"I Started Crying When I Realized How Beautiful the Universe Is” | People I (Mostly) Admire Ep. 2: Mayim Bialik - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "‘There are things that we do in life that we hopefully will find pleasure and joy from, but we're one of the first generations to actually have that luxury, also falling in love with someone, also pretty recent in human history. So when my older son says, I really think I kind of I'm really into Shakespeare, I said, great, when you can drive yourself to auditions, you're welcome to go and pursue that. But what's your other skill set that you're going to do in the meantime, because I don't mean to sound like a terrible mom. But I'm not really into like, follow your passion. We all need to get things done on this planet. And the life of a struggling actor is a life of having another job, and living off wages that are often not sustainable. It means putting off having children, if you're a woman, because that completely curtails your hireability. What kind of life do you want?’... ‘Everyone learns differently. And the way that math and science were being taught to me was not working for my brain. Do I think that the way it was being taught doesn't work for a lot of girl brains? I'm going to go ahead and say yes, because I think that we need to have a different way to approach how we teach. Because contrary to a lot of current belief, male and female brains are different. We do have different skills. And while those aren't absolute, there's absolutely different ways to teach that can I think, please, more male and female brains?’"
“Don’t Neglect the Thing That Makes You Weird” | People I (Mostly) Admire Ep. 4: Ken Jennings - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "'At the time I went on Jeopardy for the first time. I was 29 years old, I was kind of in the middle of a weird midlife crisis because I was in computers, and I didn't like my job. And you know, instead of buying a sports car, or whatever most people do, I went on a game show. And through a very weird set of circumstances that changed my life.'"
Is There Such a Thing as Good Estrangement? (NSQ Ep. 19) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "‘An elderly parent in a retirement home is more likely to be visited by their grown children if those children are expecting a sizable inheritance… You might say well, could it be that the offspring of wealthy families are maybe just more caring toward their elderly parents, in which case, you would expect an only child of wealthy parents to be especially dutiful. But the data show no increase in retirement home visits if a wealthy family has only one grown child. There needs to be at least two, which suggests that the visits increase because of competition between siblings for the parents’ estate. That's the conclusion that economists would reach.’...
'Angela also assumes that filial loyalty laws do not exist in the United States, but laws requiring adult children to support their needy parents actually do exist in 26 states, plus Puerto Rico, although enforcement of the legislation tends to be rare'"
So much for East Asian countries being the only countries in the world with filial piety laws
How Can You Identify Hidden Talent? With Eric Schmidt (NSQ Ep. 21) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "‘It's far better to take the spoils of success, and use them to advance the next generation than anything else I can imagine. Because I did not understand, and now I understand very well, that I was standing on the shoulders of giants, and that the vast majority of my success was due to luck and not skill.’...
[On criticisms of billionaire philanthropy] ‘Do you want the billionaires not to give away money to education and health, I guess you could just say that there should be a taxation system such that we don't have that kind of wealth, but that's a totally different, and not likely possibility in the short term’"
Ironically the people who valorise individual effort and dismiss the role of luck and social factors are the same people who believe we must listen to successful people because they've been sanctified and vindicated by their success
Why Do We Forget So Much of What We’ve Read? (NSQ Ep. 24) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "‘My therapist doesn't actually like me. I'm paying them to like me.’
