Timetable Stuff, Sem 2, 2009

Subjects

·                                 512320-Research Methods 3 ·                                 512322-Industrial/Organisational Psychology 3 ·                                 512360-Personality and Social Psychology 3

Time	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu
2 pm	Indust/Org 322 Redmond Barry-1125 (Comp Lab) Practical 95% full	Indust/Org 322 Th:David Caro-Laby Theatre Lecture 85% full	Per Soc Ps 360 Redmond Barry-615 Practical 96% full
3 pm	Indust/Org 322 Redmond Barry-1125 (Comp Lab) Practical 95% full	Indust/Org 322 Th:David Caro-Laby Theatre Lecture 85% full	Per Soc Ps 360 Redmond Barry-615 Practical 96% full
4 pm		Res Method 320 Th:Richard Berry-JH Michell Theatre Lecture (overfull)	Per Soc Ps 360 Th:Elisabeth Murdoch-Theatre A Lecture 80% full	Res Method 320 Th:Richard Berry-JH Michell Theatre Lecture (overfull)
5 pm			Per Soc Ps 360 Th:Elisabeth Murdoch-Theatre A Lecture 80% full
6 pm		Res Method 320 Redmond Barry-1125 (Comp Lab) Practical (full)

Current timetable. I rarely go to my lectures, except I will start going to my Pers Psych ones because MrMan5.5's friend's dad is the lecturer and he is making me go.

This roster, I'm working:

Thu 27/08/09 8-4

Fri 28/08/09 8-4

Sat 29/08/09 6-2

Fri 04/09/09 8-4

Sat 05/09/09 8-6

Fri 11/09/09 8-4

Sat 12/09/09 8-6

Wed 16/09/09 (hopefully that one gets swapped away)

Thu 17/09/09 8-6

Fri 18/09/09 8-4

Sun 20/09/09 (picking that one up)

Fri 25/09/09 8-4

Sat 26/09/09 6-4

Sun 27/09/09 8-4 (picking that one up)

What's In It For Me?

I had a discussion with Gary Paul about altruism, and whether it truly exists. Mostly it was something I had blogged about before, but to save you (and me) the trouble of going back to find it, he mentioned how people who do "good deeds" may do them for the good feeling that comes from doing something nice, and not ask for anything in return, but if you think about it, that in itself is a reward for the deed, so in a sense, it's like they are getting something, so it's not entirely altruistic. Also, they may be doing the deed to help out a friend, in which case, their reward would be perhaps a future favour from the friend, or an increased standing in that friend's opinion.

I am one of those stupidly optimistic people in the sense that I believe people can be genuinely altruistic. Sure, a good deed may come with some sort of reward, but if you think about it, that reward may not nearly make up for the cost of doing the deed in the first place. If that is the case, then the altruistic person would be incurring a cost for doing the deed, and the overall gain for that person would be a loss, even if they managed to get some reward. When I had more time to bake things, I would sometimes drive out to people and give them whatever it was I baked. Most of the people I went to visit were at least 20-30 minutes away from me. Who is to say that the feeling I got from bringing someone something that might potentially poison a friend (I'm so evil) outweighed the time I lost during the delivery process, or the cost of the ingredients of said baked item? (Although, for the record, I haven't felt like it wasn't worth it for me in the past, so even though I don't see it as an altruistic act, I still hold the belief that one exists.) In this case, I'm working with a modified version of the word altruism in which the act is one in which a person does something that results in a net loss (or at least no net gain) for them.

I was reading a book about game theory, and in the book, the authors discussed a game called the Ultimatum Game. In the game, there are two players, A and B. They are to split some money between them, let's say $10. A can choose the amount that each person will receive (say $6:$4), and B will choose whether to accept or reject. If B accepts, then both players will receive the amount stipulated by A, but if B rejects, then both players receive nothing. If you look at both of the expected payoffs, you would think that B should accept whatever A suggests (except in the case of $10:$0, in which case it doesn't really matter to B whether they accept or reject because they'll get $0 either way, but they might reject just to "punish" A for being so selfish) as B is better off with whatever value A decides to give than with nothing at all. You would think then that it is in A's best interests to offer something like $9.90:10c to B, because A knows that B gets a better payoff from accepting that offer than rejecting it. However, the authors of the book, and other studies have found that A players tend to offer 50:50 values, and have attributed this to people's sense of "fairness".

