From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon Feb 11 2002 - 13:40:27 MST
I am developing an alternate theory to Max's "Dynamic Optimism" called
"Dynamic Pessimism". Sometimes I think it makes more sense than Max's
philosophy. I am not sure it will be as popular, however.
I claim that we actually will fail to get green lights most of the time when
we are in a hurry to go fast, and that we will fail to get red lights most
of the time if we want to stop and rummage through the glove box. This is
because we talk about traffic lights as having two states: green and red.
In reality, there is a third state (and I'm not talking about yellow).
State One: You zoom through a green light without having to slow down or
stop. This counts as success when you want to go, but failure when you want
to stop.
State Two: You stop at a red light. This counts as success when you want
to stop, but failure when you want to go.
State Three: "The worst of both worlds." The light has turned green, but
there are still cars stopped from when it was red. You can't zoom through
because of the cars. Therefore this counts as failure if you want to go.
However, you only slow down or stop for a moment. There is not enough time
to rummage through the glove box. This therefore also counts as failure
when you want to stop. This is neither a go nor a stop, but some hellish
state inbetween that annoys everybody.
If we zoom through state one 40% of the time, stop at state two 40% of the
time, and get disrupted at state three 20% of the time, the odds are that we
will get a failure mode 60% of the time no matter which mode we want to be
in.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant, Newstaff Inc. <www.Newstaff.com> Board of Directors, Extropy Institute <www.Extropy.org> Cofounder, Pro-Act <www.ProgressAction.org>
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