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April 27, 2006
Dennis Mangan, tres reluctant toward simple happiness, is nonetheless pleased by the Seligman-related Coaching Toward Happiness. Its importance is familiar news here, but refining the science of it is always welcome. Martin Seligman is the Leader.
April 25, 2006
April 20, 2006
Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowan's first New York Times gig:
People are not consistent or fully rational decision makers.... Researchers can see on the screen how people compartmentalize their choices into different parts of their brains. This may not always sound like economics but neuro-economists start with the insight — borrowed from the economist Friedrich Hayek — that resources are scarce within the brain and must be allocated to competing uses. Whether in economies or brains, well-functioning systems should not be expected to exhibit centralized command and control.
The practical application of this is immense, especially as applied to leveraged decision-making like investing. And measuring "states" as brain location via imaging machines may show much of what neuro-linguistic "state" lore has hypothesized:
There are many different personalities running around in there.
So who is here right now?
Update:
Orbitofrontal cortex neurons are located that assign value in choice.
Economic choice is, at its essence, a choice between goods as opposed to a choice between actions.
Ads that feature wish fulfillment may not sell the product, but they will get watched.
It's a little too loud to be work-safe.
So's this. Intelligent Design, or The Invisible Hand? Do not fail to take a look!
Courtesy of Cartago Delenda Est, whom we too often forget. And who also answers, to the greater interest of some than others, the question How Many Darwinists Does It Take to Screw in a Light Bulb?
Dilys responds "Who cares? so long as I have enough light to read by..." then links to this from mocoloco. Or this.
April 19, 2006
Dust My Broom breaks the news that the blogger who wanted to trade one red paper clip for a house has succeeded. Nine months, and only ten trades.
This is the very bracing Prayer of St. Ephrem, heard at the Liturgy of Pope St. Gregory the Great, copied here for easy local reference, inasmuch as boy'o'boy, could we ever use the reminder:
Dilys say, "Heh."
The Banty Rooster gives a quick-and-good thumbnail of Gnosticism, the heresy of choice then and now.
Continue reading "Gnostics, Not Just for History any More" »
In the aftermath of Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble announcing he will moderate comments to eliminate heavily negative influences,
April 18, 2006
Steve Sailer takes a lot of flak for arguing that genetics/heritability/family/ethnicity matters, profoundly, in the impact on society, history, civilization. His arguments are often worth considering. Here he discusses Risky Transactions: Trust, Kinship, and Ethnicity, responding to the review in Albion's Seedlings of Moisés Naim's Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy.