There are obviously other things that can be attributed to A's seemingly generous offer, such as A's belief that B will reject anything that seems unfair to B, even if it means they both end up with nothing, as A believes B would rather end up with nothing than end up in a situation where A gets more than he should. There were more studies done with a variation of this game called the Dictator Game, in which A's role is the same, but B's role is simply to accept whatever A offers, so A is the "dictator" and decides who receives what. They found that A players still tended to offer 50:50 deals, even though there is no chance that B could reject it at all. I think this shows that people are willing to do what they think is "right" even if it results in no gain for them, and they even end up with a loss.

On a side note, they did some studies looking at how cultural backgrounds changed people's responses in the dictator game (this is all second-hand from the book, it was a reserve book from the library, so I had to return it, and really can't be bothered looking up the references now). They had women of Western backgrounds play with men from countries where women were believed to be inferior, and even though the women were offering 50:50 offers ,the men tended to offer 80:20 offers, believing that women do not deserve more than 4 times what a man receives.

I'm trying to think of a "truly" altruistic act, and just from the things that Gary Paul stated that make most seemingly altruistic acts not altruistic, it's hard. In order to negate the positive feeling that comes from doing something for someone, you'd have to either be the kind of person who doesn't get a kick from that kind of thing (in which case it would be not altruistic due to a personality difference rather than "truly" altruistic), or you would have to not know about it - or at least the good that came from the act. Then to negate the change of opinion in the good deed's recipient, or any other witnesses that happen to be there and who also think that it was a good deed, you'd have to make sure nobody else knows about it, including the beneficiary. My first thought was for you to set up a trust fund in which money was given to someone chosen by a third party, of whom you are unaware of, so you don't get to see the result of your action, but then you would have the good feeling of having set that trust up in the first place. So you would need to have the money there, and someone able to access it, but without your consent, or knowledge. Then a recipient has to receive your money (and be in need of it, since giving money to someone who is already filthy rich isn't really a good deed???) without knowledge that it's from you. Though if you use the second suggestion, then are you really doing a good deed, since this requires no action on your part (other than perhaps acquiring the money)? Maybe the good deed comes from your not complaining that some of your money has gone missing, but it seems strange that a good deed would result of inaction rather than some sort of action. If a large chunk of my money suddenly disappeared, I'd like to know what happened to it, so if it happened to me, I'd probably launch an investigation and end up finding out who the recipient of my money is and potentially be able to see the change in their quality of life since receiving the money and consequently gain a good feeling from it.

If you look at it from another point of view, is the good deed being done by the third party? They are acting as kind of a Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, and even though they're doing something bad to the first person you might think that the negative feeling that came from the loss of money for the rich guy would be less than the positive feeling that came from the gain of money for the poor guy (although I've never been rich, and I really don't know what it's like to lose a lot of money, I just know that losing $100 is a lot to me, but seems to be nothing to Julian - although that might just be due to his increased threshold of pain (to losing money). Not that I'm saying Julian is rich, I'm just trying to illustrate that losing various amounts of money has differing effects on people).

Leaving the Nest

In July last year, MrMan5.5 put a dead spider on my sister as a joke, and she completely freaked out and got really angry at him. Not long afterwards, she stopped talking to me. For some unknown reason, she started talking to me again a few months later, and everything was back to normal, she seemed to have forgiven MrMan5.5, and all was good. Then at the start of this year, I was leaving to go to MrMan5.5's beach house with Sharon and Graham and while I was in the shower, I heard Anjelica asking my mum why MrMan5.5 was here so often. Mum replied that it was because he was my boyfriend, so it was understandable that we'd want to spend a lot of time together. After I got out, I confronted Anjelica and asked her why she didn't want him here, and she said that she was still angry about the whole spider thing. It had been over 6 months since the spider thing happened, and I thought that was a stupidly long time to hold a grudge, so I raged at her and then left with MrMan5.5. We stopped talking again. A couple of months ago, mum told me that the fact that Anjelica and I weren't talking to each other was causing her a lot of stress, partly because Anjelica was having trouble with her schoolwork, and mum had planned for me to help her with Year 12, so I went to Anjelica and tried to work things out with her, but she didn't want to. We're still not talking.

