Och i grund och botten apor vs apor, men dessa apor har atomvapen istället för sten.

How ethical is it to test the IQ of your prospective employees?

     To begin with, and with genuinely no intention of being boastful or sounding arrogant, the scores of the IQ tests I have taken so far in my life are not exactly low. You can be certain that my motive for posting this is not that I got a bad score at some IQ test -on the contrary, I actually scored very high just yesterday when asked to take one after applying for a job. 

    But I know better than anyone that I am by no means the super-smart person that test claims I am. I often do silly things, sometimes mess things up at work, not to mention several unwise life decisions I've made. I don't know if I'm stupid (they/we never do!) , but I know I ain't as above average as that test result says I am. 

Flattering, but just because something sounds good it does not mean that it is true. 

    Yet I wouldn't claim I reject the notion of IQ testing altogether. Several years ago I had the curiosity to pay MENSA to take the IQ test (and paying for something like that is actually a very good sign that you may be stupid), and I also got a pretty good score, similar to the one of the recent test  -even though the too tests were not at all alike. This kind of consistency may indicate that those tests actually measure something pretty reliably -definitely not intelligence itself, but something (perhaps an ability to score good at IQ tests).

    So my motive for this post is neither some low score I got, nor to doubt about the reliability of IQ tests measuring something. This posts is to cast some doubt on whether it is ethical to test the intelligence (if we suppose that IQ tests actually test that) of your candidates as an employer -and it doesn't seem to be. 

    If someone is actually pretty unintelligent for a particular job, that becomes apparent in the interview. To demand that your prospective employees take an intelligence test (that is, IF such a thing actually exists) merely sets a burden to the ones that may score pretty low yet would otherwise fit fine for the job. Testing the intelligence is not only unfair for low-scorers that otherwise fit for the job, but based on erroneous assumptions as well: who told you that your employee will use the full range of his intelligence at the workplace?

    Even we, software developers, whose profession has a reputation of needing a higher-than-average intelligence, do not use our full mental capabilities at our everyday work. A "highly intelligent" developer would not be noticeably better than an average one in debugging a Weld-exception after updating  the version of Wildfly. The nature of many tasks is such that a high intelligence would not play a big role.  So, unless you are looking for some chief engineering architect for Google, a high intelligence does not make much difference than an average one, and in some cases even a lower-than-average might suffice. 

    I won't even elaborate in detail for selecting prospective employees for supposedly "unskilled" professions (the very notion that "unskilled" professions even exist is a classist myth to justify outrageously low wages). It would be at the same time shameless and idiotic to test for the intelligence of candidates for low-wage workplaces. 

    Even if someone applying for a low-wage job is intelligent, he will most likely deliberately be inefficient since you don't pay well;  there is no motive in being an efficient slave of the bosses. And even when it comes to someone being unintelligent, this kind of testing might only be used to justify horrible working conditions -as if someone born with lower capabilities does not already have enough of a burden, they should live a true hell at their workplace and have economic trouble too. 

    Testing for the intelligence or, more accurately, what supposedly is indicative of the intelligence of a candidate, has another issue as well: is makes it even more stressful and painful to apply for a new job, even for good scorers. I, a high scorer of IQ-tests (which are NOT intelligence tests), got very stressed when noticed that I had to take an IQ test for that job. And this, even though I already have a job and I am in no hurry of getting a new one. I can't even imagine the stress if I had to take IQ tests while desperately looking for a job to pay the rent.

     Nor I can imagine the depression a jobless worker might fall into, if they were desperately looking for a new job not to get evicted, and got a low score. Why the funk would you put your candidates through this? Are you that inhumane that have thought of such issues and ignored them, or are you that stupid that you didn't even think of them in the first place?

    If someone is that stupid that is unsuitable for a job, you will notice during the interview. It is needless to put your candidates through such stress (and low self-esteem if they happen to score lower than the average), and idiotic to sincerely believe that your employees use their full intelligence at the workplace. Someone with an IQ of 120 will not necessarily use the whole of it and be more productive than someone with an IQ of 90. That is, if the IQ tests actually measure intelligence.  

    I, a good scorer, find this idiotic. I will happily accept that if you blame my disagreement to my stupidity -thereby accepting my argument that such tests do not mean much.