Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Russell Nash on October 05, 2008, 08:02:21 AM
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EP178: Unlikely (http://escapepod.org/2008/10/05/ep178-unlikely/)
By Will McIntosh (http://www.willmcintosh.com/).
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in Asimov’s (http://asimovs.com/), January 2008.
Special closing music: “Mandelbrot Set” by Jonathan Coulton (http://jonathancoulton.com/)
"The mayor seems to believe there’s something to this,” Tuesday said.
“He’s desperate. Clutching at straws.”
“So why did you agree to meet?” Tuesday asked, her Keds back on the black and white tile floor.
Samuel paused while the waitress plunked down two glasses, followed by big metal milk shake tumblers. His strawberry milkshake looked as thick as cement. Damn, did he love this place.
“Professor Berry said there was an easy way to prove him wrong: meet with you on and off for a week. If the city’s accident rate didn’t go down when we were together, and back up when we were apart, he’d return his consulting fee to the city.” The shake made a satisfying plopping sound as he poured it into the glass. “His ideas are wacked. ‘Data mining for non-intuitive connections?’ You can smell the bullshit from three pastures away.”
Rated PG. Contains profanity. Including in the closing song.
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif)
Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://media.rawvoice.com/escapepod/media.libsyn.com/media/escapepod/EP178_Unlikely.mp3)
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Wow. How weird is it that I chose to listen to Friction on Friday when the new episode was late?
Dr. Barry and Tuesday sounded a little too much alike and made it a little confusing, but I just backed it up a few seconds and was good.
I was curious as to where this was heading. I think it ended well.
I like the way all the minute details were brought in without slowing down the story.
So how do you play a flying butt monkey?
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This is a really good story but made me rage a bit. Not political correctness rage, or anti-PC rage, or even the ever popular nerd rage. It just ticked me off because for once I'd like a story where the fated romance doesn't work out, but isn't a tragedy either. It seems to me that a lot of great story potential comes from the believed force of destiny provoking people into their own action, rather than some miraculous coincident of kismet as seems to happen with a lot of romance stories. Or maybe I just don't like romance, at least in it's normal trappings, because the "rescue X from the tower" or "hero proves his love to X" plot doesn't really appeal to me either.
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I liked it. Or at least I didn't not like any aspect of it.
Honestly I'm not sure what to make of it.
Friction was packed full of more tangible meanings with a lot of room for every perspective to have its own unique view of the story. It seemed very deep, 3 dimensional. This story, by comparison, seemed very flat, 2 dimensional; there was a story, one story, only that story.
There was a lot of random stuff thrown in that was included as though it were significant, but I didn't see any obvious connection: Tying the shoes, art students with the piercings, etc.
Maybe it just needs another listen?
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It just ticked me off because for once I'd like a story where the fated romance doesn't work out, but isn't a tragedy either.
Heh. I could have included that in the outro. But decided that using the podcast to blog in detail about my week would be a little too self-indulgent.
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I enjoyed the story. I was never quite sure where it was going, but that's not a bad thing.
My main issue with it was the distinction between correlation and causation; given enough data to mine though, you can almost certainly find a random correlation between two unrelated sequences (say, violent crime rates and average age of men on bicycles) without there actually being any kind of link at all. True, they come up with experimental data that suggests there a genuine correlation and not just noise, but I have difficulty imagining it getting quite that far...
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I liked the story apart from the end, I think Samuels cynicism got to me and i really didnt want to see the two be together, it seemed too perfect and didnt really fit in with the rest of the story, it may just be that i imagine Tuesday to be in her early 30's while Samuel sounded like he was in his 60's, making the couple kinda weird
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The premise was very interesting and had a lot of potential. Upon execution, it was cute, but too saccharine and very predictable. I find it implausible that Tuesday would be attracted to Samuel. Their chemistry just seemed forced. While listening, I just couldn't help but fast-forward their relationship 3 months from now when the "real" relationship begins and they starting fighting about everything that could be different. Samuel doesn't strike me as the sort to adapt to new situations.
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While it was no "Friction", this was still a very enjoyable story. I liked the interaction between the characters a lot, and even though the relationship was predictable from the start, the story still kept me interested. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if one of them had died in the car accident.
Now I could go into a long rant about how this story used unrelated statistics of the 100%-of-people-who-eat-bread-die variety to try and solve society's ills, but I choose to instead enjoy the story in the spirit in which it seems to have been written. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take my flying butt monkey player to the repair shop.
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The premise was very interesting and had a lot of potential. Upon execution, it was cute, but too saccharine and very predictable. I find it implausible that Tuesday would be attracted to Samuel. Their chemistry just seemed forced. While listening, I just couldn't help but fast-forward their relationship 3 months from now when the "real" relationship begins and they starting fighting about everything that could be different. Samuel doesn't strike me as the sort to adapt to new situations.
Seems to me that she wasn't so much attracted to him as much as she was a young, outgoing and flirtatious woman who wanted to be found appealing. That, and she sounded like someone who would try to get anyone out of their shell.
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Hey! I really liked this one! Yes, it could be more fleshed out but then it is a short story. Wasn't the "luck" statistic thing dealt with briefly in Ringworld?
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The premise was very interesting and had a lot of potential. Upon execution, it was cute, but too saccharine and very predictable. I find it implausible that Tuesday would be attracted to Samuel. Their chemistry just seemed forced. While listening, I just couldn't help but fast-forward their relationship 3 months from now when the "real" relationship begins and they starting fighting about everything that could be different. Samuel doesn't strike me as the sort to adapt to new situations.
Seems to me that she wasn't so much attracted to him as much as she was a young, outgoing and flirtatious woman who wanted to be found appealing. That, and she sounded like someone who would try to get anyone out of their shell.
Plus, she could easily convince herself that all this meant the Universe wanted them to be together, so she has to be attracted to him, right?
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Hey! I really liked this one! Yes, it could be more fleshed out but then it is a short story. Wasn't the "luck" statistic thing dealt with briefly in Ringworld?
Birthright lotteries, with Puppeteers manipulating the outcome to breed lucky humans, the end result of which Teela Brown; it's strongly implied that she'll be lucky enough to avoid dying until the heat death of the universe.
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Like others have said, I liked it up until the ending. It was a fun listen, there were a lot of funny quips. Not a story I will keep on the I-Pod.
Loved the Coulton song almost as much as the last one played on EP.
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Thumbs up from me. I felt the conflict Tuesday so aptly pointed out in the protagonist was very realistic in its subtlety.. ie, I'm pretty sure that most of us have these little things going on affecting how we behave that it might take someone else to point out to clue us into. Psychology is fun. :)
In a way the story seemed more like fantasy to me. Well, its one of those grey areas, I suppose.
Oh, and I liked the ending personally. Course that could just be cause I'm a fan of happy endings. :P
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It wasn't said that they were a couple at the end. He just made an effort to see things her way.
I had to go back and listen again, as I thought I missed something.
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The story may have been good, but I was distracted by the voices (especially the female falsetto). I would like to see Steve pass on the voices and focus on the storytelling. This NPR story pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95090092
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It wasn't said that they were a couple at the end. He just made an effort to see things her way.
I had to go back and listen again, as I thought I missed something.
