Sometimes a person asks a question
in a field that they know very little about.
If a person's not familiar with electronics at all
says "What if the machine breaks down?"
An electronics person doesn't know what he's talking about.
Is it the transistors, the capacitors, the circuit, the welding?
If you don't talk about specifics, you're not communicating.
When a person says to me "You can't predict the behavior of people"
they're telling me that they don't know
how to predict the behavior of people.
It's a subject that I can't do anything with unless they say
"What do you do about people that insist that they're right?"
That's a specific question.
A specific question is "How do you arrive at your decision
and why is your decision any better than any other decision?"
The person that asks that question
may or may not understand the answer.
The assumption that people understand the answer that you give them
is an assumption and projection.
In order to check it out
if you have the time and you have a few people
you can say "What do you think I mean by that?"
and if they come off with something 'off'
you know that they didn't get your intention.
People that work on automobiles, engineers
not mechanics (mechanics are a little different than engineers).
Engineers understand the efficiency ratio of the parts
how many miles you get per gallon of fuel
and the technician understands the function
of all the parts of the car.
If you say "Automobiles are unsafe!" with conviction
that doesn't tell you how to make them safer.
It doesn't tell you anything, unless you say
"If you make the brake drums an inch larger
the car will stop sooner," something you can use.
A non-answerable question is
"How are you going to control the population? You can't control
the population. They go right on multiplying!"
The question is "How do you control the population?"
and not "You can't control the population. They go right on multiplying!"
That does not give you alternatives.
When a person says "You can't make airplanes absolutely safe"
what the hell does that tell you? Nothing
except for that person's limited ability to participate.
If a man would say "If you made airplanes safer..."
that doesn't tell you anything you can use either
so you have to discredit that. If a person says
"Governments have been corrupt ever since history began!"
That doesn't tell you how to make them 'uncorrupt.'
They have nothing to offer, unless you show
a method of making a government work
unless you say "I would like to know
what your view is on this."
If a person comes up to me and says
"What is your view on automobile safety?"
I'd say "Do you know anything about automobiles:
the mechanisms, the valves, what they're for?" "No?"
Then you can't talk about the anatomy of the automobile.
Do you understand that?
If you know nothing about the human body, you can't talk about anatomy.
"People get sick and we don't always know why."
That's something you can't do anything with
If you say "You can't predict human beings.
They all come from different environments
and they have many different reactions.
You can't make them all react the same way."
That doesn't tell you anything
except the person's limitations that they're talking about.
If you're not equipped to understand the answer, you can't ask questions.
If a guy says "You know, electronics can fail too!"
That's participation, but offering nothing.
Do you understand that?
Sometimes I will not engage a person
if I feel they're not talking about the subject.
If they say "You can't predict human behavior.
Different people may have different views." "Well, that's true.
Give me the different views."
"Let's make our building ten stories high
instead of four." "Why do you want to do that?"
Just talk about the subject!
Remember this. This is the thing you have to remember.
People will talk about all kinds of things
but not when their car breaks down.
They take it to an auto mechanic.
When the air-conditioning breaks down
they take it to an air-conditioning mechanic.
You can go to the baker
and he can say "Well, I don't know.
Check the input and output," but he doesn't know.
Everybody likes to feel competent.
Everybody likes to feel they want to participate.
The question is, can they?
The only way you can participate in anything
is to offer a tangible, referential description.
If you believe that all things are affected by other things
that means that human behavior is predictable
if you believe that conditioning shapes behavior.
If you think it's 'inborn,' you can't think about it.
You can't predict.
You say "Who the hell knows what the inborn emotions are going to be!"
If you can't predict it, you can't deal with it.
If you believe that people scratch their heads because it itches
or they think it itches, that's all right
as long as you know why.
Every act, like if a person adjusts their glasses
it means their ear pressure is bad or the vision is not good
or the glasses are too low
and they move it up, you have to ask why they move the glasses.
You can take guesses
but that's not why they move their eyeglasses.
If you believe that human behavior is based upon
what Skinner is known for, reinforcement
he says people will do anything
if you reinforce them in their terms.
A person asks "Do you allow for individuality in that society?"
Individuality to me means, differences in values
by different aspects of the culture.
We can't afford all kinds of individuals.
When a guy wants to wear a suit with 3 creases in it
well, that's individual. But it's 'unsane' individuality.
'Unsane' individuality is when people say
"I've got a new dance, it's this.
You don't need to get up!" Well, that's an individual
but that dance doesn't do anything for people.
Convincing them of that, do they want to know?
"What do you think of this type of dancing?"
