Found this on Girl vs MMO and it’s based on a current topic of how women are treated on the internet.  ‘Tis true that there are issues and more so that people tend to ignore it or jump on the bandwagon. The GIFT theory stands.  People as a whole need to stand up a bit more.

So after 5 days in Vegas, I’m wrecked.  Came pretty close to the budget I thought (about 2K, flight and all) so that’s good.

Vegas, if you’re there for the typical Vegas Bash, is such an exaggeration it nears the absurd.  Anything you want to do – shoot machine guns, swim with animals, swim, watch movies, see Monet, hooters everywhere and drugs aplenty – are at your disposal with the right amount of cash on hand.  It’s uncompromising debauchery and the Sin City earns it’s name.

I did have a good group of guys to head down with and that’s what kept the time fun.  If you’re laughing all the time, then it’s all good.

Some interesting points:

• Smoking everywhere.  Coming from a smoke-free city (heck country practically) this made me nauseous indoors
• Every woman under 30 dresses like a hooker past 10pm.  The only way to tell them apart is the regular women can’t walk in 8 inch heels.
• People bring newborns/infants out on the street at 1am
• You can get cheap food if you look hard enough.  Quick food is expensive though (10$ for 2 coffees)
• There is Vegas at 7am, Vegas at noon, Vegas at 10pm and Vegas at 2am.  They are 4 different cities.
• Prepare to walk – alot – if you’re not in the middle of the strip.  Even then.
• Vegas off-strip is incredibly poor and in shambles.  Quite the contrast.
• There are next to no quiet spots.
• If you’re female and in a bar, you’ll get asked to go to a room.  Even if you’re sitting with someone else.
• If you’re in a group of males, expect working women and drugs to be offered
• I didn’t see/hear any slot machines go off for the 5 days and I was in the casinos a lot.  That struck me as odd since the lone casino here seems to have at least 1 machine ring an hour – even for small amounts.
• Booze and food, in the typical american fashion, is served in large amounts.  Drinks have 3-4 ounces of liquor.  Food plates could feed a family of 3.
• Every service person has a smile and is polite.  Guess they know they can be replaced with ease and a smile makes money.
• Food budget should be around 100$ per day for mid-range food.  A half-decent restaurant will be 75-150$ per meal though.

Did it, don’t regret it, won’t go back.

I friend sent me a link to Seth Godin’s blog called Extending the Narrative.  I’ve read his stuff in the past and he does a decent job of explaining marketing strategy along with basic human psychology to the masses.  Then again, you can’t adequately express why a mid-life crisis happens in a page – just that it does and you need to move on.

That being said, it does make you think a bit more about the psychological needs versus the wants.  It’s an old saying but you really need to distinguish what the human needs to survive and flourish when compared to its wants.  In the 50s, Maslow described a simple pyramid of needs.

At the very bottom are what most people consider “human rights”.  They are above religion or political influence – for the most part.  In our country, they are assured to every citizen, even the homeless.

The second tier is where every generation above the age of 35 has lived.  Very rarely have older people, as a whole, moved to the next tier.  When you need to worry about food on the table, wars going on, a roof over your head or even having a job – life is hard.  I’m not saying it’s not a problem today, it is, though the problem is less today than it was 30 years ago.  In developing countries, this is still the primary tier.

Third tier is a psychological one for closeness.  This is when you are comfortable enough in your situation that you are ready to reach out to others.  Charity, equality and whatnot.  As you can guess, this is something the industrial nations of the world deal with currently.  Given a united planet (through the connections of the internet), this will be the main focus for some time at a group level.

Next is the self esteem or perhaps social acceptance.  When your personal circle is “complete” you start branching out to other groups.  Personal value/importance is always a strong motivator.  Teenagers live in this group since everything below that is usually provided to them by their parents.  Once you move out, then you drop down a level (or two).  Our generation (35 and below) will move in and out of this tier.

The last one, self-actualization, is one that few people ever hit.  Religion can never provide it, since religion by its very nature is group-minded.  Money can never buy it, since it’s a personal reflection and above the material world.  Other people can point in a direction but that is usually theirs and not yours.  I can only think of a few people off-hand that have done this.  I haven’t.