This is true. Although it seemed likely they'd wind up together to me, considering they were all gung ho in the car and, surprisingly she didnt seem too peeved in the hospital :p
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Well, like Mark Twain said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
My main issue with it was the distinction between correlation and causation; given enough data to mine though, you can almost certainly find a random correlation between two unrelated sequences (say, violent crime rates and average age of men on bicycles) without there actually being any kind of link at all. True, they come up with experimental data that suggests there a genuine correlation and not just noise, but I have difficulty imagining it getting quite that far...
I too found it hard to imagine how that particular relationship would have a causal effect on reducing accidents. But - I can see it as a good way to get two people into a relationship. Stranger things have happened.
A friend once told me about how her sister used to drive a couple of hours to and from college every weekend, often with a couple of other passengers to help with gas. Her sister decided to get the other two, a girl and a guy, together. Mostly just to prove she could. She waited until she was alone with the girl and told her “He really likes you!” and then waited till she was alone with the guy and told him, “She really likes you!”.
That was all it took.
They were engaged within six months.
I guess if it can work for Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing it can work in real life. And if you were persuaded to feel you were fated to be with someone, it might heavily influence you to be with them, too.
For someone like Samuel, who has been alone for most of his life, someone reaching old age, it would be very statistically unlikely that he would finally find his true love but maybe no more unlikely than that the proximity of two people would be statistically related to a reduction in accidents. Two unlikely set of events that worked out well, less accidents and love. Maybe less causality than magic.
Question: Near the end I kept hearing (I listened twice) “The pink sweater soiling his dashboard.” What did I mishear? (Like "Fork Display" = "Walk This Way")
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My main issue with it was the distinction between correlation and causation; given enough data to mine though, you can almost certainly find a random correlation between two unrelated sequences (say, violent crime rates and average age of men on bicycles) without there actually being any kind of link at all. True, they come up with experimental data that suggests there a genuine correlation and not just noise, but I have difficulty imagining it getting quite that far...
While what you say is true, it's also true that if there truly is a causal connection between two things, there will also be a correlation. It's clear that in this story's world, there are genuine causal connections between unusual things, so data mining would be a good way to detect them (along with some inevitable spurious correlations).
I liked the story, but like others, the cynic in me sorta got in the way. Part of me hoped that it would turn out that Tuesday was some sort of terrorist responsible for the city's accidents, and they only went down because she couldn't pull it off while with someone else. I also would've liked to hear more about Stephen's crappy week, if only to make me feel better about my own crappy love life. Yes, I"m a horrible person.
Still, awesome premise. With this and Friction, I'll be keeping an eye on Will McIntosh.
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I really liked this story, but I did feel that the ending was a bit rushed. I didn't mind seeing Sam and Tuesday get together, but I did feel the whole "I don't like her that way. Oh wait, I do. *crash*. Sorry, did we just crash into a tree? I didn't notice because I care about her so much" progression went a bit fast.
As for the correlation vs. causation thing - I agree with Phronk; the main premise of this story was correlation does imply causation, which is basically Dr Barry's radical thesis. Sam starts out believing that correlation does not imply causation, but is convinced otherwise.
I'm trying to figure out if Steve was right or wrong in his outro. Is "correlation is not causation" a hypothesis that can be rejected? If so, this is indeed a scientific story. Or is it a basic principle of scientific research? If so, then this story is actually anti-scientific. Not sure which is which, but perhaps that's a sign that I should brush up on my philosophy of science...
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The story may have been good, but I was distracted by the voices (especially the female falsetto). I would like to see Steve pass on the voices and focus on the storytelling. This NPR story pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95090092
I listened to the NPR program about the narration of audiobooks and disagreed with some of it. While a bad narration can ruin a story, a good narration can make it. I see escapepod, podcastle and pseudopod less about audiobooks and more about the return of the kind of radio where voice acting was the rule, not the exception. Often a story that I could barely force myself to read becomes sharp and interesting just because of the way it was, not narrated, but acted.
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Was "flying butt monkeys" a nod to "Astromonkeys"? And did anyone else notice weird jumps in the audio? Especially as they hit the tree?
The story has a great premise -- "when it's hot, ice cream sales go up, so heat therefore means ice cream sales". Flawed inductive reasoning, I guess? (My thesis involved deductive, not inductive, and I was always weak at qualitative research.) The old men were a nice touch. A little too much explanation in the way Tuesday looked -- especially the description of her figure, which did not endear me to the narrator. I wouldn't say it made me dislike him in a way that I thought was useful to the story; it made me dislike the author for not finding a better way to say it. Also, it's obvious the author really likes Savannah, but I think there were too many details crammed into too small a space -- the street names, for example, kept distracting me.
I too expected them to get together, and I was hoping it would be the opposite, or that Tuesday would be the one to say no for some reason.
I don't know... I guess the idea was too big for a small story like this one. Sometimes that can be pulled off, other times it can't.
As for the lateness... how about just moving EP to Saturday or Sunday? Does it HAVE to be on Thursdays? I don't usually get to it until the next week because of a twice-weekly fantasy football podcast, so its lateness doesn't inconvenience me any. :)
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The story may have been good, but I was distracted by the voices (especially the female falsetto). I would like to see Steve pass on the voices and focus on the storytelling. This NPR story pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95090092
I listened to the NPR program about the narration of audiobooks and disagreed with some of it. While a bad narration can ruin a story, a good narration can make it. I see escapepod, podcastle and pseudopod less about audiobooks and more about the return of the kind of radio where voice acting was the rule, not the exception. Often a story that I could barely force myself to read becomes sharp and interesting just because of the way it was, not narrated, but acted.
I am a big fan of old time radio myself, but for that they generally had different voices because they had different actors (i.e. a female actor for the female voice.) Steve as a woman just doesn't do it for me. I feel like the voice dumbs down the character.
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maybe he meant rainbow butt monkeys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0lVjky2roU)?
Will's stories seem to talk to some people directly. i had a protracted religious discussion a day before this episode where i expressed a position virtually identical to Samuels. friction felt personal as well.
looking for correlations between disparate data types reminded me of freakonomics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics) and abortion.
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I think the idea was interesting, but the oh-so-sweet love story really got to me by the end. I like love stories sometimes but I with the main character suddenly "opening his mind" to the possibility of being with Tuesday really annoyed me. I think I would've preferred an ending that didn't involve some convenient opening of the heart that leads a character to realize they've been attracted to another character from the beginning.
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I kept thinking that surely a philosophy professor could put up a better fight in terms of the correleation/causation business than, "it's all bullshit!" I mean, come on, wouldn't this guy "hold forth" on the subject, give examples, discuss spurious correlation, etc.?
Hurt my already-strained suspension of disbelief...
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OK, i liked this story but i had to post because of the podcast i listened to before this one. I had just finished listening to NPR's Science Friday podcast. (http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200810037) There was a 12 minute story about how people create superstitions when they are stressed to gain a sense of control. I thought the this story about somebody not creating superstitions in spite of evidence was a wonderful insight into human psychology. People are not willing to uproot their belief system unless there is some serious pressure.
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This might be a bit 'out there' but this story seems more like the statistics was used to show what the world is really like than that the statistics or 'science magic wand' was the thing that actually caused the world to be this way. Like, the story shows this fact of the world through stats/science spectacles so it becomes a-story-with-science whereas if this fact of the world was found differently in the story, there would be other spectacles used.
It could, with not a lot of tweaking, have been a magical realism story, with the "statistical expert" being replaced with "someone with a sense and intuition of things" and the basic premise and even the character development kept as they are already.
