
The Power of Ridiculous Reasons - robg
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_power_of_ridiculous_reasons/
======
Vivtek
Scott Adams was hilarious back when nobody was making fun of corporate culture
yet and I was working at Eli Lilly, but when he tries to be funny about
international politics, somehow that just doesn't work for me.

~~~
nandemo
He's not trying to be funny.

~~~
falien
I hope you're wrong, but I suspect you're not.

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hschenker
The "ridiculous reason" scheme works, and Cialdini would probably agree,
because people are always looking for the easiest route to a decision. If
there's a situation in which they can legitimately turn their brain off
because they can defer to a pre-established rule or convention, they'll do so.

A non-human analogy given by Cialdini (see
<http://www.bainvestor.com/Influence.html>) is the mother turkey who simply
responds to the cheep-cheep of its young to determine what nearby moving
objects needs to be taken care of. The turkey, of course, can be tricked (by
human researchers, usually) into responding the same way to an inappropriate
animate object by spoofing the sound.

BUT - and this is where Scott Adams's analogy goes awry - in humans, this
automatic response to "because X" generally only applies to inconsequential
situations.

The marked contrast between the situations he compares (restaurant conundrums
and territorial conflicts) is what gives away the flaw in his argument. If the
outcome of a bad decision is just a cold bowl of soup, you can risk making a
thoughtless choice. If the risk is continued territorial angst and loss of
life, a decision is likely to demand a little more scrutiny.

He's either making a poor attempt at humor (which is very possible, since he
probably feels compelled to try to write something at least mildly funny every
day), or he's not aware that he's coming across as very disingenuous.

------
ShabbyDoo
This is the book referenced (no referral fee links, btw):

[http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-
Busine...](http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Business-
Essentials/dp/006124189X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241313058&sr=8-1)

I've read it and even bought a second copy to lend out. It's that good.

~~~
weaksauce
I am still trying to figure out why people dislike affiliate links like
these(if you were to put one in) It costs the person buying the book nothing
and the person providing the link did some work to find the product and link
to it thereby making my life easier. I am all for free and making my life
easier.

The only reason that I can think of is that it detracts from the strength of
the recommendation because of monetary concerns but since this is not the
original person recommending it that should not matter.

Am I completely off on this one?

~~~
bemmu
It raises (founded or unfounded) suspicion that the recommendation is not
genuine, but was only offered to collect the affiliate fee.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
True, but I'm more interested in a link being genuinely useful than in knowing
whether the motivation for providing it is genuinely altruistic.

~~~
andreyf
If you consider all of the non-affiliate links to Amazon and all of the
affiliate links to Amazon, I would hypothesize that more of the former are
"genuinely useful" for their audience than the latter.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I agree with that. But the real question is if there were no affiliate links,
would there be more or fewer useful links overall? It may be that money is an
incentive to dig up useful links that nobody would provide otherwise.

------
dxjones
I stumbled across an interesting blog posting:

"Generalizations, Truth, and Rationality"
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=592468>
<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1396>

that bears a striking thematic relationship to Scott Adams posting on
"ridiculous reasons".

When an experimenter gave a "ridiculous" (aka "placebo") reason for butting in
line at the Xerox machine, "because I need to make copies", the person already
at the machine would often let the experimenter in front to copy a "few
pages", but would often refuse a request for "many pages".

So giving a ridiculous reason can smooth out socially awkward situations,
whether butting in line or paying for dinner, ... but when Scott Adams tries
to generalize this very minor behaviour to solve problems on a world scale,
such as nations being occupied by invaders, ... he is being truly ridiculous.
What he may have intended as humour, just comes off as being naive and deeply
offensive to people around the world who have been brutally oppressed for
decades.

... and there is experimentaly data to show that his "ridiculous reasons work"
hypothesis clearly falls apart as soon as the request becomes non-trivial.

------
superkarn
i think there are other factors involved also. e.g. in the first example, if
he were to say "you should pay because..." instead of "I should pay
because..."

or in the second example, if he were to say the exact same thing but to a
table full of his teenage son's friends at a birthday party vs saying it to a
table full of professional acquaintances at a high profile event.

i think the responses would probably be diferent.

