February 2, 2012 – Acronyms are funny things. Every field has its own language, and they don’t always cross translational boundaries well. Yesterday I was asked if I was going to the Town Hall meeting for DFO because the ADM was speaking. DFO is Department of Fisheries and Oceans, I know that one obviously, but ADM was new to me. Associate Deputy Minister was the long version of that one. Then I received an email telling me that there were some IT issues with the TVP, but that the issue was within DFO. I work for SEP (Salmon Enhancement Program) which falls under EMB (Ecosystem management Branch) of DFO, the hatcheries fall into two categories, EOS (Enhancement Operations) and CIP (Community Involvement Programs). The CIPs are made up of CEDPs (Community Economic Development Programs, DIPs (Designated Public Involvement Programs) and PIPs (Public Involvement Programs). It used to be OHEB (Oceans, Habitat, Enhancement Branch), but then AMD (Aquaculture Management Division) came along and they split some things up and changed names to reflect the differences between EMB and FAM (Fisheries and Aquaculture Management). AFS used to mean American Fisheries Society to me, but now I have to remember that it also means Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy within the government of Canada. You get the idea.

The other day I received an email that used a whole lot of acronyms that I was trying to sort through, one of them was something to do with translation services and NLP, so I looked it up with a quick Google search and decided pretty quickly that I had come across the wrong translation. The first thing to come up was “Neuro-Lingusitic Programming”. But the linguistic part sounded right so I clicked on the link for a definition, but oh was this not what I was looking for, this was definitely not what I was looking for. Not only was this new to me, it was downright silly.

And that got me off on a mental tangent about irrational things that people grasp onto, absurd pseudo-sciences. This NLP thing set off my skeptic radar full tilt and had me astounded that anyone could actually buy into such nonsense.

Let me lay this one out here…

NLP is a crazy approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created in the 1970s.

“The title refers to a stated connection between the neurological processes (“neuro”), language (“linguistic”) and behavioral patterns that have been learned through experience (“programming”) and can be organized to achieve specific goals in life (Wikipedia). NLP practitioners claim to be able to “track another’s eye movements and language, thereby shaping the person’s thoughts, feelings, and opinions.”

“As human beings, we can never know reality. We can only know our perceptions of reality. We experience and respond to the world around us primarily through our sensory representational systems. It is our ‘neuro-linguistic’ maps of reality that determine how we behave and that give those behaviors meaning, not reality itself. It is generally not reality that limits us or empowers us, but rather our map of reality.”

Uhh, yeah, ok, sure. (Looney alert!). It’s nonsense like this that lets people down. Humans are always looking for meaning, a sense of place, for purpose. I suppose that’s why religion is so popular. But this kind of unfounded pseudo-science, regardless of its stated goal of “finding ways to help people have better, fuller and richer lives” is just another irrational religion, but one that has no deity attached. It’s high on the “quack-factor” list.

And that got me thinking about other ridiculous things that people buy into, because they “want to believe”. Pyramid schemes and other ‘get-rich-quick’ notions, astrology, horoscopes, psychic readings, the Bermuda Triangle, levitation, crop circles, seances, channeling, Tutankhamun’s curse, biorhthyms, magnet therapy, laundry balls, Intelligent Design, etc. I lump them all together.

Another one that amazes me is the movie and book that followed: The Secret. Who buys (and buys into) this stuff?

“The Secret describes the law of attraction as a natural law that determines the complete order of the universe and of our personal lives through the process of “like attracts like.” That is, as we think and feel, a corresponding frequency is sent out into the universe that attracts back to us events and circumstances on that same frequency. For example, if you think angry thoughts and feel angry, you will attract back events and circumstances that cause you to feel more anger. Conversely, if you think and feel positively, you will attract back positive events and circumstances.”

“The Secret states that desirable outcomes such as health, wealth, and happiness can be attracted simply by changing one’s thoughts and feelings. For example, if a person wanted a new car, by thinking about the new car, having positive and thankful feelings about the car as if it were already attained and opening one’s life in tangible ways for a new car to be acquired (for example, test driving the new car, or making sure no one parks in the space where the new car would arrive) and the law of attraction would rearrange events to make it possible for the car to manifest in the person’s life.”