Maybe I just want a big space rocket in the story somewhere.
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After Friction, how unlikely was it that I wouldn't love the next story of Will McIntosh's? Unlikely.
Well, I didn't love it, but I liked it. The correlation is causation bit bugged me a bit, but I'll take Phronk's explanation and also allow that in this world correlation can be causation.
I'm trying to figure out if Steve was right or wrong in his outro. Is "correlation is not causation" a hypothesis that can be rejected? If so, this is indeed a scientific story. Or is it a basic principle of scientific research? If so, then this story is actually anti-scientific. Not sure which is which, but perhaps that's a sign that I should brush up on my philosophy of science...
I didn't listen to Steve's outro carefully, apparently. But "correlation is not causation" has been demonstrated again and again, and is a basic working assumption of science. That's why we experiment - if correlation was causation, we'd simply need to observe. Since its not, we need to manipulate variables to determine the functional relationships. This story is scientific in the sense that Dr. Barry attempts to manipulate some variables. The finding that in some cases correlation appears to be causation could mean that the story has moved into a world that doesn't operate like ours, or it could mean the the cause is yet to be determined (in the ice cream sales/crime rate correlation, it might be possible to do some manipulations that appear to confirm that the correlation is causal. You could, for example, shut down the ice cream parlors on several random days, and find that the crime rate goes down on these days. It might be the case, though, that by chance the randomly selected days were all very cold and rainy).
[Edited to add footnote below]
I went back and listened to Steve's outro again, and, as usual, he was spot on. As Hume pointed out, observation is one thing, explanation another. On a philosophical level, there's a lot of interesting things to be said on causation and explanation. On a practical level, though, I'll stick with what I said above.
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I personally think that the best readings are when the reader doesn't attempt changes, or large changes I should say, in the voices. Old time radio had two or three actors in the studio. Even if they had only two actors they usually had a male and a female if the parts called for it. That way you didn't get the silly falsetto male voice for the woman or the equally silly woman doing a male voice. Also, the stories were, most often, written as screen plays so it was more obvious who was speaking. Personally, I think that when reading a story, subtle changes to differentiate the characters works best.
All of that aside, thanks Steve, for bringing these stories to us!
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I'm trying to figure out if Steve was right or wrong in his outro. Is "correlation is not causation" a hypothesis that can be rejected? If so, this is indeed a scientific story. Or is it a basic principle of scientific research? If so, then this story is actually anti-scientific. Not sure which is which, but perhaps that's a sign that I should brush up on my philosophy of science...
I didn't listen to Steve's outro carefully, apparently. But "correlation is not causation" has been demonstrated again and again, and is a basic working assumption of science. That's why we experiment - if correlation was causation, we'd simply need to observe. Since its not, we need to manipulate variables to determine the functional relationships. This story is scientific in the sense that Dr. Barry attempts to manipulate some variables. The finding that in some cases correlation appears to be causation could mean that the story has moved into a world that doesn't operate like ours, or it could mean the the cause is yet to be determined (in the ice cream sales/crime rate correlation, it might be possible to do some manipulations that appear to confirm that the correlation is causal. You could, for example, shut down the ice cream parlors on several random days, and find that the crime rate goes down on these days. It might be the case, though, that by chance the randomly selected days were all very cold and rainy).
[Edited to add footnote below]
I went back and listened to Steve's outro again, and, as usual, he was spot on. As Hume pointed out, observation is one thing, explanation another. On a philosophical level, there's a lot of interesting things to be said on causation and explanation. On a practical level, though, I'll stick with what I said above.
Oh, I agree with Steve entirely about science. What I'm not entirely sure about is how to take this story with respect to science. The story has three characters - Sam, Dr. Barry and Tuesday. I think it's possible to take each of them as standing for a different viewpoint of the relationship of explanation and observation. Sam (at least in the beginning) is irrationally biased towards rejection of data- for him, observation without explanation is insufficient. He may recognize that the data exists, but he refuses to grant any validity to the results without knowing why the correlation is there. Dr Barry is a empiricist - he sees correlations, and he constructs an experiment that tests if these correlations persist. He does not provide explanations, he lets the data speak for itself. Tuesday is a mystic; she believes that the explanation lies in a spritual force, the numenous.
The reason I'm not sure about whether to take this story as pro- or anti- science is twofold. The first is that the story seems more sympathetic to Tuesday than to Sam. And the ending implies that Sam came around to her point of view, while she didn't need to make any adjustment to hers. The second is that, as Steve observes, the story does not provide a voice to scientific theory. As Steve (and you) also observe, this is not necessary. But given that msyticism is given a voice, this creates an imbalance.
That said, I don't think this is an entirely natural reading of this story; but then again, I don't think that it is any less natural than arguing that it is a story supporting science by rejecting the view that everything must be explained to be valid. If I were to guess, I'd say that the author's primary concern was mostly Sam's emotional journey, and that the philosophical implications of the way this world works on how we view the real world were incidental. But to the degree that we do go down that route, I would say that the story is ambiguous in its stance.
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All of that aside, thanks Steve, for bringing these stories to us!
I wholeheartedly agree. I love this podcast and am a regular listener who will frequently share my favorites with friends and family. I meant no disrespect to Steve by criticizing his voices, but merely hope that he will take it as constructive feedback for future readings. The stories are great, just tell the story.
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I wholeheartedly agree. I love this podcast and am a regular listener who will frequently share my favorites with friends and family. I meant no disrespect to Steve by criticizing his voices, but merely hope that he will take it as constructive feedback for future readings. The stories are great, just tell the story.
Oh, certainly, no offense taken. If no one criticizes it's hard to improve.
For whatever reason, I found Tuesday's character unusually difficult to read with a neutral affect. I actually tried a couple of takes on this story; be glad I didn't go with one of the earlier attempts. It's likely that I should have given this story to someone else to read. Learning experience.
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As a psychology major (like the author), I just feel the need to clarify something. We have to be careful about taking "correlation does not equal causation" too far. It's true that a correlation does not NECESSARILY mean there is causation. However, whenever (*) there is causation, there IS necessarily a correlation. In the ice cream example, the correlation between ice cream sales and crime does not mean there is causation. But the fact that high temperatures causes both ice cream sales and crime DOES mean that there is a correlation between temperature and sales, and between temperature and crime. And a good way to discover this causal connection is to first notice the correlation.
The only difference between the story's world and the real world is that there are causal connections between things (like the two characters being together), which aren't explained in the story but may be perfectly natural. The story does NOT ask us to abandon any laws of statistics, the scientific method, or rationality. In fact, manipulating the variables by having the two people go out together (and apart) would be the best way to test the connections first indicated by the correlations. This little bit of fantasy thrown into a solid scientific framework is one of the things I loved about this one.
Sorry for getting geeky. Wait...I'm on a science fiction podcast forum....I shouldn't be sorry. :)
(*) Almost. There are exceptions, but let's not complicate things. :)
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Good points, eytanz. I am curious about one thing. You wrote
... Sam (at least in the beginning) is irrationally biased towards rejection of data- for him, observation without explanation is insufficient. He may recognize that the data exists, but he refuses to grant any validity to the results without knowing why the correlation is there...
