h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What do you think initiative is? Do you think it can be measured? Do you think it would be difficult to do something outrageous - such as running naked down the street - of your own volition but easier if the act was sanctioned by an authority figure such as a renowned psychologist?

Surely if you ran down street after someone said it was OK you wouldn't be using your initiative?
.
I think initiative makes creative people somtimes, people who are willing to go out on a limb.

I don't think it can be measured.
And I've heard that under hypnosis you can't be made to do things (like harming or killing people, or running down the road naked) you wouldn't do when you're conscious, so why do you think you could be made doing them by a psychologist or other authoritative figure?

>why do you think you could be made doing them by a psychologist or other authoritative figure?


This is why:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_Experiment

I've read about that. But I'm with Stangely Strange here, if you just obey orders, you're not showing initiative.

Yes, I'd forgotten about the Milgram experiment - and I've just remembered the Stanford Prison experiment too. The first two questions are the questions I've had on my mind as I've realised that 'initiative' is a word I use without knowing the dictionary definition and I thought I'd like to hear what the word means to H2 folk before I look up the word in the dictionary.

>> ...realised that 'initiative' is a word I use without knowing the dictionary definition... <<

Hey... most of my own vocabulary is based solely on an intuitive understanding from hearing the way other people use words.

Unhappily, many nouns wander from the root meaning of the verb from which they come.
To "initiate" simply means to start something.
The first of a series of somethings can be referred to as the "initial" something.
And while there should really be no value-laden notions about whether what was 'initiated' was a good idea or not, 'initiative' is often used to mean an 'incentive', presumably of some positive value.

Initially yours,
~jwf~

I would say initiative is the ability to think for yourself, often in spontaneous situations like an accident where someone is badly hurt, or one of those ludicrous scenarious in a job interview, or if you are attacked by an inflatable penguin in the middle of oxford street, or something.

And a person with initiative is often called a '*self*-starter'.