Stories about humans

I highly recommend this TED talk by Brandon Stanton, creator of Humans of New York. He contrasts his own work with the stories we often see on the television "news." What we see on television are stories carefully filtered to show conflict, sex, violence and danger. It's not a bad thing, per se, to view such stories, but it is a bad thing to accept these stories as representative of the way the world is. I find Humans of New York to be a calming counterbalance to the stories usually presented by the "news."

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Niceness as a Machiavellian business strategy

Beware those nice people out in the business world. Although they are often taken advantage of, they can band together to create jauggernaut business operations. The following comment was written by David Sloan Wilson and Jonathan Haidt, and it appeared in Forbes:

Many people implicitly think that niceness is a virtue for the rest of life, but when it comes to playing business hardball, only the selfish survive. The message of Grant’s book is that this isn’t true, and he gives us both scientific evidence and entertaining profiles for understanding why. Grant divides people into three behavioral categories: givers, matchers, and takers. As their names imply, givers are sweeties who unstintingly share their time and talent, seemingly for the sheer pleasure of it. Matchers calibrate their giving to their taking, and takers take whatever they can get. Who does best playing business hardball? It turns out that the givers do best and worst. When they succumb to the depredations of takers, they become doormats and chumps. But when they manage to work with other givers, they produce spectacular wealth and share the collective benefits. In other words, the costs and benefits of prosociality in the business world are no different than for the rest of life.

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About mentally strong people

Forbes has an article on mentally strong people. Here are the headings of what mentally strong people avoid: 1. Waste Time Feeling Sorry for Themselves. 2. Give Away Their Power. 3. Shy Away from Change. 4. Waste Energy on Things They Can’t Control. 5. Worry About Pleasing Others. 6. Fear Taking Calculated Risks. 7. Dwell on the Past. 8. Make the Same Mistakes Over and Over. 9. Resent Other People’s Success. 10. Give Up After Failure. 11. Fear Alone Time. 12. Feel the World Owes Them Anything. 13. Expect Immediate Results.

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Choice of religion as a Hobson’s Choice

This article at Paleolibrarian makes the argument that religion is a classic Hobson's Choice.

If you are unfamiliar with Hobson’s choice it is essentially the option of no options. It is the illusion of fair and free choice set within only one possible outcome. So if you’re offered just one option and you’re told you can take it or leave it, is that really a choice?
How many religions have urged that they would encourage you to engage in free thinking, as long as you come up with the right conclusions? Stir in threats of ostracizing those who come up with the wrong conclusion combined with the fear of hell, and many a believer has been convinced to draw the curve before plotting the data. All of this is compliments of the confirmation bias, the cognitive bias that causes us to seek evidence that leads us where we want to go and blinds us to conflicting evidence. Thus, many people "choose" religion after asphyxiating their own thought process. But it feels as though one is thinking freely all the way to the preordained conclusion that embracing one's religion--usually the religion one was taught as a child--is logical.

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Sign of the times regarding government surveillance

Back in June, ProPublica published an article advising methods for communicating over the Internet while maintaining privacy. Edward Snowden's revelations have now caused ProPublica to issue a big red flag on its article. Encryption might no longer be effective. How did we get to this point where it is obviously illegal for the government to break into my house and rummage through my drawers without probable cause, but they rummage through my data with the help of and coercion of corporate communications companies? They do it because they CAN do it. These revelations also point out that in the political world explanations are streams of sounds (or scribbles) that would lack any punch except that they are created by entities that can threaten violence. In the case of the NSA, it is the violence of the police state. It is a violence so pronounced that it has ruined the possibility of investigative journalism which, until recent times, was the People's best chance to keep their government in check.

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