The "depletion effect" from Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow: 'Kahneman's book revolves around his distinction between knee-jerk "System 1" thinking and logical "System 2" thinking. When the costs of cognition rise, we use System 2 less, giving impulsive System 1 freer reign.' -- 'I propose a simple account of how we generate intuitive opinions on complex matters. If a satisfactory answer to a hard question is not found quickly, System 1 will find a related question that is easier and will answer it. I call the operation of answering one question in place of another, substitution... Faced with a genuinely difficult question, [people] answer a different, easier question, then conflate the answer to their question with the answer to your question. ...substitution is a plausible explanation of not only the absurdity of many popular views about how the economy works, but people's certainty about these absurdities.'

Vlad Teichberg, Co-Founder, globalrevolution.tv: "These principles of equality are going to redefine everything. Because we're basically creating the new United Nations except it's not the united nations, it's the united people." -- Useful idiots are useful

'The point of reciprocal exchange is to help those in need so that they will help you when you are in need. In a market exchange, the market price is charged whether or not the buyer is in need. As a result, our economic intuitions favor reciprocal exchange—market exchange is uncaring and cold-hearted toward people when they are in need! This is why so many people are unwilling to allow free markets in anything involving the poor and needy: it simply feels wrong to charge poor people for necessities. In such situations, market exchange runs against our altruistic feelings, which form the basis of reciprocal exchange. ...there are many more examples of folk economics ..we are a highly social species, and social organization has been a very important factor in our evolution—much of the brain is dedicated to dealing with the social environment. A free society cannot exist where folk economics runs rampant ...just as everyone is born ignorant of math, so everyone is born a folk economist.'

'...it should be noted that if no one had the right to acquire and control anything except his own body (a rule that would pass the formal universalization test), then we would all cease to exist, and the problem of the justification of normative statements simply would not exist. The existence of this problem is only possible because we are alive, and our existence is due to the fact that we do not, indeed cannot, accept a norm outlawing property in other scarce goods next to and in addition to that of one's physical body. Hence, the right to acquire such goods must be assumed to exist. Nobody could argue in favor of a property system defining borders of property in subjective, evaluative terms because simply to be able to say so presupposes that, contrary to what theory says, one must in fact be a physically independent unit saying it. -- There are popular attempts to define ['invasions'] of the value or psychic integrity of other people's property [= conservatism and socialism].'

'The American military-industrial complex is under considerable attack currently. One way to alleviate the pressure is to start another war, and that may be in the works already with Iran. Another way is to come up with a fresh idea as it involves support for the military from a personal perspective—each citizen looking deeply into his or her own conscience to decide that the troops (and their mission) deserve unquestioning allegiance. This is what Cameron has done. The idea that local municipalities ought to have more control over their own laws and budgets is fairly admirable, at least theoretically. Get involved, the British Prime Minister urges. Take control of your own lives again and the federal government shall help make this possible. Once in power, Cameron begins to deliver on this idea. But now it has changed. Support our troops, he urges. Do so at a local level. Empower yourself by giving your full encouragement to our boys over in Afghanistan. The cynicism is breathtaking.'

'Making yourself happy is not best achieved by having true beliefs, primarily because the contribution of true beliefs to material comfort is a public good that you can free ride on, but the signaling benefits and happiness benefits of convenient falsehoods pay back locally, i.e. you personally benefit from your adoption of convenient falsehoods. The consequence is that many people hold beliefs about important subjects in order to feel a certain way or be accepted by a certain group. Widespread irrationality is ultimately an incentive problem. The bottom line is that many people's "map" is not really like an ordinary map, in that its design criterion is not simply to reflect the territory; it is designed to make them fit into a group (religion, politics), feel good about themselves (belief in immortal soul and life after death), fit into a particular cultural niche or signal personality (e.g. belief in Chakras/Auras).' -- Culture vs Philosophy

