Recent research suggests that it is easier to blame someone than to praise them. Joshua Knobe shows this clearly in the following two thought experiments: Suppose that a vice-president goes to the chairman of the board and says OK, we’ve got this new policy. It’s going to make huge amounts of money for our company…
In Science and religion revisited, Larry Buttrose voices an extremely unbalanced criticism of the Christian Church. Nevertheless, I thought this bit was well worded: Around four centuries ago, the church began a gradual decline in power against the nation-states and the rising entrepreneurial class, against increasing literacy and the reason of the Enlightenment. From the…
Dan Pink spoke at TED about the disparity between what science knows about human motivation and what techniques business uses to motivate employees. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that higher rewards lead to lower performance, except in the most non-cognitive tasks. The carrot-and-stick approach only works for tasks where the solution is obvious — e.g….
On Hope 103.2’s Open House, Stanton Jones discusses the efficacy of the Exodus Foundation program for changing people’s sexual orientation. He presented research to the American Psychological Association recently that sought to demonstrate: That at least some people can change sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. That conversion programs are not necessarily psychologically damaging. Jones…
Stephen Clarke proposes a neat distinction between Conservative and Liberal attitudes towards morality on the ABC’s Philosopher’s Zone. Liberals place high moral value on: Individual freedom/autonomy Fairness, equal opportunity Conservatives, while still holding to the above, place greater moral value on: Respect for authority Respect for sanctity / purity => typically some religious system Protecting…
Mark Rowlands talks about morality on the ABC’s Philosopher’s Zone (that site includes a complete transcript). Putting aside what seem to me irrelevant comments about his pet wolf, Rowlands introduces some basic concepts about morality very neatly: If you construe human morality on the basis of implicit contracts then at its base morality is about:…
Alain de Botton‘s presentation at TED 2009 has greatly inspired me. (And BTW, the podcasts that come from TED are by far the most informative and diverse thought-provokers I have come across.) Snobbery: “A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who…
In the ABC Fora podcast Serious Gaming , Ian Bogost commented about the role of video games. He claims that video games are the one form of modern media that embraces complexity rather than shying away from it. The key characteristics of video games are modelling, role playing and world building. I found his comments…
In a podcast from TED, Clay Shirky makes some interesting points about the distinguishing characteristics of modern media… “The moment we are living through … is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history” Four media revolutions in the past 500 years: Printing press Telegraph and telephone Recorded media other than print: photos, sound,…