~~~
hschenker
Very good point - in the dinner examples, if the parties involved agree with
the proposal, everyone involved "wins" in some form or another:

The person paying builds up "you'll owe me later" points; the rest of the
table saves money, at least in the short term.

The people who've already been served get to eat immediately, which they
probably want to do anyway; the others who haven't received their food yet can
stop feeling guilty for stopping the others from eating.

Overall, a whole lot of uncomfortableness is avoided by agreeing to the
ridiculous reason.

Compare that to the the territorial conflict example, in which one of the two
parties wins nothing, and instead, loses something very important to them.

------
serhei
This article is a good example of the use of Ridiculous Reasoning: "We should
decide that occupation becomes automatically legitimate after 50 years because
that is how I resolve awkward moments at dinner parties."

~~~
Herring
I don't even get the dinner party reference. Does he actually expect anyone to
say "no we can't eat because that's an arbitrary reason"..?

------
Hexstream
"Another situation in which the ridiculous reason works is when a large dinner
group is being served and only half of the people have their dishes. Everyone
sits there staring at their food as it cools, trying to be polite."

Thank goodness we never really honored such pointless rules in my family.
Unfortunately when we receive guests it's sometimes the case that we'll have
to choose (or should I say guess) between doing as usual and risk appearing
rude or doing the waiting just in case.

~~~
likpok
A much more sensible rule (if you're at a long table) is that you start eating
if everyone around you has food.

~~~
smanek
That's just as arbitrary (and even worse, inconsistent).

Consider the following:

    
    
      xxxxxxxxxo
      0123456789
    

Where 'x' represents a person who has been served, and 'o' represents someone
who hasn't. Your rule suggests the person at position 8 can't start eating but
the person at position 7 can, correct?

I suppose the theory is that the person at position 8 shouldn't start eating
out of deference to the person at position 9, but in that case the person at 8
effectively doesn't have food (they have it but can't eat, which is equivalent
to not having food). So, if 8 should defer because of 9, shouldn't 7 defer
because of 8?

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dxjones
It is ridiculous to draw a connection between (a) giving a ridiculous reason
to persuade my close friend to accept my offer to pay for his dinner, and (b)
compelling an oppressed population in an occupied territory to accept their
fate of continued suffering because, you know, it's been 50 years. My father
killed your father, and we've managed to dominate you for half a century, so,
you know, give it up. We won.

~~~
robotrout
I reject your "out of hand" rejection of this idea.

If not 50 years, than how many years is the proper number? If the people
fighting the conflict were not even born when it started, what exactly are
they clinging to?

I assume that you would say 200 years is too long for something like this to
go on. Pick a number, however ridiculously huge, that you would be comfortable
with. Make it 200 years, I don't care. At that point, we can begin a logical
discussion of your number. Perhaps after that occurred, I could get you down
to 100 years, and you would feel vindicated. Yes?

He's picking 50 years. Don't like it? Would you agree to a compromise between
50 and 100? 75 years is rapidly approaching.

~~~
dxjones
Scott Adams write his blog from the perspective of a person in a position of
power and influence. Notice that in his anecdote _he_ is the person paying for
dinner. Also, he is the person persuading the subjugated to accept their
horrible fate ... for an admittedly "ridiculous" reason.

Accepting a free dinner is easy to do. Accepting a lifetime of domination from
an oppressor is "not the same thing".

I wonder if Scott Adams would be so willing to accept a ridiculous
justification if he was the one being tormented every day of his life.

------
gaius
_Guys tend to argue over who picks up the check after dinner._

What guys? Normally, say 5 people, the bill comes and it's $50, everyone
chucks in a $20 and says they don't want change...

------
noss
The whole reason you don't start to eat before everyone has been served is if
you have been served the wrong person's food.

~~~
gaius
Or if it's poisoned.

------
newy
In some circumstances, an arbitrary decision >> indecision.

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chris_l
Vote me up because I read the dilbert strip today

