I like the way Whole Foods makes me feel, but I don’t like the fact that it makes me feel that way. It reeks of elitism to me. Not the rancid, “treat others badly” type of elitism, but the “I’m better because I do x” kind.

It feels so good, but I hate it.

I hate not being in control of how I feel. It’s not that I want to necessarily kill every single natural and potentially negative feeling in me (especially when some do feel good), it’s just that I want to dissect and identify anything that I allow myself to feel.

This feeling is suspect because I don’t quite understand it. It does have some positive characteristics, however, such as making me want to clean my house and organize everything. Spending time in a Whole Paycheck store also makes me want to cook at home, and go to the gym, and just to be healthy in general.

So those things make me want to embrace the goodness, but there’s something lurking underneath that is unsettling. Perhaps it’s hypocrisy. Perhaps it’s the fact that I don’t eat healthy, and I don’t cook my own food, and don’t regularly work out. Perhaps it just feels disingenuous to be there, as if I’m posing as some sort of health nut when I’m not.

Anyway, the place makes me want to improve my life–it’s that cool. But so do big-tittied blondes that I care nothing about. I’m just not sure that feeling is always positive. ::

This post will serve as a collecting place for some of the greatest content I’ve come upon over the course of my lifetime. The aim is to only have on this page content that invokes a gasp or a silence when learning of it for the first time.

These are not in order, and the list will grow rapidly in the beginning. If you think something should be added, please let me know in the comments or via email.

–

• Two Logical Fallacies We Must Avoid
  A stunning piece regarding two basic problems in basic moral logic:

  • The Naturalist Fallacy: the tendency to believe that what is natural is good; that what is, ought to be.
  • The Moralistic Fallacy: the leap from ought to is, the claim that the way things should be is the way they are.

  A great many moral arguments are based on one of these two foundations. Being able to identify them is the first step to countering them.

• The Dunning-Kruger Effect
  The idea is that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”. With a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,

  1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
  2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
  3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
  4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill. This is basically the scientific description of the, “know-it-all who doesn’t know shit” phenomenon.

• The Pareto Principle (The 80/20 Rule)
  Also known as the Law of the Vital Few, it states that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Commonly seen in business as, “80% of your sales comes from 20% of your clients.”

• Parkinson’s Law
  Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Or, “work expands to fill the time available”. Basically, if you give yourself eight weeks to complete a report, it will likely take you that long.
  
  But if you give yourself just three days you may be able to do it in that time as well, especially since you’re only likely to spend that amount of time total on it anyway.

• It’s the Educated vs. Those Easily Fooled by Propaganda
  A brilliant piece on the REAL problem facing America–the staggering rise of ignorance and predjudice-based gullibility in the United States.

• Occam’s Razor
  aka “The Law of Parsimony”, or “The Law of Succinctness”. Occam’s Razor is an interesting one, as there is the newer, accepted, and technically incorrect meaning, and then there is the real one. First the modern, common, and wrong one: This one reduces to the idea that all things being equal, the simpler of two explanations for something is probably correct. A common interpretation of this is “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”, from the Latin, “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem”. There are many similar or related versions of this, e.g. “Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.” (Einstein), and “The simplest answer is usually the correct answer.”
  
  This is, however, incorrect. Occam’s razor is not concerned with the simplicity or complexity of a good explanation as such, it only demands that the explanation is free of elements that have nothing to do with the phenomenon (and the explanation) [Wikipedia]. Here’s a quote by Occam himself that shows the true meaning: “The source of many errors in philosophy is the claim that a distinct signified thing always corresponds to a distinct word in such a way that there are as many distinct entities being signified as there are distinct names or words doing the signifying.” (Summula Philosophiae Naturalis III, chap. 7, see also Summa Totus Logicae Bk I, C.51).
  
