Links - 23rd January 2020 (2)

Does the ‘ hikikomori’ syndrome of social withdrawal exist outside Japan? A preliminary international investigation - "Two hikikomori case vignettes were sent to psychiatrists in Australia, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the USA... Respondents’ felt the hikikomori syndrome is seen in all countries examined and especially in urban areas. Biopsychosocial, cultural, and environmental factors were all listed as probable causes of hikikomori, and differences among countries were not significant."

The Efficiency-Destroying Magic of Tidying Up - "love of order is above all else about appearances. Streets arranged in grids, people waiting in clean lines, cars running at the same speed… But everything that looks good doesn’t necessarily work well. In fact, those two traits are opposed more often than not: efficiency tends to look messy, and good looks tend to be inefficient. This is because complex systems — like laws, cities, or corporate processes — are the products of a thousand factors, each pulling in a different direction. And even if each factor is tidy taken separately, things quickly get messy when they all merge together... I submit that we should look with suspicion at simple-looking systems. The physical world is like a river in which a thousand streams come rushing — it is supposed to look messy. Again, this insight applies to any complex system. For example, a city can look as messy as an anthill. But really, it’s a beautiful equilibrium that evolved to satisfy a thousand competing constraints: topology, weather, people’s traditions, skills, wealth, preferences… Planners may make their maps look better when they use zoning to separate the city into business, residential, and commercial neighborhoods, but they also destroy a subtle, efficient balance... One good example of an attempt to avoid the high modernist fallacy is Amazon’s “two pizza teams,” set up to run like small companies and encouraged to use the tools and processes that make sense at their level. The outcome can be messy — new Amazonians who come from more centralized companies often complain about the chaos there. But I, for one, would choose chaotic success over tidy failure any day.  Interestingly, other managers often pick the latter. They’ll see a dozen teams, each using different project management software, and lament: “what a mess! No one even knows what everybody else is doing!” They’ll then resolve to “put some order in here,” by mandating every team uses a single company-wide tool. But teams had been using different tools for a reason. Maybe they’re in different businesses — for example, hardware and software groups have different needs. Or their members could just have different preferences, which matter too — people are more productive when they use tools they like! It can be okay to sacrifice a company’s productivity so as to increase the coordination between its parts — so long as one makes this compromise with their eyes wide open. Unfortunately, managers all too often look only at the upside of such changes, and ignore their downside... who is complaining about the chaos? If outsiders complain, but people living inside the system seem happy with it, it probably means that the chaos is serving them right, and that it’s just foreign eyes who are unable to perceive its underlying order."
This totally contradicts Zen and minimalism

Man broke into my house and is now claiming squatters’ rights : legaladvice - "I own a house in California (San Bernardino) and frequently travel for business. My last trip I was out of the area for about two weeks. Upon returning home, I found that someone had broken into my house and is now claiming squatters’ rights. He has photographic evidence that he’s been there for about 10 days and is claiming that I now have no legal right to kick him out. He’s also claiming that he found the house in an abandoned condition. Some of the windows are currently broken and the place is trashed but it was fine before I left and I’m pretty sure he trashed it.He’s also threatened to call the police to kick me out because he said he’s the rightful tenant.Should I just call the police and see if they’ll get rid of him? Should I call a lawyer first?
Edit: Appreciate all of the advice. Just as I was about to call the police to get this figured out, a squad car pulled up to my house. The police officer proceeded to tell me that they received a call from a tenant claiming that they had an abusive landlord who was threatening to evict them without notice. I tried explaining to him that he wasn’t my tenant when the squatter came out and started complaining about how the place wasn’t livable and that all of the windows were broken. I could tell the police officer didn’t really want to be there and he said that these types of issues need to be resolved formally and that a court case would be required for a formal eviction. He then left. What’s my best course moving forward?"
Ahh, California!

Barquillo - Wikipedia
TIL love letters are from Spain

Being Libertarian - "Yang 2020"
"Landlords raising rent by $1000"
If landlords are all part of a massive cartel through which they coordinate to raise rent by the exact quantum of UBI... That's actually an argument for regulation

Knights in Ancient Armor Fight to Save Chinese Culture - "few authentic antique armor specimens still exist, Liu explains, due to the restrictive rules of China’s final dynasties. While European armor has survived through private collections, ownership of armor was a crime punishable by beheading during the Qing Dynasty, because the ruling authorities wanted to keep weaponry out of private hands in case of uprisings. In addition, the large amount of cloth used in many examples of ancient armor has made them hard to preserve, says Liu. It’s only in the past decade that he’s noticed Chinese craftsmen beginning to revive the lost art of armor production, using historical sources and the few existing examples for reference."

Wait a Minute. How Can They Afford That When I Can’t? - The New York Times - "No doubt, most people could improve how they handle their finances. But better money management isn’t usually the culprit: When people seem to be able to afford much more than their income would suggest, it’s often because there is hidden wealth or hidden debt... For years, Ellen watched her friends, who had similar jobs and the same number of children as she did, spend much more lavishly on just about everything compared with Ellen’s family. They did expensive home additions. They took twice as many vacations to places farther away. They drove nicer cars.  And she felt bad about it, assuming she and her husband were simply worse financial managers... if we’re going to envy our neighbors, it shouldn’t be for their BMW or new swimming pool. It should be for their fat 401(k) or gold-plated health insurance, because the ability to put away large amounts of money to secure our future and our children’s future is the sign of real wealth now... Over the last few decades, wealthy people have increased how much of their spending they direct to education and retirement, compared with members of the middle class, whose expenditures in those areas have remained more or the less the same."

