You will never guess what day it is today, unless you attend Brigham Young University. Yes, it is March 21st, but this day carries significance. There is a weight to this particular day, a certain atmospheric memorial of those who came before us. A moment of silence for the nights in the testing center and skipping class to take tests, a day of remembrance for the fallen grades that didn't get to grow up and become A's like their parents hoped they would. Today is an acknowledgement of hard work and of those who have guessed on multiple choice tests questions because they had no idea what the questions were about. We see you.
This is an Escher Sentence:
Today is Spring Day.
For those who aren't familiar, Spring Day is BYU's version of Spring Break. We get one Friday off, which isn't actually off because most teachers don't change their assignment schedules to incorporate this break, so it really means you don't have class on a random Friday but still have all the homework. I cherish this day, I love it and care for it, because I would definitely rather go through 15 straight weeks of school and get out in the middle of April when nobody else is done with school yet than have a week long break somewhere in there. I will leave it up to you to decide whether I love or hate this day.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I haven't written something in about 10 days, but I have a couple things that I can talk about this time! Hooray. Sometimes I just ramble about anything I can think of on these things 'cause I promised I would. Anyways, you'll never guess what I did this week.
1. I Proposed to A Stranger...
...and it was the scariest thing I've ever done. I went to my friend's FHE activity and they were doing this thing called a GooseChase where everyone signs in on their phone and splits into two teams. There are 100 challenges and you have 1 hour to complete as many as possible. The catch is that you have to video them or take a picture and upload it to your team's list of challenges so that everyone can see them. I got an egg cracked on my head, put oil on my friend, had a rap battle with a random apartment, ate a piece of bread soaked in water, and more. The worst one was definitely the proposal. I had to get on one knee and say that the Spirit told me to propose to them and it was horrifying and I'm never doing that again. She seemed surprised at first and then intrigued but I stood up and explained what was going on before anything else could happen. Terrifying.
2. I Accidentally Held the Door for some XX chromosome people:
We were walking into the Cannon Center and I was in the front of my little group of friends, so I held the door. Some girls walked through and said "oh, thanks". I didn't want them to be confused, so in 3 millivanilla seconds my mind thought: "ohyoushouldprobablyexplaintothemthatyoureholdingthedoorforyourfriends". What came out was, "oh, it's not for you." They laughed (hallelujah), but I was so embarrassed and promptly walked directly to the bathroom and waited til they were gone. I have this problem of just trying to explain something or say what is happening or give a compliment and it doesn't come out how it does in my head. It's gonna get me killed some day. I'll be staring an armed robber in the face and try to tell him that my password is too complicated to tell someone, and I'll say something like, "oh, you wouldn't get it. It would be too hard for you to understand," and then he'd shoot me or something.
3. I took tests. I'm not saying anymore about it.
4. Venmo informed me by email that I had money to spend in my account. I was pretty sure that I didn't but figured maybe they knew something I didn't, so I checked. $3.04 in my account. I could hear the V laughing at me and telling me how poor I was. Stupid Venmo.
5. We lost in the water polo tournament. Womp womp.
6. I have never really cared about March Madness much before, but I care way too much this year for some reason. How did I not see how interesting it was before? There's so many stats to compare that help you pick winners. It's like my version of train schedules if you know what I mean. I have decided that I would love to do a study: Do predominantly Christian (or otherwise religiously affiliated) universities make riskier plays when they are at critical moments in a game? Think about it: BYU is famous for either coming in clutch or choking, and rarely anything in the middle. Think of this past football season and how many clips you saw of BYU pulling out the victory at the last second. There were at least 5! Basically, I wanna know if religious schools play the odds or take risks. When down by 2 points, what's the average shot distance for a religious school compared to a secular school? Does a belief in God give people overconfidence in their abilities? or does it actually help them somehow? I don't know, I just think it would be interesting to look at. On another note, my bracket is doing really well. I think March Madness is my new favorite holiday.
I'm probably thinking along the lines of studies because I just finished listening to Malcolm Gladwell's Revenge of the Tipping Point. 25 years ago, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book over many 15 minute periods, called The Tipping Point. The book was highly successful, diving deep into what Gladwell called "tipping points": moments where a trend, idea, group, or other such concept changes in favor of some other dynamic. The book analyzed how ideas spread like epidemics and there are rules that help ideas spread. After 25 years (during which an actual global pandemic occurred), Malcolm Gladwell decided to revisit this book idea and talk about his ideas in more depth, as well as correct some of what he felt he got wrong. I have never been bored reading one of his books. This one is free to listen to on Spotify with premium, and it's only 8 hours. This book talked about a lot of different things like bank robberies, cheetah/panther genetic diversity, and the adoption of the idea that the Holocaust actually occurred. However, the one I found most interesting was the idea of a monoculture and small area variation that creates localized tipping points. I think that Utah Valley definitely fits the description of a monoculture. The renamed town in the book was called Poplar Grove, which reminded me a lot of Pleasant Grove. It was a place where everyone was semi-rich, high performing, and well liked. It seemed like a utopia, until kids started committing suicide. They tried to figure out a cause and realized that it probably had to do something with the pressure that the community put on being elite. The kids who died weren't failures, they were #1 students in their disciplines and sports, which is why it was so perplexing. Utah has one of highest suicide rates in the country and one of the worst mental health dynamics. Is there pressure to succeed? Most definitely. It was really interesting to hear Gladwell's analysis of a monoculture and what it can do to the group and its individuals.
