[Noisebridge-discuss] New furniture

[Brink of Complexity]

On Dec 3, 2012, at 8:41 PM, rachel lyra hospodar wrote:

> Maybe you will all love this, as I will now make an example of my own cognitive fallacies, instead of someone else's.
> 
> ...
> 
> Sometimes I accurately ascribe other people's motivations or impulses. Sometimes I make false conclusions based on my own preconceptions or situation. That is true for EVERY aspect of science. One thing I like about the metacognitive-neurolinguistic-social-interaction field of study is that it begins by acknowledging this.
> 
Do you mean that in comparison to other recently quantitative sciences, or to mature quantitative sciences as well? (You didn't state your assumption for use of the word "science" in a sentence containing an absolute, so I can't tell.  This is rather important in such statements since absolutes are substantively difficult to test and prove.)  

If you mean the latter, you clearly haven't read papers published in physics, a science for which it's been popular to state assumptions since about the late 18th century.  Pure mathematicians started stating assumptions and background in their proofs around that time as well.  Developments in analytic philosophy at the beginning of the 20th century further illuminated and refined the necessity of stating assumptions in science. 

If what you're doing is claimed to be "science", then anything you come up with that doesn't have controlled evidence in its favor is a hypothesis – and a shaky one at that – not a conclusion. If you're jumping to conclusions at the hypothesis stage of the scientific method, then you aren't employing it in a philosophically sound manner that actually produces scientific results.  Namely, doing this amounts to skipping the entire inquiry-based discovery process that even rudimentarily qualifies a pursuit as "science". When strictly and properly employed, the scientific method has the ability to cancel out or discover and control for the effects of your own "preconceptions or situation", primarily through independent trials and statistical analyses, which require statistically relevant data sets to start with. One or two interactions aren't statistically relevant, and a scientist therefore draws no sound conclusion from them.  

Post facto, acknowledging sources of error in the design and analysis of your experimental method is just as important as stating assumptions before hypothesizing.  Potential issues with the criticality of the test variable(s) to the hypotheses under consideration are especially important to mention, as are any reasons for discarding data, or any factors limiting or obfuscating objectivity, or any potential insertion of bias during design, data collection, or analysis.  Explaining estimations and referencing sources for "facts" used therein are also quite important.

In any case, it's good to know social sciences might finally be catching the science boat. =P

And also, as a person with worsening mobility impairments, my personal opinions of the couches and the discussion surrounding them are:
1) They are worn out beyond the utility possibly once afforded by their original design. They can be quite difficult to stand up from, provide no back support, are difficult to move or adjust, and are dubiously disgusting. 
2) Chairs or benches are as welcome a resting place for a painful body as couches might be, but are easier to clean/move and don't promote sleeping in the space.  
3) A thread titled "New furniture" is as good a place as any other public noisebridge-discuss thread to discuss (or "revive") topics like couch replacement. 
4) Someone asking you to help find a new one in response to your inflammatory "delivery of information" that demanded the existence of a couch seems perfectly justified in the context. I totally agree with Josh that Dan didn't make accessibility "someone else's problem", rather he attempted to recruit help from an obviously passionate critic who had just railed him for publicly, politely proposing a change via the agreed-upon gold standard Noisebridge process of doocracy-with-mailing-list-consent. He even said Please. Considering the tone you gave him, that's quite excellent. I think you owe him (and Josh) an apology for the unqualified harshness, and yourself an apology for the irrational overly-certain conclusion-jumping that abrasively affronts any scientific mindset you might otherwise achieve. 


- Brink, B.S.Phys. 
Self-assigned defender of the scientific method. Use at your own risk.




> On Dec 3, 2012 11:26 AM, "rachel lyra hospodar" <rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
> He said 'please help find a new couch'
> 
> To me this indicates that he believes my delivery of information comes along with some sort of obligation in getting involved in solving his problem. When I say 'his problem' I mean 'the fact of the couches being run-down, presented in his previous email as assumptive evidence of their obsolesence' which is not a statement of fact, even though it is presented as such.  When I share some data relevant to a project you are working on, does that obligate me to also roll my sleeves up and help you revamp your project to accomodate that data?
> 
> I am a social interaction research scientist. You, josh, are less adept at social interaction (and the study thereof) than I am.
> 
> The fact that you challenge my statement regarding this area of my far greater expertise, rather than submitting a query seeking clarification of your poor understanding
> 
> Is a great example of the type of arrogant assumption of knowledge, along with socially normalized dismissals, that typify 'mansplain' and the general dude-idiot behavior that people are always talking about.  You know, on the internet?
> 
> R.
> 
> On Dec 3, 2012 11:11 AM, "Josh Juran" <jjuran at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 3, 2012, at 9:00 AM, rachel lyra hospodar wrote:
> 
> If you think those couches are too busted then feel free to replace them or
> advocate for their removal. My goal here is not to help you change
> noisebridge to your wishes, but to share factual history about why things
> are the way they are.
> 
> Just because they are raggedy doesn't make the accessibility issue someone
> else's problem.  It's just you deciding that.
> 
> I'm wondering which of Dan's statements supports the conclusion that he's decided that the accessibility issue is someone else's problem.  His original message indicates that he was unaware of the issue, and after your input, he assured that he wouldn't reduce the supply of couches.
> 
> Josh
> 
> 
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