Self-describing Andy

[andrewducker]

Last week yonmei asked for people to describe their societies in 20 words or less.

I've failed miserably.

What started off as a list of attributes of my society turned into a desctiprion of an idealised society (as I realised I didn't really inhabit a society as such) and then into a kind of self-description. And I realised that my list of attributes didn't really work by itself. What it needed was connection between the differerent descriptions, to show how I fit together.

It's not done yet, and every time I look at it I move links about the place, change descriptive words, etc. As with any attempt to reduce a real life situation to a simple set of descriptors, it's personal, inadequate and facile. But I rather like it. Surprisingly easy to do too. If anyone's interested in knowing how it was done, leave a comment and I'll get around to writing it up.



The set of links that produced it is:

graph G {
Neophilic -- "Forward thinking";
"Forward thinking" -- "Long termist";
Neophilic -- "Information rich";
Subjective -- Intersubjective;
Intersubjective -- "Non-judgemental";
"Non-judgemental" -- Understanding ;
Subjective -- Empirical;
Experimental -- Empirical;
Empirical -- Logical;
Logical -- Abstract;
Logical -- Sceptical;
Logical -- Meritocratic;
"Long termist" -- Meritocratic;
Logical -- Argumentative;
Meritocratic -- Anarchic;
Abstract -- Focused;
Focussed -- "Absent minded";
Focussed -- "Single tasking";
"Absent minded" -- Oblivious;
Pragmatic -- Logical;
Pragmatic -- Experimental;
Supportive -- Pragmatic;
Supportive -- Understanding;
Neophilic -- Supportive;
Socialist -- Supportive;
Empirical -- Systemising;
Supportive -- Idealistic;
Idealistic -- Socialist;
Pragmatic -- Capitalist;
Anarchic -- Capitalist;
Experimental -- "Truth seeking";
"Information rich" -- "Understanding";
Insecure -- Controlling;
Controlling -- "Truth seeking";
Insecure -- "Non-judgemental";
Understanding -- "Truth seeking";
Agnostic -- Sceptical;
"Open minded" -- "Non-judgemental";
Agnostic -- "Open minded";
Abstract -- Systemising;
Sceptical -- Empirical;
"Open minded" -- Empirical;
Anarchic -- Hedonistic;
Controlling -- Socialist;
Subjective -- Sceptical;
"Open minded" -- Subjective;
Hedonistic -- Focused;
Focussed -- Argumentative;
Argumentative -- "Problem Oriented";
"Problem Oriented" -- Insecure;
}

Comments

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Are the length of the links significant? {methinks, probably not)
Is the link count between concepts significant? (methinks must be, or it'd just be a list)

[andrewducker]

There should only be one link between any two items. If there's more it's because I missed them.

The link lengths are as short as the algorithm can make them. I believe the mechanism it uses is to semi-randomly place down the nodes and then try to shorten the links in all directions, until the force on a node is equal in all directions. It's not perfect, as a node can end up in an odd place due to it's original starting point, but it seems to work well.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

So the diagram tells us nothing more than the list of paired words (that is, not very much at all).

have you been up all night or something?

Maybe if things were bigger or bolder or differently coloured to indicate how their relative importance or whatever, it might be interesting as a diagram of you.

As it is, it just looks like inapproriate use of a diagram, probably cos you are using them in a spec [maybe even appropriately - I get specs full of spurious, non-informational UML all the time. that's what we get for training the business liason dudes in UML] and have got all carried-away in geekiness.

[andrewducker]

The diagram is the list of paired words. It was programmatically produced from the list. I included the list so that (a) other people would have a second way of looking at the same information and (b) I could recreate the diagram later.

And I found it interesting in and of itself. Seeing the different clusters was intriguing to me, and being able to trace back that the reason for my liking of capitalism was a mixture of anarchy and prgamatism, for instance.

Ooh, just noticed that I've spelt Focused two different ways. Must fix that when I get home...