'Taking Iraq and President Bush as starting points, and examining the defense mechanisms we use to cope with both, yields the unsurprising conclusion that we are a society of narcissists. While this discovery is familiar to readers of my blog, what might be a surprise is what this heralds for our society politically and economically. It isn't socialism, or even communism, as I had feared. It's feudalism. Let's begin.' -- Defence mechanisms: 'Splitting/Dissociation: reducing the other person to a binary abstraction of all good or all bad, is a primitive, or regressive, defense mechanism used when the emotional level and complexity is greater than a person's capacity to interpret it. Inherent in the act of splitting is apathy. You don't try to find a solution to the problem person, the split is the solution. It allows you not to have to deal with the other, because you've decided that the other is irredeemable. #Projection/Scapegoating #Denial #Reaction Formation/"Going overboard."'

'Journalist Chris Hedges discusses his recent book Empire of Illusion: the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. In it, he charts the dramatic rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy, and illusion. Hedges argues we now live in two societies: one, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world and can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth; the other, a growing majority, is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic where serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins.' -- "Things become so grim that there's a retreat into self delusion." -- Excellent summary of progress already made along the road to serfdom, also an urgent warning of the rise of utopian christian fascism. It's a shame he calls for an equally utopian "militant" socialism to fight against it. Violence is violence is violence. Neither the left fist nor right fist can justify it.

'#2. Stimulation. People consume content that stimulates their mind and senses. That which angers, excites, energizes, entertains, or otherwise creates an emotional response. This is not always the "best" or most informative content, but that which triggers a reaction. #3. Homophily. In a networked world, people connect to people like themselves. Prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, and power are all baked into our networks. In a world of networked media, it's easy to not get access to views from people who think from a different perspective. In an era of networked media, we need to recognize that networks are homophilous and operate accordingly. Technology does not inherently disintegrate social divisions. In fact, more often then not, in reinforces them. Only a small percentage of people are inclined to seek out opinions and ideas from cultures other than their own. These people are and should be highly valued in society...'

'...cuteness is physically addicting. -- As the essayist Daniel Harris argued our enjoyment of adorable stuff has a hidden dark side. “Adorable things are often most adorable in the middle of a pratfall or a blunder.” He mentions Winnie-the-Pooh’s getting his head stuck in a beehive as an example and goes on to argue that children themselves are not really so cute; cuteness, instead, is something we do to them. “There is something dark about using children for the pleasure of our maternal needs,” Harris says. “We enjoy being caretakers so much that we will create situations in which they need our care.” -- Roland Kelts: "...if you are desperate to be known, you need a strategy for being known, and a very good strategy is the old evolutionary one of being so cute that you need to be cared for. That was, in a sense, Japan’s position for the last 60 years: ‘We will make your products really, really well, and we’re going to be the best little boy you can imagine.’”

There's no hope for these people, and no intellectual honesty either, just pure emotionalism masquerading as a 'point of view'. The only flaw in free markets is that useful idiots don't know what they are. -- That which is not seen. Read it: http://jim.com/econ

The perception IS the reality. That's the inherent danger of the immediate consenus-making ability of twitter and other realtime platforms. -- Brendan O'Neill: "Illiberal liberalism" "Emotional incontinence" Righteous indignation/enthusiasm. That's the inherent danger of immediate action/reaction/gratification as opposed to taking the time to think things through – "Boring, hard work," as Nick Cohen puts it. (As a #moralmaze tweeter said, links to in-depth resources provide the best alibi for "shallow" twitterhappy tweetstormers.) Nick Cohen: "There's a lot of utopianism. It's very shallow and very transient. A lot of it is apathetic. It's people affirming themselves." -- RE #moralmaze. It's not surprising to see tweeters so overly keen to defend any and every perceived threat to twitter, though it's not like its going away—calm down. Defending both their newly-felt right to be heard and the social/cultural capital they've built up over the years... TWITTER IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.