Diversify Your Identity - "this man had never emotionally invested himself or identified with his roles as a father, a husband, a friend, a colleague — he had invested all of his identity (and time and effort) in making money and becoming rich. Then once his wealth vanished, so did his entire sense of self...
'When you have money, it’s always smart to diversify your investments. That way if one of them goes south, you don’t lose everything. It’s also smart to diversify your identity, to invest your self-esteem and what you care about into a variety of different areas — business, social life, relationships, philanthropy, athletics — so that when one goes south, you’re not completely screwed over and emotionally wrecked.'...
A lot of people I know in finance are like this. Their friends are their co-workers. The books they read and movies they watch relate to their job. Their social excursions are work and networking functions. The dates they go on with people they meet doing work-related things. There’s no diversification of where they’re receiving their validation. And therefore their emotional stability and self-esteem is at risk."

Is college worth it? A Georgetown study measures return on investment — with some surprising results. - The Washington Post - "Higher education is so expensive now, he said, that few can afford the luxury of meandering through a liberal arts education without making hard calculations about employment prospects... Some may discount the idea that the true value of higher education can be quantified, let alone calculated in dollars.  But given surging student-loan debt nationally, the study’s authors argue it’s a question that cannot be ignored. The issue has galvanized national attention, with many legislators loath to fund universities that aren’t preparing young people for the workforce. And it’s an issue that is deeply personal for many families as they worry about paying tuition bills each fall. Some of the results will come as no surprise: Among the top 10 colleges with the best long-term net economic gain are Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Forty years after enrollment, bachelor’s degrees from private colleges have the highest returns on investment. But the top three on the top 10 list — eclipsing MIT and Stanford — are schools specializing in pharmacy and health sciences. The only two public schools to make that top 10 list are maritime academies.  And the Maine Maritime Academy? It’s on the top 10 list, outscoring Harvard... Surveys suggest many students are motivated to go to college to learn more about subjects that interest them — and to become a better person, said professor Anthony P. Carnevale, director of Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. But the vast majority cite a career as a primary goal for college... A drive for greater accountability has been gaining momentum for a long time, Carnevale said, amid a huge increase in college-going beginning in the 1980s and rapidly rising costs that inspired a demand for data on outcomes... The study concluded that even after paying off higher amounts of debt, the average graduate of a private four-year college has a net economic gain of $838,000 over 40 years — compared with $765,000 for a public college graduate.  Or a student could choose a theology school near the bottom of the long-term return-on-investment list — because salary is not important.  “This should encourage people to think like that,” Carnevale said. “ ‘What do I want, who am I, what can I afford, what are my options?’ ”"

8 Questions to Ask Someone Other Than “What Do You Do?” - "Research findings from the world of network science and psychology suggests that we tend to prefer and seek out relationships where there is more than one context for connecting with the other person. Sociologists refer to these as multiplex ties, connections where there is an overlap of roles or affiliations from a different social context. If a colleague at work sits on the same nonprofit board as you, or sits next to you in spin class at the local gym, then you two share a multiplex tie. We may prefer relationships with multiplex ties because research suggests that relationships built on multiplex ties tend to be richer, more trusting, and longer lasting. We see this in our everyday lives: The work friend who is also a “friend friend” is far more likely to stick with you should one of you change jobs. And it goes the other way, too: People who have at least one real friend at work report liking their jobs more... the question quickly sets a boundary around the conversation that the other person is now a “work” contact...
What excites you right now?...
What are you looking forward to?...
What’s the best thing that happened to you this year?...
Where did you grow up?...
What do you do for fun?...
Who is your favorite superhero?...
Is there a charitable cause you support?...
What’s the most important thing I should know about you?"

Cold Hard Truths About The Workplace I Learned The Hard Way - "You can’t mix your professional and personal life. And that’s not a great thing to hear, right? We all desperately want to have a great time at work. And I get it.You spend more time at work than any other place in your life, so it’s important to enjoy what you do. But doing what you love and workplace rules are two different things...
At work, people are there to earn a living.What do you think? That they will sacrifice a paycheck for your friendship? Not going to happen. Just be mindful of that and do your job.Stay professional. And have a good time with people at work. See them as professional relationships. Nothing more. Nothing less...
 Look, you can pretend it’s not about appearances at work, but it is. Looking busy and actually being busy are the same thing.Why? Because perception equals reality. If you’re perceived as the office clown, you are one. No matter how hard you work...
Most people are bad at receiving feedback. Again, we’re human beings. We don’t like it.So never be too honest. Does that make you fake? No, it makes you empathetic"

тυяσ on Twitter - "Study: Women need more sleep than men because they use their brains more"
"All that overthinking and jumping to conclusions"

Imam Tawhidi - Posts - "Religious freedom panel: Due to the safety of our panelists we cannot announce them on this program #ampfest2019"
I wonder why...