I've also been thinking a lot about thinking this week. Thank you, Provo Peaks Elementary, for teaching me the word "metacognition". Where would I be without you? More specifically, I've been thinking about critical thinking. In the wake of the recent release of the JFK files, I have heard so many conspiracy theories among my peers, and I genuinely cannot understand how these intelligent, logical people can believe in something with absolutely no substance of truth. I'm not calling them stupid at all. The only thing that I can think of to explain it is that it's more fun to believe in crazy things because it makes you feel like you've figured something out and creates an ingroup. As human beings, we like being inside of ingroups, not in the outgroups. Conspiracy theories make you feel like you are privileged somehow. I think the group disparity effect heavily qualifies an idea as a conspiracy theory. If an idea you believe in makes you feel that way, it is worth examining and figuring out how objectively true it is, especially by hearing the other side. It could be right, but the odds decrease as the concept or idea raises you over others. Real truth should not lift certain groups above others; it should simply increase understanding between the groups.
I think that the whole "your mind is a bucket" symbol is a pretty stupid metaphor. In case you love that metaphor, let me explain before you get offended. This allegory makes a base level assumption that I don't think is right: it assumes that you have no choice over what comes toward your bucket. Do not misinterpret what I mean here. I don't mean that you can't choose what goes inside the bucket, because that's kind of the whole point. I mean that certain things will never reach your bucket at all because they've been pre-screened. Your critical thinking creates a filter for information. If it doesn't pass your critical thinking, it doesn't ever reach the point that you have to decide anything about it. In the context of JFK declassification (and really any political event), there are a few questions that one must ask to facilitate critical thinking and promote truthfulness. I hate to break it to you, but they are the same ones you've known since 4th grade English class. First, who is writing this or spreading the information? This immediately gives you clues to why they wrote it. Is it being spread to increase fear, promote an individual, or induce some reaction? Are they known to bias their opinions, or are they reputable for purely provided information? This is highlighted in the book Cultish, another must-read that I found incredibly informational. Second, what does the actual information say about the topic? Not someone else's opinion on the matter, what do the facts say? I understand that in some cases, there is just too much information such that you can't read it all and decide on your own for everything. This makes the first point that much more important. If a headline makes you feel afraid somehow, that usually means that someone is doing it on purpose. Yes, scary things do happen, but there has never been a case in history where the problem was unsolvable.
That is seriously important, so I'll repeat it.
There has never been an event in the course of human history that was not worked through somehow. If there was, we wouldn't be here and humanity would have ended.
It is really easy to use fear to get people to do something, which is why misinformation so often gets people to feel afraid.
If you are a careful reader, you may notice that I didn't pick any sides on this matter. If you know me well, you might be able to predict what I might say about specific matters, but I didn't say anything here because that isn't my point. I am not saying that one side is right. I am saying that if you put in enough effort to understand pure facts and consider context, anyone should have the ability to choose the "right side", which may be different for specific people.
I am really passionate about reducing misinformation in the world and making decisions based on factual evidence. I cannot beg you enough. Please, especially my friends in Utah, a monoculture of ideas; do not take someone else's opinion for truth. Form your own opinion by considering all the angles and postpone emotion for the sake of belief. I don't care where you fall on an ideological spectrum, just please please please (Sabrina) make it your opinion and your ideas, not somebody else's. If it is really what you believe in and you can demonstrate that you have looked at both sides, then I don't care which side it is. That means it's right to you, and that's all I can ask.
If you made it this far, congratulations! You clearly care about aligning your beliefs with truth. Those who didn't will never read this, so they'll never know that I didn't congratulate them. Mwahahaha. Gladwell's book also talked about how our beliefs are very very influenced by the media we consume, so maybe if enough people told people to believe in what they've made informed decisions on, things would be a little less crazy.
I'm sure you're eager to get the rest of your day back. #sorrynotsorry for the 15ish minutes it probably took for you to read this. To close, I'll tell you one more thing I learned this week.
This is an Escher Sentence:
"More people have been to Berlin than I have."
This seems to make sense, but try to reason through it. It actually makes no sense at all. Is that a symbol? We'll never know...
Ta-ta, dahlings,
William Mode
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