‘Well, you might think that but pretty much every person I have ever met who had this desire to go to graduate school for six years, so that they could sit and talk to people about their problems, just at baseline, they care so much about other people. It's not only that they're paid to do it, it's that they want to do it even if nobody paid them’"
Is Hedonism Better Than Self-Control? (NSQ Ep. 25) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "‘When you exercise, it's not so much about creating a better physical condition at that moment necessarily. She said one of the things that exercise does is it literally breaks your blood vessels, it creates new little blood vessels, little capillaries’
‘And also muscle fibers’
‘And she said the reason that's really important is because if you're going to have a heart attack, and the blood is blocked up somewhere, there's a stoppage, and it has nowhere to go, Well, you're in big trouble. If however, you have all these ancillary routes for the blood to be distributed. That's the mechanism by which exercise pays off in the long run. It's essentially creating resiliency. I think the same thing about mindfulness and meditation, I'm not necessarily doing it for the mental payoff in that moment. I'm doing it so that when my mind is later under stress, that there's some resilience, there's some reserve, there's some capacity, it's the same thing about knowledge acquisition, I learned a lot of things not because I need them in the moment, but because I may need them down the road’"
King toppled from throne by gender-neutral card deck - "Indy Mellink, a Dutch card fan, was explaining a game to her cousins last summer when she asked herself: why should a king be worth more than a queen?The 23-year-old forensic psychology graduate, encouraged by her father, decided it was time to break with the centuries-old tradition of sexual inequality in playing card decks that rank men above women."
Yet, the Ace, the most powerful card, is not gendered
Jodi Shaw - Smith College on Twitter - "There is no better way to increase racial tensions on campus than to tell students and staff that that they can “solve racism” by racializing all interpersonal interactions."
Hotep Jesus on Twitter - "With Trump out of office there will be calm. This calm means less eyes on politics which creates the perfect environment for legislation to be passed which will infringe upon the rights of the American people."
"Also the next George Floyd like incident will go completely unheard of."
The Yaboiposting - Posts | Facebook - "Liberals: “The Confederacy lost. Quit celebrating losers!”
Also liberals: "Hillary Clinton Alternate History Series ‘Rodham’ in Development at Hulu"
Meme - "Hello you're From India right ?"
"So you shit on roads ?"
"Hell No India is definitely not what they show on TV and news"
"Hahaha, Don't lie I know you do..."
"you're from america right ? so do you fuck every plumber guy who comes to your home ? Don't lie I know you do"
James Lindsay - Posts | Facebook - "Ida Bae Wells: "Making admission policies more fair [by discriminating against Asian Americans] does not discriminate against Asian Americans."
Son of judge overseeing Deutsche Bank-Epstein trial killed by hitman - "A gunman posing as a FedEx driver shot and killed the 20-year-old son of a federal judge in North Brunswick, N.J., on Sunday, and badly wounded her husband.The judge in question is Esther Salas. Earlier in the week, she was assigned to oversee a lawsuit brought by investors against Deutsche Bank over its involvement in the handling of financial matters related to sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein... a deceased lawyer is a prime suspect in the case. The lawyer—who allegedly was a men’s rights activist with a case before the judge—was reportedly found dead hours after the shooting, and was in the possession of a package addressed to the judge."
If you are the slightest bit suspicious, you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist
LPT: When dividing up ground beef in Ziploc bags, flatten it out before freezing it. It'll thaw faster when you need it. : LifeProTips - "I buy ground beef/turkey in bulk and I divide it up into ziploc bags. I always flatten out the ground beef into a sheet within the ziploc bag so that it thaws faster when I need to cook it."
Perma Banned - Posts | Facebook - "Western “Game Journos”: “Americans making a Japanese game is cultural appropriation and problematic”
Japan Reviewers: “Really nice game, love it.”
Locals living in Tsushima: “we’re so excited that a game dev from overseas is making a game about our history! Lets welcome them!”
Reps of Samurai Families in Japan: “Its nice that foreigners are interested in our way of life and we’re happy to let them consult with us.”
Japanese Netizens: “Why are you westerners getting offended on our behalf just because Americans made a game about Japan? Its dumb.”
Being a western leftist narcissist with a hero complex is peak sad when the people you are “defending” don’t even give a shit about you"
Clearly the Japanese are too stupid to know they are being oppressed
Having served their purpose as political props, National Guard kicked out of U.S. Capitol and forced into parking garage. - ""Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed," the Guardsman said... Should they really be all that surprised? Politicians were calling them thugs about five minutes ago.You could even lose your job for merely publishing an op-ed suggesting troops might be a viable option to restore order... This episode does make you wonder how long it will be before the left stops lauding as heroes the men and women charged with protecting us and goes back to demonizing them as genocidal white supremacists who need to be defunded? Three... two... one...
