Pinboard: bookmarks for robertogreco tagged 'morality'

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"ethics in capitalism is purely optional, purely extrinsic. To expect morality in the market is to commit a category error. Capitalist values are antithetical to Christian ones… Capitalist values are also antithetical to democratic ones…

…neither entrepreneurs nor the rich have a monopoly on brains, sweat or risk. There are scientists — and artists and scholars — who are just as smart as any entrepreneur, only they are interested in different rewards.

…“Poor Americans are urged to hate themselves,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote in “Slaughterhouse-Five.” And so, “they mock themselves and glorify their betters.” Our most destructive lie, he added, “is that it is very easy for any American to make money.” The lie goes on. The poor are lazy, stupid and evil. The rich are brilliant, courageous and good. They shower their beneficence upon the rest of us."

politics classwarfare poverty lies incompatibility democracy kurtvonnegut finance wallstreet 1% policy government jobcreation wealth psychopathy morality ethics motivation science art corporations corporatism corporateculture businessschool business entrepreneurship christianity capitalism 2012 williamderesiewicz from delicious
12 days ago by robertogreco

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David W. Orr: " What Is Education For?"

"The plain fact is that the planet does not need more "successful" people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it. Finally, there is a myth that our culture represents the pinnacle of human achievement: we alone are modern, technological, and developed. This, of course, represents cultural arrogance of the worst sort, and a gross misreading of history and anthropology."

[via: http://borderland.northernattitude.org/2012/04/08/search-for-meaning/ ]

love lcproject deschooling unschooling 1991 local place learning wisdom living well-being history anthropology culture morality moralcourage storytellers stories storytelling healers healing peacemakers peacemaking success education davidworr from delicious
7 weeks ago by robertogreco

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On Making Yourself Right - Ta-Nehisi Coates - National - The Atlantic

"Publicly, he lived to make himself right -- a tradition that is fully empowered in our politics. Breitbart didn't invent the art of making yourself right. But he embraced it, and then advanced it.

That is what took me to sadness. I have experienced curiosity as a primarily selfish endeavor. It originates in the understanding of the brevity of life, and the desire to see as much of it as possible, from as many angles as possible without doing too much damage to my morality. The opposite of that -- incuriosity, dishonesty, the opportunistic deployment of information -- is darkness. Breitbart died, like all of us will, in darkness. But as a media persona he chose to also live there, and in the process has impelled countless others to throttle themselves into the abyss…

It is wholly appropriate to be sorry that Andrew Breitbart died. But in the relevant business, it is right to be sorry for how he lived."

history journalism us race politics society mediapersona persona media lies lying naacp acorn death life ethics morality values charlessherrod shirleysherrod truth wrong right 2012 andrewbreitbart ta-nehisicoates from delicious
12 weeks ago by robertogreco

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Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle on Vimeo
purpose living life insight doing self-discovery experience modelessness causes craftsman problemsolving meaning meaningmaking specialization skills identity rightandwrong ideals richardstallman piaget jeromebruner alankay dougengelbart xeroxparc terrycavanagh larrytesler activism injustice justice morality responsibility animation mediaconnection teletype computing history analogdesign electronics comparisons data space understanding search visualization time braid making ideas programming 2012 connection discovery coding invention creativity principles bretvictor from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

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Charles P. Pierce on the brutal truth about the crimes at Penn State - Grantland

"It happens because institutions lie. And today, our major institutions lie because of a culture in which loyalty to "the company," and protection of "the brand"…trumps conventional morality, traditional ethics, civil liberties, & even adherence to the rule of law. It is better to protect "the brand" than it is to protect free speech, the right to privacy, or even to protect children."

"Independent action is usually crushed. Nobody wants to damage the brand. Your supervisor might find out, & his primary loyalty is to the company…why he got promoted to be supervisor…

…institutions of college athletics exist primarily as unreality fueled by deceit…that universities should be in the business of providing large spectacles of mass entertainment…

It is not a failure of our institutions so much as it is a window into what they have become — soulless, profit-driven monsters, Darwinian predators w/ precious little humanity left in them…Too much of this country is too big to fail."

pennstate religion grantland collegesports colleges universities 2011 toobigtofail ethics morality corporatism loyalty humanity humanism fear failure jerrysandusky romancatholicchurch rape childabuse law corruption civilliberties collegefootball us crime truth from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

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SpeEdChange: The Teaching of Tribalism

"Teaching tribalism. We do it all the time. In secondary school after secondary school across the United States we mix our national symbols with our local tribal symbols. And in both cases, our goal is to build tribal loyalty, and yes, tribal loyalty means that nothing is more important than "us" against "them."…

Loyalty is not all bad. Loyalty is essential to human society. But loyalty should never be taught as somehow involving unquestioning, or lack of doubting, or shutting off our moral compasses."

