Ingenuity or just laziness?

Recently on the Public Speaking Network group at LinkedIn Jay Lee pointed to a 2-1/2 minute YouTube video by Brian Tracy on Laziness. Brian’s original one is titled Something for Nothing: Human Nature & Laziness. It’s a good brief speech, although I’d have used the positive word ingenuity rather than the negative word laziness. Ingenuity is defined as:

“the quality of being clever, original, and inventive.”

Here is a transcript. Note that in the second paragraph he shifts from we to you, and also mistakenly says homos economicus  instead of homo economicus. Brian says:

“Hi. I’m Brian Tracy, and why do people do the things that they do. I’ve studied behavioral psychology for more than forty years. I’ve studied economics for three decades to try to figure out why people behave the way they do. And I’ve come to the conclusion that each person has certain characteristics which are called human nature. Whenever you hear somebody say well that’s just human nature, well that’s what they’re talking about. 

Now, the first characteristic of human nature is very easily understood. It’s probably the driving force of all behavior. We say that life is made up of the minutes and hours and days of your existence. Well, life is also made up of the amount of energy you have to expend. And since everybody thinks economically, they call human beings homos economicus, we all think economically, we try to conserve the amount of time and energy you spend to on any element in their life.

The result of this instinctive way of acting is laziness. Everyone is lazy. Laziness is a natural trait. It’s neither good nor bad. And it can be expressed in both a positive and negative way. 

The good side of laziness is when you’re finding faster, cheaper, and easier ways to accomplish your goals. This is the motive force behind all advancement in human civilization. Laziness, in a positive way, has driven improvements in technology, manufacturing, production, agriculture, transportation, medicine, education, always finding faster ways to get the same result with a lower expenditure top time energy and money. It’s the driving force of all progress.

Now there’s a dark side of laziness as well. This is the part that you’re familiar with. Laziness causes people to cut corners, to slack off, to waste time, and to contribute less. And the less you contribute, the less value your contribution has. Laziness is bad in this sense because it robs the potential of the individual who practices it. It undermines his possibilities in the present and undermines his hopes for the future. 

But laziness in and of itself is neutral. It is only the way in which it is expressed that allows one to make a positive or negative judgment about it. In our next session, I’ll talk about the next characteristic of human nature.”

One great example of human ingenuity is the spear-thrower or atlatl which we have been using for about the last 18,000 years. A web page from the World Atlatl Association about How to Throw shows a series of still photos and describes that:

“The throwing motion with an atlatl is the same as in throwing a ball or rock. The main difference is that when you snap your wrist at the end of a pitch, your wrist provides a short lever arm, while the same snap of the wrist while holding an atlatl gives you a long lever, like adding another arm joint.”

The atlatl image was adapted from one at Wikimedia Commons.

Making Your Case: the art of persuading judges

In 2008 the late Antonin Scalia (then an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) and Bryan A. Garner (editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary) put out a book titled Making Your Case: the art of persuading judges. It’s a detailed treatment of a specialized form of persuasive speaking that I found quite fascinating. 

That book is divided into four main topics:

General Principles of Argumentation (sections 1 to 21)
Legal Reasoning (sections 22 to 27)
Briefing (sections 28 to 54)
Oral Argument (sections 55 to 115)

Each topic is divided into sub-topics, and finally into pithy, brief sections. The longest sub-topic, on Oral Argument, contains

introduction  (section 55)
long term preparation (sections 56 to 58)
preliminary decision: who will argue (sections 59 and 60)
months and weeks before argument (sections 61 to 71)
before you speak (sections 72 to 76)
substance of argument (sections 77 to 88)
manner of argument (sections 89 to 100)
handling questions (sections 101 to 111)
after the battle (sections 112 to 115)


Under Manner of Argument there are the following sections:

 89. Look the judges in the eye. Connect.
 90. Be conversational but not familiar.
 91. Use correct courtroom terminology.
 92. Never read an argument; never deliver it from memory except the opener and perhaps the closer.
 93. Treasure simplicity.
 94. Don’t chew your fingernails.
 95. Present your argument as truth, not your opinion.
 96. Never speak over a judge.
 97. Never ask how much time you have left.
 98. Never (or almost never) put any other question to the court.
 99. Be cautious about humor.
100. Don’t use visual aids unintelligently.


