DO YOU PUSH OR DO YOU LISTEN? There are two conflicting pieces of advice that drive me crazy on a regular basis. Of course, the answer is both. As with all pieces of advice, context really matters. The problem? IF WE PICK WRONG, IT CAN GO SPECTACULARLY WRONG In both directions. Of course, those are the people who consistently take no risks or consistently take all of the risks, but the rest of us are just a messy combination of playing it way too safe and then practically killing ourselves. Sometimes you do exactly right and still get hurt. To quote Jean Luc Picard, or at least an anonymous Star Trek screenwriter: "It's possible to make no mistakes and still love." You listen to your gut and your gut is just plain wrong. You play it safe and miss the perfect opportunity. You take a huge risk and reap the consequence. So it’s not like the tips in the rest of this newsletter or foolproof and if you just do this you’re not gonna get hurt and you’re not gonna … [Read more...] about How to Go With Your Gut and Push Your Limits. Magically at the Same Time.
Influence
The Worst Prediction in the History of Educating People
It was May 2001 and I was taking World History when I heard the worst prediction in my life. Nothing has come close to matching how wrong this teacher was. It was near the end of the semester, and we were in the 80s and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The teacher was very proud of the fact that he had a piece of it which he brought like show and tell. As he passed an unremarkable bit of cement from hand to hand, he said the most incorrect statement I have ever heard in my entire life about anything ever. "The fall of the Berlin wall was the most significant historical event to happen within my lifetime. Probably within yours as well." REMEMBER THE OPTIMISM? If you are too young to remember the 90s, or heaven forbid, you weren't even born in the 90s, there was a real sense of optimism. Yes, the Dot Com crash kind of wrecked the economy for a hot second. And yes Y2K and the turn of the new millennium potentially would've wrecked all our computers, but that was a false … [Read more...] about The Worst Prediction in the History of Educating People
Do Judge Authors by Their Time? Dune, Tolkien, and Outrage
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune I listened on audiobook to all of the Dune books written by Frank Herbert. (There are over 30 now completed by his son Brian after his death, but I had to draw a line in the sand somewhere!) WHAT DID I LEARN? WHAT DID I NOTICE? WAS IT WORTH IT? WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW Herbert started the first book, Dune, in 1959 (published in '65) and published the last book Chapterhouse: Dune, in 1985. Those were pretty important decades in our history, and the change from the unrest and idealism of the 60s to the stability and disillusionment of the 80s drenches the text. WHO WAS FRANK? During my English major, we always debated how much of the author you could really find in a work of fiction. And whether it was useful or appropriate to play a game of Author Gotcha as literary critique. So now I'm going to do … [Read more...] about Do Judge Authors by Their Time? Dune, Tolkien, and Outrage
Placebo Effect is Responsible for World Domination??
Photo: Anders Sandberg Do you remember learning about the placebo effect? I remember a few references to it in high school biology, and a few jokes about it in various TV shows, but it just seems to be one of those concepts you learn by osmosis and never question. But it is insane! IT'S GETTING STRONGER We have powerful drugs to change our brain chemistry, how our guts work, and how our immune systems heal, and we must very carefully design studies to account for the fact that none of them measure up to the power of eating a sugar pill that you’re told might make you better. And even then, sometimes the effect that you think is the drug turns out to also be placebo. Sedatives are less effective if the pill is red or yellow and more effective if they’re green or blue. Was it the drug or the color? Not only that, but the placebo effect is getting stronger. The more time goes on, the harder it is to get an efficacious drug passed because every … [Read more...] about Placebo Effect is Responsible for World Domination??