Not long ago, she started complaining about MrMan5.5 being over and the fact that we make too much noise and she has trouble sleeping at night, so I asked him to stop coming over. Last night, we went to see a movie, and as it finished so late I suggested he stay at my house so that he wouldn't have to wake up as early to go to work the next day. We didn't make any noise, and went to bed as soon as we got home, yet, she still woke up and started yelling and screaming that she couldn't live like this anymore, and ran off. Dad went to get her, but I decided that it would probably be better if I didn't live with my family anymore, so now I'm temporarily staying with MrMan5.5's family until I find somewhere else, I guess. I told mum that I would go home and try to talk things over, but considering the hours that I work, it's impossible for me not to come home late, and seeing as she is in her final year of high school and trying to get into uni, it's unfair to her if I make so much noise coming home at 4AM.

To be honest, I was mostly in a shock last night after I left my house. I was reminded of those team-building exercises they make you do where they have a list of items, and they put you in a situation like there's a bush fire approaching your house and you have to leave, what would you take with you? I know it's not the same, as it's not like I won't be able to go home, but it also kinda felt like I had to pack the rest of my life into two bags, and I thought I would be more sentimental, but I didn't take any photo albums or the box of every Christmas card, birthday card and personal letter I've ever received. All I took were clothes, chargers for my phone and PSP, DVDs, toiletries and uni stuff. I think part of me is still hoping that after all of this blows over, I can just go back home and everything will be back to normal, but the rational part of me is scared that now that I've done this, I'll never be welcome in my home again. I'm really relieved that MrMan5.5's parents are OK with me staying at their house though.

A few months ago, I told my mum that the only graduate position I applied for was in Canberra. She got really upset saying that I was leaving my family behind and that I didn't care about them, and started yelling at me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the only reason
that was the only job I applied for was because I had been too slack and that the other deadlines for applications for jobs I was interested in or qualified for had passed and this was the only job left. =/ She would probably just have yelled at me more anyway. But that was when I started thinking about moving out, and how I would go about it. I imagined spending months trying to find the right place to live, going to inspections and fighting with other potential renters. Going out and looking at furniture and buying all the crap that you take for granted as being in your house like a fridge, washing machine and dryer. Having a housewarming where your friends get to Christen your new house with vomit all over the carpet.

I guess I understand how Korsair feels now. I thought about moving out with him the first time he told me he had been kicked out, but it wouldn't work, seeing as he needs to live away from the city, and I need to live close to it, for work and uni. I mentioned in the past that Graham has wanted me to move out with him, but he has moved in with friends recently, so that wouldn't work. I could live alone, but I don't really think I could afford it, and even shifts at work have started becoming mainly just weekend shifts, with people fighting over any spare shifts on other days.

Speaking of work, seeing as my incredible graduate applications (that really shouldn't be plural, but it makes me feel better) have turned up nothing, and my career as a student is coming to an end at the end of this semester, I've been thinking about whether I want to keep working as a dealer. I know for sure now that given the choice, I'm definitely going to pick poker over baccarat even if it means players will pee on me, because I can wash pee off, but the guilt of taking enough money to buy myself a new house in one hand is something I don't think I can get over so easily. I told Matty my reasoning and he said that if I had such a guilty conscience, then I'm working in the wrong place.

It's kinda strange that when I first started, I hated it when people won a lot of money at my table, it meant so much more work for me. I knew 1, 2, 3 x 17 and 35 off the top of my head, but anything higher than that required mental dexterity that I hadn't yet achieved, and so it was a strain. I was also more of a section spinner and didn't know how to get out of the zero-section, so "Zero Gamers" would flock to my table and crowd around like crazy. Now I can usually work out most payouts in a second, and the huge towering stack of chips isn't daunting anymore, but I can't seem to section spin anymore, and so the ball goes all over the place, making my newfound mathematical abilities kinda useless. Contrary to their beliefs, I want them to win, and it's really hard seeing people who look like my grandma losing a pile of chips just because my ball went haywire.

I miss my computer, I really want to play WoW, TF2 and HoN, but I had to leave my computer at home because I share it with Amanda and dad, and it wouldn't be fair to Alex to take it with me. Speaking of Alex, I bought him a G15 keyboard for his 21st, but so far, the only thing he has used it for is a table for resting things on (it's still in its box). Maybe I am really out of touch with my family and moving out is a good thing.

Long post means only one thing - I have something due tomorrow and I don't want to start it. Can't escape it though. =(