Section 93 on page 182 says to Treasure simplicity:

“Express your ideas in a straightforward fashion, not circuitously - and in plain words. When you describe events, treat them chronologically.

Avoid pretentious expressions. You’re trying to get judges to understand a case, not to impress them with your erudition. Your job is to make a complex case simple, not to make a simple case sound complex. This end is best achieved by clear thoughts simply expressed.

Part of simplicity is brevity. Get to the point. Don’t meander in leading up to it or embellish it once made. Every fact, every observation, every argument that does not positively strengthen your case positively weakens it by distracting attention.”


Section 42 on pages 111 and 112 says To clarify abstract concepts, give examples:

“Legal briefs are necessarily filled with abstract concepts that are difficult to explain. Nothing clarifies their meaning as well as examples. One can describe the interpretive canon noscitur a sociis as the concept that a word is given meaning by the words with which it is associated. But the reader probably won’t really grasp what you’re talking about unless you give an example similar to the one we gave earlier: ‘pins, staples, rivets, nails, and spikes.’ In that context ‘pins’ couldn’t refer to lapel ornaments, ‘staples’ couldn’t refer to standard foodstuffs, ‘nails’ couldn’t refer to fingernails, and ‘spikes’ couldn’t refer to hairstyles.”


Here in Idaho there is an excellent recent illustration of giving specific examples. Governor Otter just vetoed the Use of the Bible in Public Schools Bill, Senate Bill 1342. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood, had argued the Bible is not a sect or a denomination, since it’s used by everyone. Nuxoll told a Senate committee she considers the Bible to be universal.

A brief video of Lawrence Wasden, the Attorney General, gives specific examples of why various versions of the Bible (such as the King James version from the Church of England or Anglicans) are books of a denominational character, and thus clearly violate the Idaho state constitution.   

The image of a judge and a cowboy came from a 1902 Puck magazine at the Library of Congress.

What’s the worst acronym ever?

In a blog post on  April 13, 2009 I asked What is the worst acronym ever devised? My answer then was the American Symphony Orchestra League’s use of ASOL.

But this month George Mason University came up with an even worse variation. They decided to rename their law school in memory of Antonin Scalia, the late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Their first try was calling it the Antonin Scalia School of Law, which acronyms to ASSOL. This is such an obvious and vulgar synonym for anus that if you asked to put it on a custom license plate it would be rejected.

On further reflection that was altered to the less obviously offensive Antonin Scalia Law School (ASLS). Their first choice was sufficiently unbelievable to get a web page at Snopes.com.

The image of a disgusted Uncle Sam was modified from a Puck magazine cover for February 17, 2009 found at the Library of Congress.

Interesting infographic on Our Biggest Fears by Alexandra Walker

Alexandra Walker posted an infographic on her design web site. She stated that:

“Our Biggest Fears is an infographic based on a survey of fears that I created and conducted after always having been interested in what causes people to be afraid, why, and how. This information architecture project focuses on the correlation of the age the fear began, how severe it is, and what type of fear it is. It also explores whether or not it’s irrational as well.

I included the unedited/filtered responses I received in the survey as well.”

She asked 120 people what their biggest fear was. 7 each said Heights and Spiders, 5 said Death, 3 Said Darkness, and just 2 said Public Speaking. (So much for the usual claim by coaches the public speaking is the greatest fear!) She plotted the unsorted results as follows:

It's a very attractive infographic. Is this an effective visualization for the data? Not really. It’s exploratory rather than explanatory. First sorting the results based either on the severity of the fear or its type would have been better. Sorted data based on severity could better be plotted via a horizontal bar chart instead of her circular bubble chart.

Because the age when fear began typically was low, her infographic resembled the blood spatter on a wall seen in an episode from the television show CSI (where the center of that pattern was blocked by a person’s head).    

Elsewhere she earlier had another infographic with a black background, which displayed the severity using bars extending radially outward. That infographic was sorted by types and it also showed the unbalanced distribution by gender. It revealed there were 93 females and just 27 males, or 22.5% male - 77.5% female. There typically are significant gender differences with women reporting more intense fears than men.

Psychologists typically ask about fears via fear survey schedules. I’ve previously blogged about several different ones that have been used. They cover a predetermined long list of fears, and ask for a rating of each one on a scale from zero to terror. Back in 1965 James H. Geer described the FSS-II with 51 fears. I blogged about how In a 1965 survey of university students, fear of public speaking ranked sixth for men and seventh for women. The most recent U.S. one (with 89 fears) was the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears.