“The law is a magnetic power emitted through your thoughts. The power of thoughts are likened to a transmission tower that sends out a frequency to the universe and then returns the same frequency in a physical or experiential form. Next, a three-step creative process for manifesting dreams is introduced: Ask, Believe, and Receive. This creative process is based on a quote from the Bible: “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” (Matthew 21:22) The Secret highlights gratitude and visualization as the two most powerful processes to help manifest one’s desires. It asserts that being grateful both lifts your frequency higher and affirms that you believe you will receive your desire. Visualization is said to help focus the mind to send out the clearest message to the universe. Several techniques are given for the visualization process, as well as examples of people claimed to have used it successfully to manifest their dreams.”

Can anyone actually read that and not see that it is complete gibberish? Of course when we think happy thoughts we attract good things. And of course when we think unhappy thoughts we don’t. It’s simple, if you are happy you smile, smiling people make other people smile, happy smiley-faced people talk to each other, and when you are happy the world seems like a brighter place, you focus on happy things. When you are unhappy you frown, frowns repel people, when you are unhappy and frowny-faced you can’t see the happy things because all you focus on are unhappy things that add further fuel to your unhappiness. How do I know this? Because I was a very unhappy kid in right around when I entered my early teens. My parents were getting a divorce and I was miserable. Eventually I noticed that I didn’t have as many friends around me and I thought “hmmm, I’m unhappy so no one wants to be around me…maybe I should find my happy place..” Pretty straight-forward connection. It’s so friggin’ simple it amazes me that people actually need to buy self-help books and seek “help” from people that only see their misunderstanding, of something so simple, as a source of income. But honestly, are there people out there who really think a car is going to just materialize in their parking spot because they think happy positive thoughts? I really hope not….

I think it’s easier to believe than to not believe, and that’s what gets us into these silly fixations. We are programmed to believe unbelievable things because, in a fundamental cost-benefit analysis, it’s “safer” (sometimes) to believe than it is to be a skeptic. For example, believing in religion is safer than not believing. Why? Consider the arguments. If it’s true that there is a life after this and that I must believe to gain entrance or forever be damned to some purgatory, well, it’s safer to believe and the cost is very low. If there is no life after this, then I have lost nothing except some time and rational thought. But if I don’t believe and there is truth to the argument, then the cost is very high. See? Safer to believe. Call it calculated risk taking, except in most of the cases above (with the exception of get-rich-quick schemes and pyramid schemes) there is no real personal risk beyond disappointment. And that very logic is why I simply cannot believe. Belief without proof is blind faith, and blind faith is action without rational thought. I question nearly everything and I am anything but irrational in my thinking, reasoning must be grounded in reality for me to accept something as holding a probablility of truth.

Religion will probably always be with us, but these other silly fascinations with “cure-alls”, ridiculous fixes, and pseudo-explanations usually are discredited relatively quickly, because the need to believe is (usually) eventually overruled by the disappointment of failure to deliver, and often with the involvement of some degree of fiscal loss.

And all that came from an accidental acronym mistranslation.

WTF? It’s FUBAR – you can look that one up yourself if you aren’t familiar with it.

Have you ever been so absolutely taken by a marketing scheme that you thought was not only funny, but downright brilliant? If you are Canadian you will recognize this. If you aren’t Canadian, you will have missed out on this little nugget or marketing ingenuity.

A few years ago a marketing intern with Post Foods Canada was thinking about advertising ideas, and this is what the result was (YouTube Video – Rory Sutherland-Shreddies). I’ve posted the entire TED video that the clip comes from, but it again serves to highlight that often times we just need to be shown that there is intrinsic value in what we already have instead of always chasing some new, intangible, “better” thing.

(It was late, I was tired, this was all I could manage.)

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, ‘Who’s on First?’ might have turned out something like this:

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks I’m setting up an office in my den and I’m thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name’s Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name’s Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don’t know. What will I see when I look at the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let’s just say I’m sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue ‘W’.

COSTELLO: I’m going to click your blue ‘w’ if you don’t start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That’s right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What’s bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT: One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn’t it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on ‘START’………….

Enjoy!

….because they make a much bigger mess when you hit them at full highway speed………

I try to swing by this business every few weeks to see what witticism they have come up with. It changes regularly and is always entertaining.

335/365 (December 1, 2010) – Finally got a dry day and got out on both the motorcycle and the scooter…and remembered to drop by the print shop before they changed their sign to something Christmassy.

Can’t believe that there are only 30 days left!

Wouldn’t the world be a wonderful place if we could accept each other and celebrate our differences where they really don’t cause any hurt to anyone? When someone’s belief (or lack thereof) has no damaging impact on another, there are still corners of society that just can’t leave it alone.

But this really is funny…… (found on a friend’s Facebook) After all, isn’t turnabout fair play?