Do you think Sam's rejection of Dr. Barry's hypothesis is irrational? Or are you basing your description of Sam on this and other information we receive about Sam throughout the story? As you point out, Sam doesn't reject the data, but he does reject the interpretation of the data. To me this seems rational, for to accept the interpretation without any further explanation would be to accept a radically different universe than the one I know. Before I made such a leap, I would want more data.
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Question: Near the end I kept hearing (I listened twice) “The pink sweater soiling his dashboard.” What did I mishear?
You didn't mishear anything. I clearly heard "sweater" too, when from the context it obviously should have been "sneaker". When I heard that, I wondered whether the error was in the text, or in the reading. Steve, can we get a ruling?
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My main issue with it was the distinction between correlation and causation; given enough data to mine though, you can almost certainly find a random correlation between two unrelated sequences (say, violent crime rates and average age of men on bicycles) without there actually being any kind of link at all. True, they come up with experimental data that suggests there a genuine correlation and not just noise, but I have difficulty imagining it getting quite that far...
While what you say is true, it's also true that if there truly is a causal connection between two things, there will also be a correlation. It's clear that in this story's world, there are genuine causal connections between unusual things, so data mining would be a good way to detect them (along with some inevitable spurious correlations).
Well, yes. Causation implies correlation, but that doesn't mean that correlation implies causation. And even if the correlation does imply a causation, it doesn't say which way it goes; perhaps, if the universe is left to itself, the proximity of these two people is caused by the low accident rate rather than the other way around.
I just have difficulty imagining Dr Berry walking into the Mayor's office and saying something like "there's a very strong correlation between shark attacks and ice cream sales, so we should ban ice cream to stop people getting eaten by sharks!" and not getting laughed out of there...
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Sam (at least in the beginning) is irrationally biased towards rejection of data- for him, observation without explanation is insufficient. He may recognize that the data exists, but he refuses to grant any validity to the results without knowing why the correlation is there.
Sam, I think, accepts the data that accidents are less common when the two of them are together, but rejects the hypothesis that their proximity affects the accident rate, because it has a very low prior plausibility. That is, it contradicts what we already know about how the world works.
That, of course, doesn't mean that it's wrong; just that it's an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. The experiment they're part of is a good step towards that but it would take quite a long study, with the times they're together or apart properly randomised in order to overcome the possibility of mere statistical noise or another, unaccounted-for, variable.
It's not at all irrational for Sam to consider the hypothesis vanishingly unlikely, especially before any actual data has been collected.
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Very good and fun story. I don't have a problem with the two characters falling in love at the end. I do however wish that Sam hadn't become "a believer". I think Sam should have been able to love Tuesday without buying into the premise of the statistics.
I liked the scene before the crash when Sam slowly peeled off his bias and began to truly picture himself with Tuesday in incremental degrees of intimacy. I think we have all done that in various ways. He realized how lonely he was; and here was a woman who wanted to be with him who he had come to know and appreciate. Once he let the barriers down and let go of the spite, i figure he was thinking, Who cares about the statistics and other people's expectations. I'm willing to love this woman. Then not being too experienced at the relationship thing, he just went for it full bore with the kiss. I can totally see this as a real reaction.
From Tuesday's perspective, she was open to the relationship. She was more free-loving to begin with and her previous husband was an older man. Sam's age may have even been a comfortable aspect of the relationship for her.
Anyway, aside from Sam becoming a believer instead of simply falling in love, I really liked this story. The freakenomics experiments were fun too.
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Good points, eytanz. I am curious about one thing. You wrote
... Sam (at least in the beginning) is irrationally biased towards rejection of data- for him, observation without explanation is insufficient. He may recognize that the data exists, but he refuses to grant any validity to the results without knowing why the correlation is there...
Do you think Sam's rejection of Dr. Barry's hypothesis is irrational? Or are you basing your description of Sam on this and other information we receive about Sam throughout the story? As you point out, Sam doesn't reject the data, but he does reject the interpretation of the data.
I was basing my description on the information we receive later - while it may seem rational to us to be skeptical, Sam's motivation seems to be more about not wanting it to be right than healthy doubt.
To me this seems rational, for to accept the interpretation without any further explanation would be to accept a radically different universe than the one I know. Before I made such a leap, I would want more data.
Sam, I think, accepts the data that accidents are less common when the two of them are together, but rejects the hypothesis that their proximity affects the accident rate, because it has a very low prior plausibility. That is, it contradicts what we already know about how the world works.
Yes, I agree. But note that you are projecting Sam's response onto our universe, where we have no evidence that anything like the events in the story could ever happen. What we know about how our world works seems to be a misguided presupposition in Sam's world. Of course, having incorrect assumptions is not always irrational.
On a slightly different note, one thing occured to me - note how everyone, both this thread and in the story (myself included) never questioned the direction of causality. Why did Dr. Barry deduce that Sam and Tuesday being in proximity reduces car accident rates, rather than deducing that accidents reduce the chance that Sam and Tuesday will be in proximity? Or is causality bi-directional in this world? If someone goes on a violent crime rampage, would old men all around the city discover that they had flat tires on their bicycles all of a sudden? I wonder...
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This dosn't replace friction for me, that's for sure. I liked it. However, wher as friction made me... think in new ways- this gave me brief interesting ideas then wandered off distracted. Great potential in this story, but it seemd to go off track somewhere- mayhap that's just me.
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Yes, I agree. But note that you are projecting Sam's response onto our universe, where we have no evidence that anything like the events in the story could ever happen. What we know about how our world works seems to be a misguided presupposition in Sam's world. Of course, having incorrect assumptions is not always irrational.
Arguable. My interpretation of the story is that everyone in the fictional world assumes that it works the same way our world does, otherwise there'd be nothing new or interesting about this study.
On a slightly different note, one thing occured to me - note how everyone, both this thread and in the story (myself included) never questioned the direction of causality. Why did Dr. Barry deduce that Sam and Tuesday being in proximity reduces car accident rates, rather than deducing that accidents reduce the chance that Sam and Tuesday will be in proximity? Or is causality bi-directional in this world? If someone goes on a violent crime rampage, would old men all around the city discover that they had flat tires on their bicycles all of a sudden? I wonder...
You missed where I pointed out that causation might run in the opposite direction, then?
Well, yes. Causation implies correlation, but that doesn't mean that correlation implies causation. And even if the correlation does imply a causation, it doesn't say which way it goes; perhaps, if the universe is left to itself, the proximity of these two people is caused by the low accident rate rather than the other way around.
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If someone goes on a violent crime rampage, would old men all around the city discover that they had flat tires on their bicycles all of a sudden? I wonder...
I thought the old men riding bicycles was more a result of reduced crime than a cause. Surely old men would be less likely to ride bicycles in a crime ridden area because they would recognize they would be more likely to get knocked off their bikes and robbed in such areas. Or maybe old men riding bicycles automatically act as an unofficial neighborhood watch, calling the police if they see any crime in progress with the result that criminals would learn to avoid neighborhoods where they were common.
I can't figure out how proximity between Samuel and Tuesday would result in less accidents unless one or both of them was consciously or unconsciously causing accidents but when they were together tended to concentrate on each other in a way that defused their accident causing vibes.
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If someone goes on a violent crime rampage, would old men all around the city discover that they had flat tires on their bicycles all of a sudden? I wonder...
