A hazard of working with information is that you develop a sense for information streams; when they're misrouted or incomplete or filled with bad data. Eventually even a guy like me transfers that "sense of bad data" into political savvy. I realized this in 1997 and since then I've distilled some basic rules -
"If someone's actions make no sense, then
a) they have information that you lack, or
b) you have information that they lack"
A related concept is The Conspiracy. Conspiracies control information flows so that one party can exploit the ignorance of other parties. And certain environments promote or hinder conspiracies based on information flows.
Where does this all lead? To a personal anecdote from 1997, of course! Why would you retain an employee who sabotaged your technical infrastructure? In my world, this makes no sense. It probably makes no sense in yours, either. So why would it happen?
Politics and conspiracies, that's why.
Two years later, I still couldn't understand what happened, so armed with the Internet and several thousand dollars, I bought credit records, birth records, employment and residence history and other obscure information which revealed that several co-workers and management were Mormon church members, some legal counsel and an investigator were also Mormon, that they were linked in other ways but most importantly, that the Employee Saboteur was Mormon. Not just a Mormon, but an illegimate fifth-generation offspring of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church. Property ownership records implied incest and possible child abuse so I travelled to California to physically verify my suspicions.
Ahhh.
That four months of incomprehensible behavior suddenly made sense to me.
Since then, I've done a few other investigations. There's always a hidden reason for inexplicable behavior. For almost a year I've been in a situation with Seattle's Goth culture. I couldn't make sense of certain behavior. But I had missing information and poor assumptions. About women, specifically.
It makes sense to me now.
Most of it, at least.
I've discovered a couple new things about cults & conspiracies and disappointing realizations about myths which I thought were untrue.
My curiosity is satisfied.
But my heart is sad.
Posted by credit card terminal and processing on February 20, 2007 at 10:03 AM EST
Website: http://del.icio.us/credit_card_terminal #