  We are apt to suppose that a word like “paternity” signifies some “distinct entity”, because we suppose that each distinct word signifies a distinct entity. This leads to all sorts of absurdities, such as “a column is to the right by to-the-rightness”, “God is creating by creation, is good by goodness, is just by justice, is powerful by power”, “an accident inheres by inherence”, “a subject is subjected by subjection”, “a suitable thing is suitable by suitability”, “a chimera is nothing by nothingness”, “a blind thing is blind by blindness”, ” a body is mobile by mobility”. We should say instead that a man is a father because he has a son (Summa C.51). [Wikipedia]

• Reciprocal Altruism
  There have been numerous experiments regarding organisms that have been programmed programmed (think game theory) to take all of the time, take some of the time and share some of the time, share most of the time except with takers, or share all of the time. They run simulations of these various models to see who “wins” by having more resources/babies at the end.
  
  As it turns out, the best way to get ahead is to share with others who share, with the caveat that you protect yourself from those who cheat. But the interesting thing is that the pure takers don’t dominate over the others. They get shunned by the sharers, and the intelligent sharers prosper the most. That to me is a model for an open society.

• Conformation Bias

• Cognitive Dissonance

(contact me to add to this page)

I’ve been writing about the divide between the aware and the unaware for a long time now, but I’ve never laid it out this well. This is an absolute must.

Pay attention to the anti-Obama bit at the end. Very interesting stuff.

[ The Educated vs. Those Easily Fooled by Propaganda | alternet.org ]

They want to use their first amendment rights to be ignorant. Well, I’m going to use mine to expose that ignorance.

Image from allvoices.com

One of the most serious signs of an ailing democracy is the unwillingness of the people to passionately debate important topics, e.g. politics. This is rampant in the South where it’s considered highly disrespectful to debate with people since it involves telling the other person they’re wrong about something. In short, the idea is to avoid spirited discourse because it’s rude.

This is troubling. Also, I find it interesting that debate thrives in the west where the politics are liberal, while debate is highly discouraged in the South where the politics are…anti-liberal.

Anyway, here’s an interesting piece at Overcoming Bias, which is one of my favorite blogs. It puts forth the idea that debate is fundamentally disrespectful.

I actually agree with this, and I think it is those who are more open-minded and thoughtful who can handle these types of challenges to their identity and beliefs. Hence the regional differences in attitudes toward debate.

Thoughts?

Links

[ Disagreement is Disrespect | overcomingbias.com ]

Image from gethappy.com

If you believe me, don’t watch the link below. Stop what you’re doing and order the DVD.

If you don’t believe me, watch it here and then believe me next time.

(thanks to Zed for showing me this movie)

Links

[ More | gethappy.com ]

I really like Bill Maher because he has no allegiance to anyone. He destroys the democrats nearly as often as he does the republicans. Here’s one of the finest articulations of a problem I’ve ever seen from him:

Obama can’t help it if he’s a Harvard grad and you’re a Wal-Mart shopper. Americans are so narcissistic that our candidates have to be just like us. That’s why Bush is president.

I agree. The fear of intelligent people is rampant among the mundane, and it’s a serious problem because they get to vote (if they remember to register between reality shows).

They don’t seem to realize that you want exceptional people to lead. It’s not always true, but in general great people do great things. Einstein was smart. Lincoln was extremely gifted. Ghandi and MLK were courageous. Jesus was the son of God.

Clearly you don’t want just anyone leading you.

As such, it’s pretty lame to bristle at Obama being über-educated and intelligent—as if it’s a problem. Especially when he’s obviously the more accessible and “common” person in terms of connection to the people.

That’s what Fox News does; it removes complexity from the world. It turns nuance into simplicity by sanding off the edges of reality. And their viewers love it. They cherish the simplified version of the world that Fox News shows them. And when these people are exposed to complexity and nuance they become nauseous—as if their inner ear has been damaged. They can’t wait to escape the world of gray.

1. Most women want a more traditional, “manly” husband than you’d think from listening to the feminist movement.
2. Most men want a classical, domestically-oriented wife rather than a financially independent go-getter.

Links

[ Men want women to be more traditional - and women 'are HAPPY to be the housewife' | dailymail.co.uk ]