I thought the old men riding bicycles was more a result of reduced crime than a cause. Surely old men would be less likely to ride bicycles in a crime ridden area because they would recognize they would be more likely to get knocked off their bikes and robbed in such areas. Or maybe old men riding bicycles automatically act as an unofficial neighborhood watch, calling the police if they see any crime in progress with the result that criminals would learn to avoid neighborhoods where they were common.
I can't figure out how proximity between Samuel and Tuesday would result in less accidents unless one or both of them was consciously or unconsciously causing accidents but when they were together tended to concentrate on each other in a way that defused their accident causing vibes.
It's magic.
That's why Sam doesn't believe that it can work, and why Tuesday credits it to "the numinous".
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If someone goes on a violent crime rampage, would old men all around the city discover that they had flat tires on their bicycles all of a sudden? I wonder...
I thought the old men riding bicycles was more a result of reduced crime than a cause. Surely old men would be less likely to ride bicycles in a crime ridden area because they would recognize they would be more likely to get knocked off their bikes and robbed in such areas. Or maybe old men riding bicycles automatically act as an unofficial neighborhood watch, calling the police if they see any crime in progress with the result that criminals would learn to avoid neighborhoods where they were common.
I can't figure out how proximity between Samuel and Tuesday would result in less accidents unless one or both of them was consciously or unconsciously causing accidents but when they were together tended to concentrate on each other in a way that defused their accident causing vibes.
I think you may need to relisten to the story - the fact that unlikely factors reduce bad things in the city without a logical explanation is sort of the whole point. As for the old men in bicycles - they tell Sam quite directly that they ride the bicycle as part of one of the city's other "talisman" projects, and that by them doing so violent crime rates go down.
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If someone goes on a violent crime rampage, would old men all around the city discover that they had flat tires on their bicycles all of a sudden? I wonder...
I thought the old men riding bicycles was more a result of reduced crime than a cause. Surely old men would be less likely to ride bicycles in a crime ridden area because they would recognize they would be more likely to get knocked off their bikes and robbed in such areas. Or maybe old men riding bicycles automatically act as an unofficial neighborhood watch, calling the police if they see any crime in progress with the result that criminals would learn to avoid neighborhoods where they were common.
I can't figure out how proximity between Samuel and Tuesday would result in less accidents unless one or both of them was consciously or unconsciously causing accidents but when they were together tended to concentrate on each other in a way that defused their accident causing vibes.
I think you may need to relisten to the story - the fact that unlikely factors reduce bad things in the city without a logical explanation is sort of the whole point. As for the old men in bicycles - they tell Sam quite directly that they ride the bicycle as part of one of the city's other "talisman" projects, and that by them doing so violent crime rates go down.
Actually, so far as I recall, the only project where we're given any kind of indication of its success is Sam and Tuesday, where Sam sees Dr Berry's data, which shows a clear correlation across the time of the experiment, suggsting that their being together does reduce accidents.
The old men on bicycles, we're told, are part of a similar experiment, to see if increasing the average age of male cyclists would reduce violent crime; I don't recall anyone commenting on the success or otherwise of that hypothesis, though I may have missed it. Personally, I agree with alllie that there's good reason to assume that the causation goes the other way, so that experiment would be more likely to be shot down in the planing stages. For a higher cost (and therefore more obvious) example, consider that there's a strong correlation between violent crime and the number of people admitted to the local hospital's ER, and then see if shutting down the ER reduces the crime...
An interesting data point I just came across: In US presidential elections, the heavier candidate is twice as likely to be elected (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/06/opinion/06opchart.html) than the lighter candidate. Does this mean that Americans prefer fat presidents? Should McCain go on a lard-only diet for the next month to make himself moer electable? Or is it that weight correlates with height, and there is a tendency to prefer tall candidates, all other things being equal? Or is the whole thing just statistical noise resulting from a limited dataset?
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If someone goes on a violent crime rampage, would old men all around the city discover that they had flat tires on their bicycles all of a sudden? I wonder...
I thought the old men riding bicycles was more a result of reduced crime than a cause. Surely old men would be less likely to ride bicycles in a crime ridden area because they would recognize they would be more likely to get knocked off their bikes and robbed in such areas. Or maybe old men riding bicycles automatically act as an unofficial neighborhood watch, calling the police if they see any crime in progress with the result that criminals would learn to avoid neighborhoods where they were common.
I can't figure out how proximity between Samuel and Tuesday would result in less accidents unless one or both of them was consciously or unconsciously causing accidents but when they were together tended to concentrate on each other in a way that defused their accident causing vibes.
I think you may need to relisten to the story - the fact that unlikely factors reduce bad things in the city without a logical explanation is sort of the whole point. As for the old men in bicycles - they tell Sam quite directly that they ride the bicycle as part of one of the city's other "talisman" projects, and that by them doing so violent crime rates go down.
Speaking of relisten... The old men riding the bikes are told it's part of a tourism project - Sam makes the jump to them being a talisman project and calls the Doc to confirm it, demanding to know if they are the only experiment or not. At which point the Doc fesses up that there are a dozen or so projects.
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I think you may need to relisten to the story - the fact that unlikely factors reduce bad things in the city without a logical explanation is sort of the whole point. As for the old men in bicycles - they tell Sam quite directly that they ride the bicycle as part of one of the city's other "talisman" projects, and that by them doing so violent crime rates go down.
Speaking of relisten... The old men riding the bikes are told it's part of a tourism project - Sam makes the jump to them being a talisman project and calls the Doc to confirm it, demanding to know if they are the only experiment or not. At which point the Doc fesses up that there are a dozen or so projects.
You're right that I was wrong about who tells Sam about the men being a talisman, but if we're going to nitpick each other's descriptions of small details, note that the story itself didn't say whether the men themselves know why they're on bicycles or not. They tell Sam it's part of a tourism project, but it's not clear whether they believe that, or whether it's just a cover story they give out. 8)
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Hey! I really liked this one! Yes, it could be more fleshed out but then it is a short story. Wasn't the "luck" statistic thing dealt with briefly in Ringworld?
Birthright lotteries, with Puppeteers manipulating the outcome to breed lucky humans, the end result of which Teela Brown; it's strongly implied that she'll be lucky enough to avoid dying until the heat death of the universe.
At the risk of a thread hijack, I thought Teela turns out to be the least lucky of those with the luck gene; that's why she's the one that winds up getting transformed into the Protector for those that are genetically similar. Or does Niven change his mind about that in one of the later novels? I can't remember anymore which was the last one I read.
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When I heard this was by the author of "Friction", I immediately perked up. Unfortunately, it seems lighting did not strike twice. This story was merely good, not fantastic like "Friction".
I LOVED Samuel's character. Favorite line? "I don't care if they're recorded on tapes, CD's or flying butt monkeys!" Which is, of course, a very clever and appropriate reference to Wayne's World. "So, the mere fact that we're together decreases the accident rate. Right, and monkeys might fly out of my butt." He made me laugh several other times, too, but that line nearly had me waking up my roommate.
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Hey! I really liked this one! Yes, it could be more fleshed out but then it is a short story. Wasn't the "luck" statistic thing dealt with briefly in Ringworld?
Birthright lotteries, with Puppeteers manipulating the outcome to breed lucky humans, the end result of which Teela Brown; it's strongly implied that she'll be lucky enough to avoid dying until the heat death of the universe.
