Steven Den Beste has linked to me! I must confess, this is a big moment for me. SDB is one of my favorite bloggers, and it is a great honor to be in a dialog with him.
I have a busy day today, but I have deferred some things to give me time for a quick response. Steven says:
It's not true that I have trouble with quick processing, though. Part of why nitpicky reader mail annoys me so much is that it frustrates me.
This is in response to the following, from my post:
And one of the characteristics of holistic thinkers, especially very strongly holistic thinkers like SDB, is an impatience with details. The reason for this, is that holistic thinkers have trouble with (or may be incapable of) quick processing.
I should have been more precise – I meant to say, “…an impatience with details that are not easily derived from the holistic thinker’s internal model”. Details that are clearly part of the internal model are not really details – they are part of the whole. When pointed out to an holistic thinker, the (said or unsaid) reaction is “that’s obvious” – and when the holistic thinker hasn’t previously noticed this obvious point, it could well be a “Eureka” moment, because it could cause all kinds of things to fall into place.
To an external observer, this could look like a paradox. The external observer sees a person who takes in some details instantly, and has an abnormal degree of trouble with other details. If the holistic thinker’s internal model were visible, the difference would be obvious.
So, when I said, “quick processing”, I was referring to the assimilation of details that are not “obvious”. The first reaction of an holistic thinker to a detail of this sort is to ask, “how is it relevant to my internal model”. This is the action that does not lend itself to quick processing. There are four possible answers:
1. It fits into my model in a way which wasn’t at first obvious to me.
2. I must revise my model to account for this detail.
3. It isn’t relevant to my model.
4. It refutes my model – i.e. my model is wrong.
If, instead, he were to ask, “is this detail relevant to this other detail that I was talking about” he would be able to process it much more quickly.
It is certainly possible that Steven is adept at doing both. I guess I have to revise my internal model of him.
Steven may be many things: arrogant, frightening, irresponsible, immature, blustery, paranoid, delusional, misanthropic, jingoistic, ignorant, politically naive, violent, evangelical, and detail oriented come to mind.
But he is one of the last people I would consider "holistic."
He has constructed a nice comic book fantasy world by carefully excluding any actual holistic information and concentrating on a handful of specific details, which, to be sure, he tangles up in a complex web of spurrious connections that I'm sure make sense to him. But, constructing overly complex yet simplistic models while excluding all inconvenient facts and opinions is hardly a description of holistic.
He whines that people pick apart his detail. Well, the truth is, that is all he has: piles and piles of detail. 'But they don't see the whole picture' is a common refrain in his writing. Of course, he fails to notice that there is no whole picture, just a bunch of randomly scattered dots. When you look at his whole, there is no pattern, except in his imagination. His people are cardboard cutouts. His enemies are cut-and-pasted from Middle School textbooks and B movies. He's read little history, knows little science outside his professional experience, cannot understand people and their motivations, and has a very undeveloped moral sense. Were he a speaker, he might be compared with Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, or others of that ilk.
The last time writers and speakers of his kind were in ascendency, a hundred million people died in short order.
Posted by: dnadan56 at May 6, 2004 06:24 PM PermalinkTo dnadan56:
Let me just take a wild guess here: You're a liberal.
Posted by: Joe Bonforte at May 6, 2004 07:13 PM PermalinkI think I understand why Mr. DenBeste has the reaction he has to email. It's because of his career.
I think he views emails as bug reports.
Not many non-engineers truly understand bug reports. Basically, you spend months or years designing a product, then release it to an internal test group. They "pound" on the system, doing everything they can to make it fail--and a good test group are great at breaking your work.
When they do find something, they file a bug report. A good bug report tells what the problem is, what was done to demonstrate the problem, the severity of the problem, and occasionally even recommends corrective action. Any decent engineer welcomes these kinds of reports, as they help us correct the "holistic" model, making a better product--and avoiding having the customer find the bug at the most disastrous moment.
Then there are the not-so-good bug reports. These are the ones that detect a trivial or cosmetic error (one that has no effect on the product's functionality, and might not even be seen by a customer), and decided that this should be a "must fix/show stopper"--halt everything, and focus every resource the company has on correcting this--even at the expense of other, more urgent issues. These are the ultimate nitpicks.
Some of the worst reports are the ones that are not even real bugs, it's just the tester has tried to make the product do something beyond its capabilities, or decided they don't like an aspect of the system and want it redesigned. An engineer can spend hours, days, or even months resolving these issues.
The most irritating are the ones that duplicate an already found bug. It's a waste of both the tester's and engineer's time. It's usually due to the tester not using the latest version of the product, or not reading previous reports.
Now consider the emails Mr. DenBeste gets and his reactions to them. First, remember that instead of a highly trained testing specialist, he gets his "bug reports" from anyone who has access to email.
The good ones point out something he missed. He publishes an update, maybe a link, or occasionally a whole new article exploring the point.
The trivial ones seem to tick him off--and I'm not about to be outraged at that response. Even if he ignores them, he has to wonder if he didn't communicate something correctly.
The duplicates are maddening. If it were me, after seeing the same subject brought up for the 100th time, I might be peeved.
It's interesting to see the response to the ones that suggest widely differing points of view. Depending on the subject, he may ignore or attack them, but sometimes it takes him off on a different tack--usually interesting.
Just a thought and not meant to be an psychoanalysis.
Posted by: Catch22 at May 6, 2004 07:50 PM Permalinkdnadan56:
Speaking of picking apart details, you misspelled "spurious".
Posted by: John S. at May 6, 2004 08:10 PM Permalink"He's read little history, knows little science outside his professional experience, cannot understand people and their motivations, and has a very undeveloped moral sense."
Wow. Are we talking about the same Steven Den Beste? You know, the prolific one with the blog covering many aspects of history, science, and people's motivation? Maybe dnadan56 has been reading this other page by a guy named Steven Den Beste, you know, the one with nothing on it.
Posted by: Sarah at May 7, 2004 04:11 PM PermalinkSarah,
HAHAHAHAHAHA. This other page by Stephen Den Beste. Funny.
Posted by: Scott Harris at May 7, 2004 06:49 PM Permalink