G as in Good H as in Happy

Communication = Kindness / Intelligence / Courage / Detachment

November 9, 2005

This advice from the University of Chicago School of Business on how to write and make presentations at the Ph.D. level in economics is required reading on communicating for almost everyone who cares about his subject, message, or audience.

A European Prayer for the Paradigm

Please, Odin, we pray, let it be that the classic Marxist interpretation is applicable in these riot events just over the Alsace. We want to see social unrest whose causes can be fought with more money, more programs, more efficient campaigns of poshlost and policy.  However -- and here our Prussian accuracy and rigor blessedly kick in -- this must be precisely demonstrated. 

In order to exclude unpleasant surprises. 

In Die Zeit, via MaxedOutMama.

(Es ist sehr zu hoffen, dass die klassische Deutung zutrifft: soziale Unruhen, deren Ursachen mit mehr Geld, mehr Programmen, mehr Kampagnen effizient bekämpft werden können. Man sollte jedoch sehr genau hinschauen. Um unangenehme Überraschungen auszuschließen.)

Update: Dymphna spots this, and infers, or should, that the poshlost reference was jogged by her The Neighborhood of God. And in the same "prayer" post, she applies a spot of benedictory imagery to offset poshlost and misery everywhere for kitties and other living things:

eternal summer and slow moving butterflies.

Turf Alert

October 30, 2005

Will Wilkinson, of CATO and the Fly Bottle, has just announced his establishment of a single-issue blog devoted to happiness and public policy, called, well, Happiness and Public Policy.

All the easier to pluck goodies from, my dear, said the Virtues-Wolf to the Libertarian.

Update: Another sign of compatibility is this WW description of his Happiness Blog: possibly entertaining, though not so intellectually challenging.

Yup, that's our happiness crowd. Sometimes.

The Art of Being Helped

One of our favorite ways to add value to life is to make requests -- and to respond to the requests made of us. There is an art to each.

Rajesh Setty, author of Life Beyond Code, offers valuable observations. "Make It Easy For People to Help You." And how to ask for a meeting.

We remember the mentoring fad, with a widespread expectation that an accomplished "mentor" would be delighted and eager to "mentor" someone who came to the door and asked.

Surprise! Likewise the need for delicacy in "networking."  

Often, the more accomplished someone is, the more aware they are of this when they make requests. They have asked themselves, "What's in it for them?"  When I ask a favor I know what's in it for me. The leverage is in seeing the transaction through another's eyes.

Never a bad idea.

Almost all of life is exchange, hence our fascination for practical economics, like this explanation of game theory.

New PsychoBlog, One Cosmos

October 12, 2005 (Traditional Columbus Day)

Culture clash as memetic and psychodevelopmental. We eat and drink this kind of thing, especially when it is unhobbled in its wide-ranging considerations by political correctness . We're still working on notes from Richard Grant, Ph.D., on Myers Briggs temperaments, Ericksonian developmental niches, twelve-step programs, the four Virtues, and More. But in the meantime...

Welcome, "Gagdad Bob." Almost as hard to say as "Attorney Bob Loblaw." But considerably more interesting.

Historically, wars have been fought over territory and resources. Now the human mind is the turf, and the battle is being waged on a vertical dimension in order to "colonize" as many noggins as possible.

The Hazard of "a constitutional inability to adopt a reasonable way to tell the good stuff from the bad stuff"

September 21, 2005

There is, in the wake of the wake of Katrina, a lot of practical talk...

A Phrase is Born

Lt. Gen. Russel Honore uses the phrase appropriately, for clarity, under provocation. His job is to get clear and current information in place, and after uncooperative efforts to wrest the agenda from him, he lays it on the line.

While it is still pristine, we're enjoying the pure impersonal accuracy of the expression.

Design for Experience

September 16, 2005

Design is the overarching concept of doing it right, thoroughly, responsibly, creatively, foresight and attention Adding Value to Experience. We enjoyed this simple communicative slide show, presented at User Experience Week in 2005 by Marc Rettig and Aradhana Goel.

Via Future Tense

If I put a picture of a turtle up, who's going to look?

Turtles, feminists? Feminists, turtles? Leading intellectual and environmentalist puzzles how to choose...

First-class Lectures, the Glory of the Net

Daniel Kahneman on decisionmaking, other aspects of behavioral economics. Rich, scholarly, provocative, accessible, hour-plus lecture, worth listening when you have the time. Kahneman is known for loss aversion analysis (a subset of of prospect theory).