I would say, it's no different, no better, no worse
than existing dancing, but I can't deal with that kind of problem.
If I say dancing is a 'nothing' thing
I mean, what does it contribute?
It contributes to the well-being of people. They feel good, dancing.
Is that important? What if they want to see a bullfight?
They feel good watching a bullfight.
"Feel good" is not the ultimate answer
it's the collective utility of the answer
that I would go by.
What will benefit people most? To know about
basic things, how they work, how a flashlight works
how automobiles are interconnected, how we relate to the environment.
If you say man is part of nature
say without food, man cannot survive.
That's what I mean by that when I say he's part of nature.
If the oxygen is not in the air, he will die.
He thinks he's part of nature because he doesn't know
that we depend on nitrogen.
Lightning fixes the nitrogen in the soil.
It makes it available to plants.
Is that the purpose of lightning? No.
Lightning occurs and nitrogen becomes modified.
But lightning is not there to modify the nitrogen.
You can tell by ... electricity would flow only in the ground
and modify the nitrogen only. It wouldn't go through the atmosphere
and hit a tree and a little girl on a bicycle.
Then it means it wasn't designed for a purpose.
If you have ice weather, you say
"The purpose of winter is to give us a change in season. We need change."
People living in the tropics have never heard of winter time
those who've been brought up there
and they wouldn't know what you're talking about.
If they say "What is the winter for?"
you'd reply "Well... it's to give us a change in season."
The average person not being
a meteorologist (a student of weather)
doesn't know what questions to ask
but there are lots of kids who would love to participate.
So they'll say "What if a person doesn't want to live in that city?"
They're looking for participation.
If you say "The water supply is not even in all the houses.
Can you make it so that all people get water when they want it?"
that's what they want to know, but you can't say
"What if I don't want to live in that city?"
That's just bringing up an argument
do you see, for the recognition of participation.
Real participation is "How would you
acclimate people to this design
if they were brought up to believe in individual housing?"
You can't do that unless you tell them
where people get their values from.
If you live in an igloo or a thatched hut
or a wigwam, those become normal to you.
Your assumption that you've answered a person's question
is an assumption unless you ask them "What do you think I mean?"
and they come up with something entirely different, you say
"Apparently I was unable to get that across"
or they don't have the background
to understand what went wrong with the electronics.
If you tell them "The kidney
and the spleen are not working properly"
and they say "Oh" but they don't know anything.
In order to know things, you have to get the handbook of the spleen
and anatomy of different organs:
how they work, what they do.
Do the organs work or are they controlled by emotions?
If you study emotions and the effect on organs
which is another subject altogether:
the psychology of illness.
It isn't always the failure of the kidney.
It could be the failure of love of life in you.
If your whole family is killed in an automobile accident
you may not want to live anymore.
They call that the will to die
and there are some people that can will death.
I know it seems strange but they go to bed at night
and they don't feel alive, and they don't sleep well.
They miss the other people and their life has been cut
what they call their life.
If people live in a world where everybody is friendly
everybody is concerned about your well-being
when your closest friend dies, you're not left alone.
"How am I going to pay the rent? How am I going to eat?"
People live alone today
and I would say that if everybody tried to work
to enhance the lives of everybody else, you wouldn't be desolate
when somebody died in your family that was important to you.
There is no communication with people
that are not schooled in that discipline.
What you have to do is teach them that discipline first
that their behavior is not their own; it's shaped by culture.
If you can convince them, do that first
and then go off in a different direction, you're better off.
If you show them... If they believe that every person's an individual
and individuality is within the person
if you can't disprove that, get out of the conversation
because you can't take it anywhere.
If you get mad at somebody
it means you really don't understand this subject.
If a guy says "You wanna fight?"
he believes that if he can beat you in a fight, he's right.
He may be better at fighting than you are, but it doesn't make him right.
Normal, ordinary people believe
that the guy who's better at fighting is right.
"Right is might!" You've heard that shit.
If you're right, you can get the shit kicked out of you.
Do you understand questions and answers? There are no answers.
An answer is... Can you answer this question:
What makes war, like there's an answer? This is the answer:
It's a whole study of kingdoms and habits of thought
and this nation is different than the other nation
and believes their way is the right way
so they try to kill the other nation.
Are they bad? No. Are they murderers? No.
They're victims of a different culture.
If you can't get to people
instead of saying they're dumb, either you don't have the time
to build a referential language
or they don't have the background to understand you.
That's possible.
I wanted you to get this bit so you don't waste your time.
I don't talk to people that raise questions like:
"You can't predict human behavior." I can't do anything with that.