But... maybe we all go through life with varying amounts of self-deceit
and the trick is really to minimize the level even though it may be
impossible to reduce it to zero.
> For eight years I enjoyed umpiring high-school baseball. I did my very
> best every game, saw myself as improving, and honestly thought myself to
> be one of the best umpires in our association. Then we instituted peer
> ratings. For the first two years, I got ratings slightly below average.
> I quit after the second year.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Assuming that the peer ratings
were reasonably objective are you saying that you would be better
off not knowing the truth?
> David Buss, in his book The Evolution of Desire, details research in
> which men were shown to consistently overrate women's interest in them.
> He concluded that believing women were more interested than they really
> were was a successful mating strategy and therefore evolution selected
> for it.
I believe that: overconfidence is far better than underconfidence
in the mating game, so if one is going to err it is better to err on
the side of overrating womens' interest. But that doesn't mean it
is better than having an accurate perspective.
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/