How to Tie Your Shoes

Maybe the most practical TED Talk I've ever listened to.



I've since changed the way I tie my shoes.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XXI

Here's another example of how humans and animals are different. Instead of focusing on our differing strengths, here's a TED talk on our weakness (like how we are bad at risk and bad at investing). The difference is at the end, but I'll spoil it for you. The difference between irrational humans and irrational animals, is that we can know it and can create structures to overcome it.

Emptying the Bottle: Early-March '11 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• There's a place in St. Paul that let's alcoholics go to drink and die.
• Does my blog help or hurt me get on a jury?
• Make meetings better and faster, hold them standing up.
• Most tourists take pictures from the same spot [photo] (earlier).
• Interview with Chris Anderson, curator of the TED Conference [video] (earlier).
• People are ruder in their car because of the barrier between them.
• Madoff is not a metaphor for Social Security, but for the government (earlier).
• Is lying okay? Here are three good reasons to lie.
• The un-famous story of Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes [audio].
• Make you blog posts into a book.
• Police bias can make police dogs bias [video].
• Who will still be famous in 10,000 years?

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

Emptying the Bottle: Mid-February '11 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• Mubarak has a 30% chance (earlier) of leaving by April (earlier and earlierer).
• Every NBA slam dunk contest visualization (via Justin Wehr) [videos].
• Prison makes you more likely to commit crimes after release (earlier).
• New spray-on skin gun heals burns in days [video].
• "Hans Rosling (earlier) but for fatties!" [graphic] (quote from Justin Wehr).
• Discussion on whether we should drug test those on public aid [video].
• The six stages of Libertarian denial.
• The average person is rated attractive [graphic].
• TED talks set to a beat [audio] (earlier).
• ADHD may actually make people more creative (earlier).
• Meetifyr.com helps groups find the best time to meet up.
• A clock powered by dead flies it caught [video] (another from Justin Wehr).
• We have a bias against/for attractive people of a similar/opposite sex.
• Why China should worry about the protests in Egypt.

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

The Story of Reason and Emotion

I recently took economist Steve Landsburg's blog, The Big Questions, off my blogroll out of protest for his harsh critisim of this story:



The criticism focused on the fact that although the speech was captivating, it had no specific evidence. Not only do I disagree with Mr. Landsburg's complaint, I think the that personal stories are an important part of any debate. A while back I posted on the balance between our reason and emotion. My conclusion was that both are important for decision making. Later I shared an example of how even our emotions can make the market more efficient and more accurate. Recently a friend reminded me of Tyler Cowen's TED Talk I shared a while back when I gave fictional support to my factual call to legalize drugs:



In this talk he affirms the idea that fiction is a powerful source of persuasion. He warns that stories can be overly simplified and used to mislead. Although I agree with Tyler's worry, I think stories are more than tricks for our rational brain. They're information for our emotions. If our logic and reason are conscious thought. Our emotion is unconscious thought. Both can be improved, just in different ways. Our emotional brain craves stories. This is why there is only short list of narrative possibilities. Tyler lists a few: a stranger comes to town, rags to riches, voyage and return, etc. This is shown beatifically in the ongoing video series Everything is a Remix. Part one is about music, part two is about stories:



Stories are useful ways to to condense information. Narratives are memory tools for our emotional brain. It is important to use stories as a way to learn and grow. This topic came up in my church last Sunday when the pastor talked about how of the three ways we interact with the world (reason, emotion, action), our emotion is the most underused in our understanding God. As someone who is overly in their head, I couldn't have agreed more. But as he explained the ideas in an intellectual way, I couldn't help but ask him how we could improve our feelings directly. My question led him to blog this:

I was stumped Sunday morning. Admittedly, I don’t like being stumped. There is a small part of me that wants to always have an answer for any question that someone can throw at me. But then reality hits you in the face, you get flustered and give nonsensical round about answers. I have to smile a little when this happens because really it is good to be humbled and reminded I am human. I’m nowhere as smart as I would like to be. I simply offer what I have learnt in my journey with Jesus.

I spent 45 minutes making an argument for how, as Christians, we can just focus on thinking the right things (orthodoxy) and doing the right things (orthopraxis) but that it is just as important to work on feeling the right things (orthopathos). I was trying to show my flock that God cares about our feelings, and wants to use and redeem our feelings. Then someone basically asked me in Q&A, “This church is very intellectual so how do we work on feeling the right things?" Good question. A very good question. I really should have been ready for this question because it is the question that is begging to be asked. But I didn’t have the foresight to expect it. There is something very ironic in trying to get people to work on their emotional health by giving them an intellectual case for it. Can you really “right think” people into “right feelings”? The short answer is “no.” But that is where you start when your church’s culture is to emphasize the mind. Nothing wrong with that. Some churches emphasize the mind, some emphasize actions, and some emphasize feelings. You hope that all churches seek some balance between those things at the same time.

But back to the question that stumped me. I have been thinking about this question since I was asked it. On one hand, it is a very easy question to answer. On the other hand, it is a very difficult question to answer. The easy answer is, “Emotional health is ultimately an individual’s journey that starts with a person being willing to explore their emotional life and bring it honestly to God for redemption. Where God takes that journey afterwards is different for each person.” The reason why this question is easy and difficult to answer is because the burden IS on an individual to do the work towards emotional well-being and the things that can be done on a corporate level are limited.

