He calls it cognitive distortions but doesn't seem to offer any proof that their perceptions are wrong. It is possible they were provided in the actual content as opposed to the power-points to PDF. An anorexic convinced that they are fat when they are 75 pounds and their body is falling apart from lack of calories is a distortion. These paradigms don't seem to fit the definition. There is always the possibility that these 'distortions' are in fact objectively correct. The criticism of creative destruction in particular - sure it may have costs but is not doing so any better? Thinking that preserving the status quo at the cost of advancement is in itself a distortion arguably.
Furthermore there is the question does it count as a distortion if they are self-aware that these are all heuristics and adjusting accordingly?
Defining 'sanity' without reference to reality itself is ironically downright insane. Like Pythagorians reacting so negatively to discovering irrational numbers undeniably exist.
>The criticism of creative destruction in particular - sure
>it may have costs but is not doing so any better? Thinking
>that preserving the status quo at the cost of advancement is
>in itself a distortion arguably.
This creative destruction obviously only has to happen when something cannot be changed. Then there's the question: why can't it be changed? In stiff organizations this is well-known to be there virtually anywhere but of course in startups as well.
My far-fetched theory is that teamwork is still something very rarely found. So individual people always have their own space, be it a project, microservice or some module. It's their baby, they've designed it, deployed it, maintained it etc. If someone else needs to join the project, this person always needs to ask the creator for permission of everything until the creator's rules are followed 100%. Maybe I'm alone with this observation but this has happened to me far too often. I wish these projects would rather emerge of joint thought processes and also be evolved like that. Then there would be no need of people having to go through walls, exposing border-line anti-social behaviour...
> My far-fetched theory is that teamwork is still something very rarely found.
You could probably test this by looking at different work environments outside of Silicon Valley or even the US.
Also, a few years ago I read a NYT opinion article citing research into what teams perform best. It wasn't all that dependent on IQ, but on those where where, everyone contributes more equally, people were better at reading each other's emotional state, and which had more women[0][1]. It should be noted that women are better on average at reading emotional states, and that being better at reading each other's emotional state may play a big part in having everyone contribute equally.
Thanks for the references, the NYT article is really interesting.
Actually I recently had a discussion about the exact topic. At my current work we have something like team work, the last time before I had that was years ago in university where we could hand in together exercises in a group. That was one woman, two men in the group. That was awesome, we truly developed the understand and the solution together.
Another point though is that individuals (me for instance) have to learn to work in teams (again). Having worked for years as 1-man-army, I had a hardy time working effectively with other people.
> The criticism of creative destruction in particular - sure it may have costs but is not doing so any better? Thinking that preserving the status quo at the cost of advancement is in itself a distortion arguably.
That criticism is not even present in the slides. It just says "heartlessness, alienation." You may believe those risks to be justified, but getting defensive about as if these are not real risks is denying the real world data, which coincidentally is another criticism mentioned.
> Defining 'sanity' without reference to reality itself is ironically downright insane.
The word 'sanity' is not mentioned in any of these slides. You are getting defensive over non-existent accusations and in the process are managing to almost understand what 'distortion' means in this context but then somehow get it completely wrong.
All of these five things are thought processes. They can be right some of the time. They can be right most of the time. What defines them as a "distortion" is whether they are the default mode of interpretation of the world all of the time, regardless of what the reality of the situation is. The word is not chosen as a derision - see also déformation professionnelle[0].
A more appropriate framing of the anorexia comparison would be "always feeling that one is fat, regardless of actual weight." Focusing only on the moment in which someone is actually underweight but still feeling fat is both getting it and missing the point at the same time.
I guess there's sometimes a difference of degree. As somebody mentioned below, if somebody is dead set on believing himself to be correct as to ignore all the evidence to the contrary, he'll be perceived as a jerk, is in for big troubles and this is actually a common trait of depression. Also I can hardly see how "dichotomous thinking" can ever be realistic. The real world is always grey.
If somebody has excellent ability in performing correct inferences and a healthy dose of self belief as he knows what he's doing and knows he has indeed accumulated more than many others trying the same thing, those can indeed be positive personality traits. So I don't think they can all be called distortions but I don't believe all of them are sane either.
Furthermore there is the question does it count as a distortion if they are self-aware that these are all heuristics and adjusting accordingly?
Defining 'sanity' without reference to reality itself is ironically downright insane. Like Pythagorians reacting so negatively to discovering irrational numbers undeniably exist.