'OPINION | Guest contributor Rushi Shah GS presents a case for defunding the police, arguing their delayed response to the Capitol riots further proves their complicity in upholding systems of white supremacy.'"
They can go back to being the enemy now
Facebook - "When ministers try to talk like pro: "Diam lah elitist"
When ministers talked like Singaporean: 'sia xuay' 'How can minister talk like that'"
Should We Sacrifice the Utilitarians First? - "It is commonly thought that morality applies universally to all human beings as moral targets, and our general moral obligations to people will not, as a rule, be affected by their views. I propose and explore a radical, alternative normative moral theory, ‘Designer Ethics’, according to which our views are pro tanto crucial determinants of how, morally, we ought to be treated. For example, since utilitarians are more sympathetic to the idea that human beings may be sacrificed for the greater good, perhaps it is permissible (or, even under certain conditions, obligatory) to give them ‘priority’ as potential victims. This odd idea has manifold drawbacks but I claim that it also has substantial advantages, that it has some affinities to more commonly accepted moral positions, and that it should be given a significant role in our ethical thinking."
Meme - "Expat Women in Korea Tlidr: lost hope for Korean society (/the world at large?) ever to get less racist So we're walking home from dinner and this 4-y/o kid on a bike sees us and So I turn to the father who's a few feet behind and tell him this is a case where he needs to educate his child not to treat people differently or make assumptions about them based on how they look. We then proceeded to have a roughly 30-min argument (in Korean) where I explained to him that he is part of the ruling majority and doesn't get to decide what is racist or discriminatory, because he can simply stick his head in the sand and it doesn't affect him: whereas we have to live this reality every day of being spoken to and treated differently simply because we don't "look Korean." Given the international climate regarding racist issues and the Black Lives Matter movement, etc, Thad extra awareness of how the operatus of discrimination really works. This guy is your classic liberal [insert majority ethnicity) and brought all the standard line: a racist way so you're misinterpreting iti you have a chip on your shoulder; it's just a difference of opinion; well it's your job to educate people if you feel so strongly about it, etc. This guy is literally raising the next generation and teaching them the same discriminatory thinking. just want to point out that I realize how privileged I am even as à white woman in Korea. 1. I didn't grow up a minority. 2. Lam here by choice, 3. I could leave anytime, 4, 1am a "good" or desirable foreigner. Lam not looking for empathy or someone to patch up my fragile white ego I want to use this experience as a reminder to all of us that wherever you are, if you are part of the majority you may be very"
Moral of the story: don't be friendly. Assholes are everywhere
Equality At Last: Disney Confirms Winnie The Pooh Will Now Be Voiced By An Actual Bear | The Babylon Bee - "Disney says the move is the first step in making sure only non-humans voice non-human characters.Previous voice actor Jim Cummings said he is disappointed that he was let go but is happy to make a space for more bear voices in the acting community... Disaster struck the recording studio, though, when a live rabbit, owl, kangaroo, tiger, donkey, and pig were brought in to record an episode of Winnie the Pooh and the grizzly ate them all."
Academia Selects for Careerist Cowardice - "to be an academic, one must be intelligent although as I explain in The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, many of the dumbest ideas originate from academics. Beyond intelligence, one must be highly educated in their areas of expertise typically having obtained a PhD. Intellectual fierceness is likely to be missing from a description of what an ideal academic should possess. Incidentally, I am referring here to a polymath intellectual and not merely a hyperspecialized academic who solely weighs in on matters within their very narrow areas of expertise. Many professors are not in the least bit intellectual. They have chosen a career rather than pursued a calling for truth. Someone with little formal education might in reality be more of an intellectual than a professional academic. In any case, a public intellectual must exhibit intellectual brawn, and the reality is that most academics do not have such temperaments... As someone who has been in academia my whole life, I am always astonished by how tepid most academics are, pathologically afraid to utter the most banal of positions, lest they might be ushered out of town by the Cancel Culture mob"