On a corporate level, we can start talking in a way that acknowledges that feelings are important. We can stop giving over-spiritual answers that imply believing in Jesus gets rid of all the ups and downs of emotions. We can model emotional well-being by seeking it in our own lives as leaders of the church. We can provide training to small group leaders that open the door for both the leaders’ and the members’ emotional well-being. Even just those four things are actually a tall order for any church. And the thing is, even when a church can do those four things well, it still comes down to an individual’s willingness to delve into, what can be for many people, the murky and scary waters of emotions.

He goes on to give five practical ways to solve the problem. Although helpful, I think the main item missing from the list is the power of stories. Every so often our church has a member give their testimony (Christian word for story). In my weekly small group we've been taking turns giving our personal biographies. In my improv team we did an exercise creating characters through personal beliefs. Whether in a religious, relational, or educational environments, stories are powerful. Non-fiction is important, but so is fiction. This is the power of art. Sure they can also be used to distort truth, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to use music, paintings, movies, or even improv as "lies to tell the truth".

This is Your Brain on Improv

Here's a new TED Talk on what it looks like when [musical] improvisers play inside an MRI machine. Not only is the experiment itself interesting, what is has to say about spontaneous creativity fits with my own experience. Here's Musician and researcher Charles Limb:


It's a bit long, so here's my favorite part:

Really consciousness is seated in the frontal lobe. But we have this combination of an area that's thought to be involved in self-monitoring, turning off, and this area that's thought to be autobiographical, or self-expressive, turning on. And we think, at least in this preliminary -- It's one study. It's probably wrong. But it's one study. We think that at least a reasonable hypothesis is that, to be creative, you have to have this weird dissociation in your frontal lobe. One area turns on, and a big area shuts off, so that you're not inhibited, so that you're willing to make mistakes, so that you're not constantly shutting down all of these new generative impulses.

Economics of the Last 200 Years

Although wealth isn't everything, it is very important. Here's a flashier, shorter, still awesome version of Hans Rosling's famous TED Talk:



I was right when I said if you're reading this, you're rich, but I guess I forgot that historically you're also rich if you're not reading this (and you'll get richer).

How Superstitions Begin

In a famous experiment with pigeons, an automatic feed is set to release at regular intervals with no relation to behavior. This resulted in tricking the birds into repeating the action they did when food is first released:

One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly.

This has got me wondering not only what my superstitions are, but what first caused them. Here's a 10 year old girl that refuses to let a shark bite make her superstitious. Just as interesting, apparently luck helps when you believe it. Also related, here's a TED talk by the publisher of Skeptic Magazine on why we believe strange things.

Audio Made Visual

Floating around the blogosphere recently is the RSA animation series. Here are a couple of my favorites, with short summaries of each:

Dan Pink: Drive: Humans can sometimes have counterintuitive responses to incentives. Higher incentives can sometimes leads to worse performance when complicated cognitive skills are required. You should pay people just enough to where the issue of money is taken off the table. Is this why I've learned so much blogging compared to my formal education?




Barbara Ehrenreich: Smile or Die: There is a darker side to positive thinking, for example, the sub-prime problems. Also, it's cruel to tell unhappy people it's all in their heads and that they just need an attitude change. Optimism can take away people's initiative to improve things. The speaker doesn't want pessimism, just realism. But isn't that what all pessimists say?




Philip Zimbardo: The Secret Powers of Time
There are three main ways of looking at the world. Through the past (nostalgic), through the present (enjoying the fate you've been given), and through the future (plan so you can succeed later in life or in the afterlife). The more future oriented you are, the harder you work and the wealthier you are (for individuals and nations). One thing school tries to do is teach students to become more future oriented.



Here is a blog that has the other audio talks made visual, like one on altruism and another on empathy.

Real Political Impact

A good friend of mine who lives in D.C. recently posted some first hand accounts of Tea Party protests. It was helpful in getting a better understanding of the movement. It also got me wondering just how helpful protesting is in creating political change. My gut feeling is not that successful. Unless you number in the millions or have a incredibly famous charismatic leader and very specific goals, I'm not convinced protesting has much impact. I've also mentioned that voting has little impact on political outcomes and that political involvement is more about consuming something than producing it. So what's the politically motivated to do? How do you change policy without being lost in the crowd? Politician Omar Ahmad says that the best way, is the old-fashioned way:

Here's the TED Blog to keep you updated of new talks.

More Choice is Good, Usually

A key concept to economic libertarianism is that more choice is always welfare improving. If offered a choice between three jobs, you would choose the one that best suits. If suddenly you were offered seven more jobs, that could only lead to an improvement (because if the new offers weren't better, you'd stick with the original choice). Admittedly there are costs to making choices. This is described well by Barry Schwartz's Ted talk on The Paradox of Choice. This problem mostly exists when our subconscious emotional reason misleads us. A great example of this is a study about the increasing choices we having in dating. Their conclusion is that when faced with abundant choice, people pay less attention to hard to measure qualities and more attention to obvious characteristics. Increased choice means quicker decisions on who to date. Sadly that mean attractiveness trumps character and as I'm sure you know, the two are not correlated. Now that you know, try and compensate.