Let's be Fwends #152:

The Rule of Reciprocity

We’re all too tightly interwoven to suddenly start doing what we want. It’s unfair to the rest, the majority.”

~ Philip K. Dick

Hi and welcome to Let's be Fwends number 152. Today, we look at the power of (not) returning a favour, how philosophy might be biased towards a certain lifestyle, why we can't access our earliest memories, and a really hard-working font you've seen a thousand times without ever thinking about it. Then there's some fascinating historic video footage, and a bit of more recent history.

As always, I hope you find something that is worth your time. Thanks for reading!

The Rule of Reciprocity

Has it ever happened to you that somebody did you a favour you didn't ask for, and then asked for something in return? What did you feel? I bet there was an urge to comply to their request.

What happened is that the requester exploited the Rule of Reciprocity. Read here how your urge to honour generosity and form social bonds can turn against you.

Is Western Philosophy Biased Towards how Single Men Experience the World?

In the 1950ies, Mary Midgley pointed out that most canonical philosophers were bachelors, having no experience how it is to live with women or children. They wouldn't know a thing about families, or being a parent.

Does this matter? Does the way we live our life impact our philosophical views?

This homes in on two important questions, and how to answer them. The first is, what philosophy actually is, and the second - and arguably more important, what philosophy is for.

And while your family status is maybe not the most important thing in the world, I'd argue it does somehow determine how you see the world, and if a scientific discipline that out of necessity concerns itself about different aspects of human life is skewed not only towards a certain gender, but also a certain lifestyle, that actually might be a problem.

I think it's fair to say that mainstream western philosophy tends to put emphasis on the individual, the question of the self, and if and how that self can create knowledge regarding the outside world. At the same time, collectives, relationships and interactions tend to be diminished.

I don't know if it's accurate that this way of thinking derives from the lifestyle of being a bachelor, but you have to admit that it somehow clicks.

Children's Memories and the Foundation of All Thought

A fascinating thought:

"So if experiences of our early milestones – first birthday, first steps, first trip to the beach – seem to be cached somewhere in the brain, why can’t we consciously access them? While psychologists say it can be adaptive to forget, that doesn’t explain why the memories formed before age seven seem to decay faster than when we’re adults. Alberini hypothesises that early unrecalled memories may function as schemas upon which adult memories are built. Like the foundations of a home, they remain concealed but crucial."

A Font You've Seen a Thousand Times and Never Observed

This review of a very specific typeset reads like a detectives' story, so I won't post any spoilers. But please click on this link and wait for the really great Aha! moment you'll surely get.

AI-Colorised Beach Vacation Footage from the 1920ies

Typically, colorisation is easily recognisable. It gives the colorised images a special look that makes them visually equally artificial as the black-and-white footage they are derived from.

But these images from different beaches around the world in the 1920ies are different. The colorisation is practically unnoticeable.

Let's Be Fwends from the Past

I took inspiration from Cory Doctorow, who ends all of his daily blogposts with a section called "Object Permanence", which links to events 20, 15, 10 and 1 year ago.

Since Let's be Fwends is now old enough, I thought it might be interesting to take a look back five years, and one year.

Five years ago, in issue 68, I looked at the pitfalls of "hiring by merit", how it creates monocultures of thought and why diversity is important. And there was a comparison between a WW2-era sabotage handbook and standard corporate practice.

And last year, in issue 127, language was an important topic: I shared a mechanism to formulate better questions, and an essay about the use of metaphors and their consequences. And I shared a couple of things I learned working with organisations.

It happens so quickly that you think about something, and stash it away somewhere never to be found again. I wrote a script for obsidian to create a daily moment of serendipity. Sometimes, looking at something a second time will create new connections with things you've learned and understood at the meantime. Looking back at what was important five years ago, and one year ago, might just the thing, then.

That's it from this edition of Let's be Fwends. 🤝