What does this have to do with anything?  Well, when you’re considering your wants versus your needs it’s basically saying that you need something to complete a given tier but want something from a tier above it.  Everyone wants to be loved but until their need of safety has been fulfilled, it’s only a want.  People need to figure out what it is from each of these tiers that best identifies them and focus on ensuring they are actually met.  If you have self-doubts or have a dire need to be respected by others you will never be able to self-actualize.  If you can’t put food on the table you don’t need to be worrying about how others perceive you.

And to go full circle, if you reach a wall on a given tier you will dive into the previous one and splurge.  You know you’re good but failure pushes you to ensure that if you do fall down, it’s a comfortable fall.  The same goes when you’ve “completed” a tier, you celebrate it by splurging.  Empty nest at home?  No need to worry about safety anymore.  Retired from work?  Splurge. Got accolades from colleagues?  Splurge.  It’s a psychological reflex and completely understandable.

We celebrate our successes as well as our failures.  It’s only human.

In any given context, I lack focus in the immediate.  My mind wanders continuously among multiple variables and planes where I can seem extremely interested but I’ve actually moved on.  Some times when I have conversations with my wife, I’ll start laughing for no reason.  It isn’t because she said something funny, it’s because she said something that made me think of something else (a few something elses) and that made me laugh.  It’s distracting and makes it seem like I don’t care.  I do and I understand everything that’s said, it’s just that my mind works faster than people talk.

Here’s a good example.  Let’s say we’re talking and the word orange comes up.  For most people, the word simply means what it means.  You might visualize it, you might think you smell it but that’s it.  You hear the word, capture the word and move on.

I tend to stray at this point.  I hear orange and I immediately think of 4-5 associated topics, and a few sub-topics each.  I then focus on the most important one and continue down that path.  So you might be talking about oranges but in about 2 seconds, I’m thinking about Christmas 3 years ago, the meal I had and what I thought was the best part.

This gets really bad when we’re talking about a particularly interesting topic that requires reasoning and factual argument – like why the financial collapse is the result of a multiple-system failure.

So there’s a good side to this and that’s that I do very well on association games, have a well above average memory and could probably make a fair amount of money on Jeopardy.  Conversations are usually pretty easy since I’m versed in practically any topic that can come up.  I also tend to look at the big picture, sort of seeing all the dominoes in the chain.  Heck, it’s like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon but on everything.

The downside is that I am rarely surprised.  I might be curious as to the inner workings of something and study it until I have a good grasp – but surprises are very rare since I can relate anything to anything else.  I put things into categories and systemize them.  Social events are simply action/reactions that I can navigate through.  I can judge someone within a few seconds based on past experiences.  I can control what people think and do to a certain extent, as I can nudge them in a particular direction with questions and suggestions.  It’s manipulative and boring so I rarely do it but it’s exceedingly easy once you know how.

The worst though, above everything else, is that I can’t turn it off.  The entire time I’ve written this post, I’ve been doing it.  I will stare at the ceiling, every night in bed.  Sports are a small distraction as the input is continuous, not giving me a whole lot of time to branch off but on the hockey bench between shifts, I do it.  Heck, talking to a counselor or a doctor, I’ll do it.   It can be exhausting.

So while I live with it, I need to find ways to cope with it. I play games, increase my input stimulation, put myself in situations where there is no advantage to doing it (big one here) and find outlets for when it does happen.  This website is one of the coping mechanisms.

In the end though, if you and I are talking and I seem to either be rambling or lost in thought during a moment of silence, it isn’t because I’m not interested.  On the contrary, I’m exceedingly interested as you’ve turned on the mental switch that will try and bring more to the conversation.  Just be aware that once you get me going, it’s hard to get me to stop.

Couldn’t resist.  Try it yourself.

I love TED and this video is one of the better ones.  A great talk about moral diversity and the difference between “left” and “right” minded people. Probably society’s largest challenge in the next 5 years is going to be bridging this gap.