At the risk of a thread hijack, I thought Teela turns out to be the least lucky of those with the luck gene; that's why she's the one that winds up getting transformed into the Protector for those that are genetically similar. Or does Niven change his mind about that in one of the later novels? I can't remember anymore which was the last one I read.
I'm pretty much sure it was in Ringworld itself; she was the most lucky, and being a protector was was part of the path her luck led her on to becoming immortal. But the Tree of Life was in a later book, I think. In Ringworld, all they worked out was that the Ringworld was edge-on to the galactic core, so she'd survive the Core Explosion in 20,000 years...
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Spoiler Warning: Ringword Saga
Hey! I really liked this one! Yes, it could be more fleshed out but then it is a short story. Wasn't the "luck" statistic thing dealt with briefly in Ringworld?
Birthright lotteries, with Puppeteers manipulating the outcome to breed lucky humans, the end result of which Teela Brown; it's strongly implied that she'll be lucky enough to avoid dying until the heat death of the universe.
At the risk of a thread hijack, I thought Teela turns out to be the least lucky of those with the luck gene; that's why she's the one that winds up getting transformed into the Protector for those that are genetically similar. Or does Niven change his mind about that in one of the later novels? I can't remember anymore which was the last one I read.
I'm pretty much sure it was in Ringworld itself; she was the most lucky, and being a protector was was part of the path her luck led her on to becoming immortal. But the Tree of Life was in a later book, I think. In Ringworld, all they worked out was that the Ringworld was edge-on to the galactic core, so she'd survive the Core Explosion in 20,000 years...
Come on, Louis Wu killed Teela cause she tried to stop him from killing billions of Ringworlders to save the entire ring. She was only lucky for Ringworld. Not so much herself. She was 20 on the first trip so not all that much older when she died.
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At the risk of a thread hijack, I thought Teela turns out to be the least lucky of those with the luck gene; that's why she's the one that winds up getting transformed into the Protector for those that are genetically similar. Or does Niven change his mind about that in one of the later novels? I can't remember anymore which was the last one I read.
I'm pretty much sure it was in Ringworld itself; she was the most lucky, and being a protector was was part of the path her luck led her on to becoming immortal. But the Tree of Life was in a later book, I think. In Ringworld, all they worked out was that the Ringworld was edge-on to the galactic core, so she'd survive the Core Explosion in 20,000 years...
The Protector matter doesn't enter the story until The Ringworld Engineers. And there are no other Ringworld novels following that book.
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The story may have been good, but I was distracted by the voices (especially the female falsetto). I would like to see Steve pass on the voices and focus on the storytelling. This NPR story pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95090092
I actually didn't mind Steve's girl voice, I thought he did a good job.
Then, I also thought that NPR story was a bit silly. "Bad Readings of Audiobooks Ruin Audiobooks"
uhm....yah
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I liked the concept of this story, I think, but some of the execution felt a bit off. It's not that I minded that they fell in love (or even that they had a happy ending). That was all fine. But when they fell in love so fast and then the car crash happened, and then Tuesday woke up in the hospital, I literally groaned.
On the brightside, I'm glad that Tuesday didn't die, because that would've really annoyed me.
I liked the scene before the crash when Sam slowly peeled off his bias and began to truly picture himself with Tuesday in incremental degrees of intimacy. I think we have all done that in various ways. He realized how lonely he was; and here was a woman who wanted to be with him who he had come to know and appreciate. Once he let the barriers down and let go of the spite, i figure he was thinking, Who cares about the statistics and other people's expectations. I'm willing to love this woman. Then not being too experienced at the relationship thing, he just went for it full bore with the kiss. I can totally see this as a real reaction.
This part just went by way too fast for me. Maybe I'm just wired differently but for someone to be that closed off to someone because of pride, and then all of a sudden to realize all those potential possibilities with someone like Tuesday, I don't know. It just happened way too fast for me.
One thing I would've liked to have seen happen is when the relationship soured a bit and they got into an arguement, became sick of each other, but then felt this kind of guilty responsibility to stay in a close proximity to one another because of the statistics. But that's probably a whole different story.
Not that I hated this story, I liked it well enough, especially the ideas. It just didn't knock me out or anything.
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I liked the scene before the crash when Sam slowly peeled off his bias and began to truly picture himself with Tuesday in incremental degrees of intimacy. I think we have all done that in various ways. He realized how lonely he was; and here was a woman who wanted to be with him who he had come to know and appreciate. Once he let the barriers down and let go of the spite, i figure he was thinking, Who cares about the statistics and other people's expectations. I'm willing to love this woman. Then not being too experienced at the relationship thing, he just went for it full bore with the kiss. I can totally see this as a real reaction.
This part just went by way too fast for me. Maybe I'm just wired differently but for someone to be that closed off to someone because of pride, and then all of a sudden to realize all those potential possibilities with someone like Tuesday, I don't know. It just happened way too fast for me.
One thing I would've liked to have seen happen is when the relationship soured a bit and they got into an arguement, became sick of each other, but then felt this kind of guilty responsibility to stay in a close proximity to one another because of the statistics. But that's probably a whole different story.
Yes, it was a bit fast. A gradual realization would have been better. This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
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Listened again.
Figured out what I didn't like about it. The sci-fi aspect is about details. I despise details. I am a big picture kind of person. I generally go for the bigger hammer solution over the trim the edges solution.
Still, it was an enjoyable story.
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This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
Now that would've been funny :)
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This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
Now that would've been funny :)
Only if they left in the orgasm scene ;)
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This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
Now that would've been funny :)
Only if they left in the orgasm scene ;)
Read by Steve Eley ;)
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This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
Now that would've been funny :)
Only if they left in the orgasm scene ;)
Read by Steve Eley ;)
Escape Pod fans demand to know what Steve Eley sounds like when he's faking it!! :o
(Does anyone besides me think that sounds like a potential PodCastle????)
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This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
Now that would've been funny :)
Only if they left in the orgasm scene ;)
Read by Steve Eley ;)
Escape Pod fans demand to know what Steve Eley sounds like when he's faking it!! :o
(Does anyone besides me think that sounds like a potential PodCastle????)
I think we already did that with Desire of Houses (or whatever it was called....)
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This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
Now that would've been funny :)
Only if they left in the orgasm scene ;)
Read by Steve Eley ;)
Escape Pod fans demand to know what Steve Eley sounds like when he's faking it!! :o
(Does anyone besides me think that sounds like a potential PodCastle????)
I was thinking Pseudopod myself. ;P
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This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
Now that would've been funny :)
Only if they left in the orgasm scene ;)
sure, it's all laughs & giggles until they find the link between fake orgasms and kitten death.
then peta advertising gets weird. weirder.
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This story would have been phenominal if it would have taken a more When Harry Meets Sally approach. It's still good IMO, but could have gone for more.
Now that would've been funny :)
Only if they left in the orgasm scene ;)
sure, it's all laughs & giggles until they find the link between fake orgasms and kitten death.
then peta advertising gets weird. weirder.
But possibly a lot more fun to watch....
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Felt like I was listening to a story set on a world where nonsequiturs can be used to answer the Schrodinger's Cat question.
Good, though - I liked the narrative and the story ended at a good point.
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This topic is taking a disturbing turn.
I will attempt to put some railroad tracks on it for the sake of all of us.
So, the story. I tried to listen earlier in the week; but I wasn't in hte mood and turned it off after 5 minutes.
I just finished it now, and I enjoyed it.