The image of a terrified man was adapted from one at Wikimedia Commons. 

What is a queue card?

Obviously it’s a small piece of paper that you use to keep your place in line while waiting to be served. But, that’s not what Kyle B. Hart meant to say. In an article at Lifehack titled 10 Powerful Public Speaking Tips from Some of the Best Speakers in the World it showed up in his #4:

1]   It’s not about what you understand, necessarily, but what you’re truly passionate about.
2]   Start at the top of the pyramid.
3]   Remind yourself that human interaction is a normal part of everyday life.
4]   Memorization, wordy PowerPoints, and queue cards are evil. Pure. Evil.
5]   Admire people who are better than you and learn from them.
6]   Make practice a priority.
7]   Sloooooooooow doooooooooooooooooown.
8]   Use the sound of silence.
9]   Promote camaraderie in Q&A.
10] Be human. Be sincere. Be yourself.

He clearly meant to instead say cue card. On August 13, 2015 I blogged about Should you “take a queue” or “take a cue”?

The Take a Ticket image came from Wikimedia Commons. 

The French like me and Jerry Lewis

You don’t get to choose who is going to like you as a speaker or blogger. After almost 490,000 page views I looked under the Stats tab in Google Blogger to find the top ten countries viewing this blog. As shown above, almost 3 out of 5 (58.9%) are from the U.S., followed by France (9.3%), Russia (7.9%), the United Kingdom (5.7%), Ukraine (4.7%), Germany (4.3%), Canada (3.8%), India (3.1%), Australia (1.4%) and China (1.0%).

But then I looked at what’s been happening recently in the past week and month. It’s very different, and for some unknown reason the French really like me. I don’t speak French and have never been to France.

For the past week almost four out of five views came from France (almost 1/2) and the U.S. (1/3rd).  The percentages were France (48.1%), United States (33.1%), Poland (5.7%), Russia (4.4%) Ukraine (2.0%), Japan (1.6%), United Kingdom (1.5%), Canada (1.4%), Germany (1.2%) and Australia (1.0).

For the past month the percentages were France (47.5%), United States (37.2%), Poland (4.6%), Canada (2.1%), United Kingdom (1.9%), Russia (1.9%) Ukraine (1.4%), Japan (1.2%), Germany (1.1%) and Romania (1.1%).

I remember reading in the New York Times that the French also like the comedy of Jerry Lewis.

An image of the French flag came from Wikimedia Commons.

Invasion of the Raccoyotes

 
The current issue of Boise Weekly has An April Fools’ Guide to Idaho History. It continues their tradition of discussing several semi-plausible tales, like 2010’s Dead Men Moving. One involves a creature that is a cross between a raccoon and a coyote:

“Animals were often included in the April Fools' revelry. Idaho children who grew up giggling at tall tales of ‘jack-o-lopes’ might be surprised to learn these elusive creatures weren't the first fantastical hybrids to crop up in the Gem State's isolated places. During the early 1920s, people in town after town along the Snake River were alarmed over reported sightings of ’racooyotes, a particularly ‘ornery and cagey’ cross between coyotes and raccoons. The beasts were said to have first been spotted in the Burley area, lurking in the heavy brush on the banks of the Snake. Even more terrifying than their existence was that the racooyotes were said to run in packs and had been seen taking down deer, free-ranging cattle and even wild mustangs that roamed the high desert south of the river.
 
In Twin Falls County, the sheriff organized hunting parties to go in search of the ‘vicious, predatory abominations,’ as the Burley Weekly Mailer called them, and was pleased that as many as 50 men showed up with shotguns, rifles, pistols and even sticks of dynamite, to blast the dens of the fast-breeding critters. 

A great deal of anxiety would have been spared the poor people of these Idaho communities had someone noticed that the edition of the Daily Mailer first alerting them to the threat of racooyotes had come out on March 31—just in time for April Fools' Day.”

Back in 2008 I blogged about Tales of the Table Topics Bunny and the Jackalope. I linked to a Youtube music video of the song Creepy Jackalope Eye, whose lyrics warn:

“Many things in this life
Are not what they appear
Yeah, I look like a hare
But if you stop and you stare
I'm related to a deer”

For more April Foolery look at web pages from USA Today and TIME.

The raccoyote image was pasted together from images of a raccoon and coyote found at Wikimedia Commons.