Three rules to keep in mind:
- Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance.
- Fibbers’ forecasts are worthless.
- Audits are vital.
From Daniel Davies via Fabius Maximus
Continue readingDate Archives → December 2015
“You’ve got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be…”
““You’ve got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.””
– James Baldwin to Margaret Mead.
Continue reading“Discipline equals freedom.”
Links for December 25th 2015
- The reason why modern teaching methods don’t work – The Chinese do it correctly, that is the way we used to teach in the West until the last 60's.
- Data dredging – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – (also data fishing, data snooping, equation fitting and p-hacking) is the use of data mining to uncover patterns in data that can be presented as statistically significant, without first devising a specific hypothesis as to the underlying causality.
- How Steinbeck Used the Diary as a Tool of Discipline, a Hedge Against Self-Doubt, and a Pacemaker for the Heartbeat of Creative Work – Brain Pickings –
- How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently – Brain Pickings –
- Scope-creep in Denmark | openDemocracy – Scope-creep in Denmark | openDemocracy via Instapaper https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/jacob-mchangama/scopecreep-in-denmark
No resemblance to his former self
From…
“All history is the history of migration”
How to compose a successful critical commentary
“In disputes upon moral or scientific points, let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent. So you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery.” – Arthur Martine, 1866 guide to the art of conversation
In this everyone-is-a-critic culture, Daniel Dennet asks, “Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent?”
He offers what he calls “the best antidote [for the] tendency to caricature one’s opponent”: a list of rules formulated decades ago by the legendary social psychologist and game theorist Anatol Rapoport, best-known for originating the famous tit-for-tat strategy of game theory. Dennett synthesizes the steps:
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You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
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You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
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You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
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Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
From the incomparable Brain Pickings
See also the superb: A Code of Conduct for Effective Rational Discussion
Links for December 24th 2015
- The Real Story Of Apollo 17… And Why We Never Went Back To The Moon –
- Beyond Disruption – Stratechery by Ben Thompson – Fascinating look at Disruption Theory.
- Scott Adams Blog – Scott Adams reappraises Donald Trump.
- How to Beat Islamic State – Superb article by Maajid Nawaz.
- The year we forgot what free speech means –
Links for December 23rd 2015 through December 24th 2015
- Trump, Obama and the Assault on Political Correctness –
- What is Reputation? | http://edge.org/conversation/gloria_origgi-what-is-reputation –
- Peter Carey: ‘Privacy should be a human right, but we’ve been tricked out of it – it’s easy to give information away. It is sort of evil’ | Books | The Guardian – Peter Carey, one of my favourite authors, speaks as an ”individual with passions” not as a ”deep political thinker”.
- Does Affirmative Action Work? – Interesting look at how well affirmative action programs work across the world.
"If the economic and social impacts of affirmative action have been mixed, its political impacts have been almost universally damaging. In a wide range of countries, political elites and special interests have consistently exploited affirmative action programs for their own gain."
- Machiavelli Was Right – The Atlantic – Superb article on Machiavelli and his political philosophy which is still relevant today. "The shocking lesson of The Prince isn’t that politics demands dirty hands, but that politicians shouldn’t care."
- Seven Habits of Highly Critical Thinkers | Tim van Gelder –
Why Donald Trump Leads National Polls
“The frontrunner’s support is built less on bigotry, than on his confident projection of executive intelligence.”
The always excellent David Frum explains where Trump is getting his political energy from.
The simple “xenophobes, bigots and old white people” trope peddled by his opponents does not explain it.
Frum argues it is a combination of his satisfying the deep hunger in the Republican base for leaders with “executive intelligence” and because “Republicans have come to fear that their leaders have turned anti-native”.
This aligns with Scott Adams’ assessment that Trump’s strategy is all about presenting himself as the only adult in the room, the only person with a plan (no matter how nutty) and the experience to deliver on it (Frum’s “Executive Intelligence”). The good news is that we can all blame George W. Bush for this.
Read it here: Why Donald Trump Leads National Polls – The Atlantic