I think had it been a longer story, a lot of the critism we have would just go away. He wouldn't suddenly slip from skeptic to true believer; as he would have had time to find out its limits, area of effect, and other things about this statistical effect they have.
But this reminded me of a moment in 'Good Gmens', when a telesales people are stopped from calling people; and that people were not annoyed, interupted, and distracted; made them so much happier in tiny ways that goodness flowed out in ripples across the country. And making phone calls impossible at 1pm spread so much badness in tiny ways, that made people malicious and generally worse.
So I look at the effect they have on the world like this. People seeing an older and a younger person together, gives small amounts of hope to all that pass, just knowing that love exists in some form. Thenselective memory aftertelling people about these people would expand the percieved effect.
While seeing an old (seemingly)bitter man out clearly not happy, or a cute girl alone and looking for someone may effect the world badly in a thousand small ways.
So back on my track.... gradual would have happened if it was longer. The end felt tied on just to get a conclusion on it... but hey... that would just be the ending of the first chapter... or the start of a second one...
There is a long way you could go from there. From conspiracies to chaos theory.
Also that the cyclists didn't know what they were, may be a sign that the experiment was gonig in different ways to see if the effect still happened. I liked that. As there didn't seem to be a lot of other testing of it...
Ah well. I'll listen again... but not for a while....
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Also that the cyclists didn't know what they were, may be a sign that the experiment was gonig in different ways to see if the effect still happened. I liked that. As there didn't seem to be a lot of other testing of it...
I'd say the cyclists knew what they were and were just repeating the official line.
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I liked this story a lot better than I liked "Friction", and like ajames, was surprised by how much I liked this story.
I can see where people are going with causation/correlation question, and it's true that at one point during the story I was on that track like most everyone else here and a little distracted.
I also felt (like most everyone else) that the ending was a mite weak.
But I still liked the story a lot. There's a theory that posits that all people have three aspects: the people they are, the people they think they are, and the people other people see them as. To me this story was a lens to see those three aspects of the protag. And what happens at the end of the story is that the three aspects line up, become one, creating a whole person. To me that was very satisfying, regardless of the romantic aspect. For me, that worked.
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Never thought I'd say this about a Will McIntosh story, but: "meh!".
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I'm struck by the similarity of concept to a story called "Tracking The Random Variable", Which I read a long time ago, and can't recall the author.
That had a guy working in inventory at an auto shop, and could use various unrelated things to predict how many mufflers, brake shoes, and so forth they would need for the coming week. much less fun than this story because of the emotional trauma in it.
Still, I think it was pretty neat, even if the core concept isn't all that original. I liked that we were never given any real explanation for why it all worked, but that people were moving it forward simply because it did. I'll listen again.
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I'm struck by the similarity of concept to a story called "Tracking The Random Variable", Which I read a long time ago, and can't recall the author.
That had a guy working in inventory at an auto shop, and could use various unrelated things to predict how many mufflers, brake shoes, and so forth they would need for the coming week. much less fun than this story because of the emotional trauma in it.
Still, I think it was pretty neat, even if the core concept isn't all that original. I liked that we were never given any real explanation for why it all worked, but that people were moving it forward simply because it did. I'll listen again.
Marcos Donnelly
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The story may have been good, but I was distracted by the voices (especially the female falsetto). I would like to see Steve pass on the voices and focus on the storytelling. This NPR story pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95090092
I listened to the NPR program about the narration of audiobooks and disagreed with some of it. While a bad narration can ruin a story, a good narration can make it. I see escapepod, podcastle and pseudopod less about audiobooks and more about the return of the kind of radio where voice acting was the rule, not the exception. Often a story that I could barely force myself to read becomes sharp and interesting just because of the way it was, not narrated, but acted.
Maybe I'm just used to Steve's voice - but I really look forward to stories he narrates. It's not that other readers are unwelcome for me, or that extra talent is a bad idea, I just find it well done and comforting. I especially like Steve's falsetto.
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A little late to this story, but I accidentally skipped it, and had a good commute today to catch up.
I enjoyed the dialogue and Sam's character quite a bit. Tuesday was a dream. But were these people 50+ or 15? You can't apply earth logic to a relationship. I doubt an analyst would have such a breakthrough with Sam, let alone the girl of his dreams if he would only allow himself to dream. I know it's part of the romance genre to fall in love with the person who saved you, but I would rather have had Tuesday push Sam out of his shell and him take up with the waitress and her one of the cyclists than the ending we got.
I was taken by the romance of the story but drawn out of it when Sam fell head-over-heels so easily and completely. Ending the story with the crash would have been nice and appropriately ironic, I think. Instead, we had to go on and have the baby tooth on a chain - ick.
Still... I'd listen to it again. I'm not asking for romance every week, but please don't avoid it on my account.
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I really liked this piece. I'm not a big fan of romance or statistics, but the characters made the story great. I think my favourite parts were the ending, and the random appearance of the bicycling old men. I wish more had been said about Barry's "side projects"... and for some reason, his literal interpretation of statistics reminds me of something I told a friend who was looking for a new apartment. "Well, as soon as they rebuild the one that burned down, you should just move into that one. After all, there's no fire insurance quite like Bayes' Law."
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catchin up on my backlog of EPs and PPs and PCs and etcs
loved this story, which is saying a lot since i normally detest anything mushy/love/etc. (well maybe not detest but i don like em)
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Just listened to the story.
It was a decent story, I'll know how good in a few days if I find myself thinking about it again.
I actually came on to give 2 thumbs up to the mandelbrot song. It made me smile more than the story. I discovered the song a while ago, and spent an afternoon browsing youtube for mandelbrot zoom-in videos. good time. I will ahve to buy that song some day.
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I liked this one well enough. It was a very nice change of pace after listening to Usurpers. A bit unbelievable, but I think it was supposed to be that way.
But this is a story I'll share with my wife, since it is a cute love story.
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A little Threadromancy here for something I've been turning over in my mind for a while:
Cars get safer every year. I'm not talking about crash survivability, but accident avoidance. Disc brakes, rack and pinion steering, tuned suspension*, anti-lock braking, and stability control have all made cars easier and safer to drive. However, the rate of accidents hasn't changed. The safer the car becomes, the more indestructible the driver feels, the dumber he drives.
What happens in this story when people start to feel protected by these two being together? Will they start doing dumber and dumber things? Will they end up negating the good caused by these two being together?
*Not the best phrase for here, but I hope you get the point
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What happens in this story when people start to feel protected by these two being together? Will they start doing dumber and dumber things? Will they end up negating the good caused by these two being together?
I think this is similar to the argument against the HPV vaccine for teenage girls -- if you give them the vaccine, they'll be protected against cervical cancer, so they'll immediately go have more sex. That's probably not the way it's going to go, but it's the argument the detractors are using. Same as with this -- people will feel safer, but I don't think they'll stop using seatbelts or start running red lights and stop signs. I know I'm a safe driver (except that I, like almost everyone else, have a tendency to speed), but I still stop at stop signs and red lights even when there's no other cars in sight.
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A little Threadromancy here for something I've been turning over in my mind for a while:
Cars get safer every year. I'm not talking about crash survivability, but accident avoidance. Disc brakes, rack and pinion steering, tuned suspension*, anti-lock braking, and stability control have all made cars easier and safer to drive. However, the rate of accidents hasn't changed. The safer the car becomes, the more indestructible the driver feels, the dumber he drives.
