Distrust

It all started a few days ago when Marie sent out a funny email to several of us: that's me, Schmidt, and her sister Cuñada. As follows:

https://triblive.com/news/roman-numerals-anyone-poll-suggests-bias-against-arabic-numerals/

No comment needed, really!

I read the article -- feel free to go do so as well, it may be more entertaining than anything I write here -- and then replied at somewhat greater length.

Huge smile. 

Actually my first thought is that there are at least two factors at work here.One is simple ignorance, of course: the people surveyed don’t know that the numerals we use every day are called “Arabic”. And that’s not a shock. People forget a lot of what they hear in school unless they need it for something, and most people can get through the day without knowing what to call our standard set of numerals. Yes, it’s the kind of thing that is easy for people like us to learn and remember, but maybe we’re not a majority. :-) 

The second, though, is a kind of guilelessness. I suspect that most people who answer surveys do not start by assuming that the motivation behind the survey is to make fun of them; in the same way, I suspect that most people who answer surveys assume that the question “Should we teach X in the schools?” implies that we aren’t already doing it. Note the qualifier “people who answer surveys”. I, for example, never answer surveys because I assume that every survey has a malign hidden purpose. Sometimes I can tell that the point of the survey is to sell me something, and I’m not interested. Other times I can’t see an obvious ulterior motive, but in that case I assume that the true motive is so horrible that the people behind it have gone to great lengths to hide it.  

You could argue that I am unduly suspicious. There are probably 12-step programs for people like me. My only point is that people who willingly answer surveys are a lot less suspicious than I am.

Cuñada thought this was very funny, and chimed in:

LOL!  Hosea, I can see why Marie "kinda likes" you-on a Likert Scale, you'd be at least a 3 on "does she like you?"  -but you would not answer it, so you might not get the results of that survey!  The news made me laugh, since it was less than a month ago that my middle schoolers read about Muslim contributions to society (and numerals and Algebra figured prominently).

__________

So far, so good.

But then I started to think about it a little more. I really don't trust people much. I don't take surveys, but then I don't discuss my opinions even with people I know. That is to say, I've got strong opinions about how things should be done at work, and I'm not shy about those. But I don't discuss politics, not even with friends. I don't discuss religion. I don't discuss what I want out of a job, that might help me find another one rather than just drifting. I don't discuss what I want out of a car, that might lead to somebody helping me out with good advice the way that Wife just helped out Son 1.

Instead of talking about what is going on with me, I keep myself to myself.

Do I want to change?

I don't know. In the abstract, I think trusting more people sounds like a good thing to do. In the practical and particular, I don't know what it would look like.