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Something to ponder: is achieving some of the Moral Good now better than achieving more of the Moral Good later? Given that increasingly later is increasingly uncertain, at what point of later/uncertainty should one just say “screw it” and commit to action? (The answer, as always: it depends).
In other words, if carrots and sticks change the behavior, then the person has at least some control over the behavior, which is another way of saying: if one is able to engage in goal-directed behavior (e.g. approach carrot, avoid stick), one is responsible to some degree for one’s actions and the outcomes of those actions…That’s where “stigma” comes in. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “stigma in the context of health is the negative association between a person or group of people who share certain characteristics and a specific disease, including mental illness”. And per the voluminous literature on stigma, a common stigmatizing stereotype associated with mental health disorders such as drug addiction is that people are responsible for their condition.
According to John Kelly of Mashed Radish , the word “hassle” may have originated from a blend of words that represent small, intense repeated actions, such as haggle and tussle or harass and hustle. To call something a hassle is to say it requires an annoying amount of time and energy while engaged in a series of small, intense actions. For example…
Then again, false equivalence is much more than a matter of flawed reasoning or cognitive bias. Comparisons reflect an understanding of how the world works, what leads to what and over what time frame. A problematic comparison may stem from empirical error, logical error, or both. But people rarely hold themselves to some scientific standard of accuracy. Sometimes a comparison is made to serve a larger point and it’s not really advancing the conversation by nitpicking minor errors.
Ok, so fear of getting caught deters crime more than fear of the legal consequences after getting caught. That makes sense, given that the former is a more immediate concern than the latter. But then, if getting caught were never followed by serious consequences, it would cease being a threat. Consequences still matter.
I would have thought there’d be a closer relationship between type of government (e.g., democratic versus autocratic) and perceived freedom of choice and control. True, a greater percentage of US and Canadian respondents reported high levels of freedom, but more than 40% of respondents in China, Iran, and Myanmar reported high levels of freedom as well. And not even a quarter of the Japanese respondents felt substantially free. Obviously, perceived freedom of choice and control has other feeder streams than form of government.
The pattern is quite clear: at the country level, higher support for emancipative values is associated with greater trust of people of other nationalities. And the lack of trust of other nationalities is associated with lower support for emancipative values. I’m not claiming a causal relation, though the pattern does make sense: if you distrust most of humanity, you probably don’t care much about human rights in general.
The World Value Survey (WVS) has recently completed its seventh wave of data collection, covering 58 countries over the period of 2017-2022. This series of posts will highlight some of the findings. I’ll use the same subset of countries in each post. In this post, I’ll focus on what the WVS calls “emancipative” values, as in emancipation from authority. Emancipative values emphasize freedom of choice and "involve priorities for lifestyle liberty, gender equality, personal autonomy and the voice of the people." (World Values Survey, 2022).
And then there’s the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 as “a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected”. Per the Declaration’s own preamble: “… the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people…[and] it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law”.
Whataboutism (as in "what about…?") is the practice of responding to an assertion by raising a point or question that expresses a counter-example, which appears to delegitimize the initial assertion. Some examples…
In this post, I’m using Wikipedia’s definition of robot: “a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically”. In this sense, a self-driving truck may be considered a robot, as may smaller machines within the truck, including those that look vaguely humanoid.
Of course, with additional tinkering Optimus may eventually be able to handle office plants, assuming their watering needs are predictable and programmable. But why must a plant-watering robot look humanoid? Ideally, form follows function and it’s hard to see what function is served by making a robot cute. Except to get people to fork out $20,000 because they just must have one.
Effort Heuristic 3: The more effort you invest in something, the more likely you will continue investing effort. This heuristic is more likely to be used when there is no clear endpoint to signal a goal has been reached.
In mindfulness discourse, the central problem is suffering. Life is full of unavoidable suffering: we can’t hold onto happiness, everything changes, nothing lasts, everybody dies, pain in inevitable, we are endlessly seeking and desiring without lasting satisfaction; an inner emptiness haunts our every moment….
Effects alter the causal chain through feedback and feedforward mechanisms. Outputs generate data that become inputs for further causal processes and interactions. Causal links may be neutralized, reinforced or weakened by ongoing inputs and outputs.
These statements about company culture or core values reminded me of a post on patriotism that I did a few years ago. Not patriotism as easily mocked, condemned or dismissed - but patriotism as understood by people who embrace patriotic sentiments without apology or irony. Here are some excerpts:
In the early days of this blog, my posts were relatively brief, not quite right, but often onto something. A sampling: …
If I had to choose, I’d go with a meaningful life over a happy one. But that’s a false choice based on an idealized concept of happiness as pure lightness, unburdened by cares or worries. Not what I’m looking for. Wellbeing is more like it, at least wellbeing as the feeling that swells with autonomy (sense of agency, the ability to act on goals and values), competence (feeling able and effective), and relatedness (a sense of belonging and being connected to others). A feeling that grows stronger by overcoming challenge.
“Attempting recall of information from memory, as occurs when taking a practice test, is one of the most potent training techniques known to learning science. However, does testing yield learning that transfers to different contexts?” - Pan & Rickard, 2018.
A lot of people think healthy food is expensive and so either give up on the whole concept or take a bunch of vitamins and supplements and call it a day. Thing is, healthy food is not expensive. And by “healthy” I don’t mean organic or available only at the local farmers’ market. I mean at the very least 7 servings of fruit and vegetables, plus protein and carbohydrates. Some fresh produce is nice, but canned and frozen stuff will do too, nutritionally speaking. Like in this USDA table: