Haidt on Anti-Fragility and the Safety Culture

n this lecture, Jonathan Haidt describes the new Manichean culture, where some groups of people are inherently good and other are inherently bad. Many of the "good" groups have found power in victimhood, demanding (and getting, especially at universities) protection from the authorities. This "safety culture" has proven to be debilitating, infantilizing the protected group. What they actually need is challenges and hurdles, which will make them stronger. People are anti-fragile. As shown with bones, immune systems and helicopter parenting, lack of insult weakens individuals. Haidt argues that all of this dependence culture has the opposite effect than the one intended. The only group subjected to challenges and insults without no societal support are straight white men (11:00 min), which is much better preparation for holding a job than a lifetime of victimhood, dependence and safety culture.

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Jonathan Haidt: Diversity can only thrive within a shared sense of identity.

The most perplexing question over the past decade is why the left and right talk past each other. When the one speaks, the other hears nonsense. Diversity is praised by one side and ridiculed by the other. In this presentation, Jonathan Haidt argues that diversity can only thrive within a shared sense of identity. What we have in the U.S. is the lack of a shared sense of identity. This presentation builds upon much of Haidt's work (not elaborated upon in this talk) on the moral foundations.

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Read more about the article A 2,500 Year Old Warning About Our President

A 2,500 Year Old Warning About Our President

Aesop had a tale that is quite apropos right now: The Frogs Desiring a King (a.k.a "King Log and King Stork") is about a group clamoring for a strong handed leader, someone to declare moral rules and enforce them on the people. The Republicans (the party currently wanting to have government enforce ones personal morality, especially in the bedroom) chose Trump (as amoral an individual who ever took the proverbial throne) and somehow got him into power. Splash. The Democrats, aghast at the dangerous ignorance and exemplary incompetence of this purported moral leader, strive to have him impeached; to oust this King Log. So who would be our King Stork? Pence, a man who is neither uneducated nor incompetent. One who is actually a willing enforcer of a particular moral code, a one size fits all set of rules that most Americans don't actually live by, but some few vocal ones want to enforce it on everyone. This, despite the constitutional prohibition about the government enforcing the moral codes of a particular religion, is why he had the second seat next to the regularly bankrupt (both morally and financially) head of state. So, from frying pan into fire?

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About Google Scientist James Damore

I know I'm late to the game on this Google incident, but this is such a good illustration about how we, as a society, are unable to talk and think about serious issues except through our ideological filters. Further, some questions that can be explored through science apparently should no longer be even raised. First, a comment from a Gizmodo article by Melanie Ehrenkranz, who characterizes former Google Engineer James Damore as follows: "The man thinks women are inferior to men as engineers." That is typical of a lot of how Damore has been treated on the Internet. Now consider the basic facts about what Damore wrote at Google:

Calling the culture at Google an "ideological echo chamber", the memo says that while discrimination exists, it is extreme to ascribe all disparities to oppression, and it is authoritarian to try to correct disparities through reverse discrimination. Instead, it argues that male/female disparities can be partly explained by biological differences. According to research he cited, those differences include women generally having a stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism (a higher-order personality trait). Damore's memorandum also suggests ways to adapt the tech workplace to those differences to increase women's representation and comfort, without resorting to discrimination.
Damore has given detailed interviews about what happened at Google and why he wrote his comments. That includes this interview with Joe Rogan:

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Shall We Meet for Lunch or Hold a Walking Business Meeting in the Park?

“Let’s have lunch, OK?” That used to be my suggestion when I wanted to talk with someone, whether it be catching up with a friend or the need to discuss business. That was before the biometrics of Fitbit, among other things, nudged me to reach for a different way to conduct a small business meeting. Now, when I need to talk business, I often ask whether, instead of lunch, my acquaintance would like to talk while we walk in a park. I started doing this a couple years ago, and to my surprise the great majority of people would rather walk than sit in a restaurant or coffee shop.

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