I see differently. All the safety features in the world to increase driveability won't help if there's an idiot at the wheel.
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What happens in this story when people start to feel protected by these two being together? Will they start doing dumber and dumber things? Will they end up negating the good caused by these two being together?
I think this is similar to the argument against the HPV vaccine for teenage girls -- if you give them the vaccine, they'll be protected against cervical cancer, so they'll immediately go have more sex. That's probably not the way it's going to go, but it's the argument the detractors are using. Same as with this -- people will feel safer, but I don't think they'll stop using seatbelts or start running red lights and stop signs. I know I'm a safe driver (except that I, like almost everyone else, have a tendency to speed), but I still stop at stop signs and red lights even when there's no other cars in sight.
The sex and HPV argument is sooo stupid. Kids will have sex, because it feels good.
I wasn't thinking people would run traffic lights. Have you ever looked at the cars off the side of the road after a bad snowstorm? They're almost always four-wheel drive. The drivers think they're invincible and don't do the one simple thing. They don't slow down.
My thought was that maybe people would move a little faster on the icy sidewalk or lean out a little farther when they're using a ladder to paint their house. Stuff like that.
I see differently. All the safety features in the world to increase driveability won't help if there's an idiot at the wheel.
That's my point. Except I think the drivability features actually makes people more idiotic.
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I think that Mr. Nash has a valid point - consciously or not I think people take their environment into account during their activities. Whether they are wearing helmets or have 4 wheel drive, people make all kind of assumptions that "it will work out for them". Related to this I also think that younger people have a greater sense of protectedness - whether it's in the form of parents or professionals (the doctor will be able to fix this).
In terms of the story - yes, I think you would see "riskier" actions as people become complacent with the idea. In "The Worthing Saga" there is story with the basic premise of god-like beings protecting all the people in a planet. The people are unaware of who or why they are protected, and over time they develop rituals that test these protections (in one case the ritual for manhood is to be thrown outside naked into a winter storm - if they are stopped from throwing you out then you are accepted into the community).
Conversely, I'd also foresee people being very cautious if the couple ever broke up. And as a result I could see tabloid-like interest in all the "groupings" that the public knew about that came out of the study.
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The ultimate problem is that the safety features allow the idiots to procreate. Thus drowning us in a sea of idiocy. ;)
Also an unintended consequence of warning labels. On my gas water heater: Do not check for gas leaks with open flame.
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I'm wondering how pertinent all this discussion is to the story, however. Remember, the basic premise of this story involves divorcing cause and effect, and manipulating events by manipulating correlation rather than caring about causation. In other words, it's not important *why* bringing those two people together reduces accidents; it's sufficient to bring them together. So I don't think it matters how people's psyches work, or cars work, accidents will go down regardless.
There is the possibility, however, that accidents will increase dramatically whenever the two are seperate, as people will then not be protected by bizzaro probability and may well be conditioned to believe themselves safe.
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There is the possibility, however, that accidents will increase dramatically whenever the two are seperate, as people will then not be protected by bizzaro probability and may well be conditioned to believe themselves safe.
no, I thought that was the point of having the other "groups". So no single group was "relied" on to reduce probabilites.
In other words, it's not important *why* bringing those two people together reduces accidents; it's sufficient to bring them together. So I don't think it matters how people's psyches work, or cars work, accidents will go down regardless.
You said it yourself - we don't know what matters. While this isn't a story about logic, i think it is fair to say that people's habits would impact the probability of accidents, and possibility overwhelm the "helpful factor". Their habits could easily be changed if word got out that these studies made them safer.
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There is the possibility, however, that accidents will increase dramatically whenever the two are seperate, as people will then not be protected by bizzaro probability and may well be conditioned to believe themselves safe.
no, I thought that was the point of having the other "groups". So no single group was "relied" on to reduce probabilites.
I thought the other groups (cyclists, etc.) were reducing the chances of other bad things, not traffic accidents. Though I guess the story never really says for sure.
In other words, it's not important *why* bringing those two people together reduces accidents; it's sufficient to bring them together. So I don't think it matters how people's psyches work, or cars work, accidents will go down regardless.
You said it yourself - we don't know what matters. While this isn't a story about logic, i think it is fair to say that people's habits would impact the probability of accidents, and possibility overwhelm the "helpful factor". Their habits could easily be changed if word got out that these studies made them safer.
My point was that given that this story postulates a radical change in how we understand causation, we cannot assume that *any* cause and effect chain based on the real world would apply. So, I don't think it is fair to say that people's habits will impact the probability of accidents. Maybe people's behaviors are actually being manipulated here in ways that are not fully understood by us? What if it is not unsafe driving that causes accidents, but rather accidents in the future that cause unsafe driving now? That makes no sense in our world, but who knows about theirs.
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A little Threadromancy here for something I've been turning over in my mind for a while:
Cars get safer every year. I'm not talking about crash survivability, but accident avoidance. Disc brakes, rack and pinion steering, tuned suspension*, anti-lock braking, and stability control have all made cars easier and safer to drive. However, the rate of accidents hasn't changed. The safer the car becomes, the more indestructible the driver feels, the dumber he drives.
What happens in this story when people start to feel protected by these two being together? Will they start doing dumber and dumber things? Will they end up negating the good caused by these two being together?
*Not the best phrase for here, but I hope you get the point
A little evidence for my point here. Berlin has had a lot of snow recently. It's been just around freezing, so we have a lot of slush on ice. Some of the smaller streets are really shitty. During this whole time, I've only seen one car that looked like it had recently hit something. It was a BMW 5-series with ABS. All the old Golfs look great.
If I wanted to really get some serious data, I'd do a survey of body repair shops. I just thought this was interesting.
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McIntosh raised the bar high with Friction (one of my favorites on EP), and this one came nowhere near it. The premise was interesting, but I found it a little hard to buy. There just didn't seem to be any real evidence that their being together actually saved people from accidents. The statistician didn't give a crap what caused it, which I found odd. What's the point? They didn't even seem to consider that they might have the same cause but not directly causing each other, like the ice cream and crime correlation.
But all of that I could have overlooked if the story itself wasn't so predictable. From the first moment that their correlation is mentioned, I guessed that they would interpret this as fate bringing them together, they'd fall in love and live happily ever after. And there are a million stories about men clinging to their rationality and finally giving it up to fall in love with the girl who believes in the mystic, and this didn't offer anything new to the mix. I didn't predict the car accident, but that didn't really alter the course of either character.
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Alternate explanation for the accident-relationship correlation:
I think that Tuesday is just a REALLY BAD driver.
It sounds like he does the driving when they're together. When they're apart she is driving at least some of the time, but when they're together she is driving none of the time. So, by allowing him to drive, she is saving lives. And instead of the city forcing them to be together, they could just revoke her driver's license. :D
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Incidentally, you may wish to check out Will McIntosh's 'Bridecicle' over on StarShipSofa - its been nominated for a Hugo this year, and I thought it was quite excellent.
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Incidentally, you may wish to check out Will McIntosh's 'Bridecicle' over on StarShipSofa - its been nominated for a Hugo this year, and I thought it was quite excellent.
Oooooo, thanks for the heads-up. I've been meaning to track down that story and give SSS a go.
(Also, he wrote the (IMHO) incredible "One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note" which ran last year at PC.)