[See also: http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2011/11/cultures-of-compliance.html ]

loyalty tribalism 2011 pennstate irasocol teaching nationalism patriotism ethics joepaterno us humanism society morality pledgeofallegiance sports fanaticism culture from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

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The Blog : How to Lose Readers (Without Even Trying) : Sam Harris

"Many of my critics pretend that they have been entirely self-made…seem to feel responsible for their intellectual gifts…freedom from injury & disease…fact that they were born at a specific moment in history. Many appear to have absolutely no awareness of how lucky one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, to not have cerebral palsy, or to not have been bankrupted in middle age by the mortal illness of a spouse.

Many of us have been extraordinarily lucky—& we did not earn it. Many good people have been extraordinarily unlucky—& did not deserve it. & yet I get the distinct sense that if I asked some of my readers why they weren’t born w/ club feet, or orphaned before the age of 5, they would not hesitate to take credit for these accomplishments. There is a stunning lack of insight into the unfolding of human events that passes for moral & economic wisdom in some circles."

[via: http://lukescommonplacebook.tumblr.com/post/9573656199/ ]

culture economics policy money taxes politics samharris objectivism libertarianism luck unlucky life illness bankruptcy society religion belief selfishness wisdom class wealth incomegap wealthdistribution warrenbuffett 2011 sharing socialism democracy goodfortune morality from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

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RSA Animate - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce - YouTube

"In this short RSA Animate, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek investigates the surprising ethical implications of charitable giving."

[via: http://www.mrdestructo.com/2011/08/fuck-you-warren-buffett.html ]

politics history economics philosophy zizek 2009 capitalism georgesoros philanthropy socialism culturalcapitalism rsaanimate ethics morality oscarwilde poverty policy government hypocrisy from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

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Memex 1.1 » Cameron and the feral rich

"There was a time — round the time when his young son died and he was running for office — when Cameron seemed to have the makings of a rounded human being. But it turns out to have been an illusion. What’s happened is that the shallow, oily, polished PR-flack that he used to be has reappeared. And he’s running a corrupt, morally-compromised, untruthful administration that is more divisive than anything we’ve seen since Thatcher at her peak."

uk 2011 london riots morality noblesseoblige wealth immorality davidcameron humanity corruption greed hypocrisy criminality government class rulingclass
august 2011 by robertogreco

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The Unselfish Gene - Harvard Business Review

"Executives, like most other people, have long believed that human beings are interested only in advancing their material interests.

However, recent research in evolutionary biology, psychology, sociology, political science, and experimental economics suggests that people behave far less selfishly than most assume. Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have even found neural and, possibly, genetic evidence of a human predisposition to cooperate.

These findings suggest that instead of using controls or carrots and sticks to motivate people, companies should use systems that rely on engagement and a sense of common purpose.

Several levers can help executives build cooperative systems: encouraging communication, ensuring authentic framing, fostering empathy and solidarity, guaranteeing fairness and morality, using rewards and punishments that appeal to intrinsic motivations, relying on reputation and reciprocity, and ensuring flexibility."

business motivation intrinsicmotivation reciprocity theunselfishgene cooperation wikipedia empathy solidarity fairness morality human humanism tcsnmy unschooling deschooling rewards punishment reputation flexibility cooperativism cooperativesystems engagement purpose commonpurpose evolutionarybiology biology psychology sociology politicalscience experimentaleconomics economics evolutionarypsychology yochaibenkler complexity simplicity self-interest selfishness behavior extrinsicmotivation 2011 from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Nietzsche, Use and Abuse of History (e-text) [Google cache of: http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/history.htm ]

"This is a parable for every individual among us. He must organize the chaos in himself by recalling in himself his own real needs. His honesty, his more courageous and more genuine character, must at some point or other struggle against what will only be constantly repeated, relearned, and imitated. He begins then to grasp that culture can still be something other than a decoration of life, that is, basically always only pretence and disguise; for all ornamentation covers over what is decorated. So the Greek idea of culture reveals itself to him, in opposition to the Roman, the idea of culture as a new and improved nature, without inner and outer, without pretence and convention, culture as a unanimous sense of living, thinking, appearing, and willing. Thus, he learns out of his own experience that it was the higher power of moral nature through which the Greeks attained their victory over all other cultures and that each increase of truthfulness must also be…"

via:tcarmody nietzsche history goethe culture greeks romans youth honesty morality toread from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Paul Bloom | Professor of Psychology, Yale University | Big Think

"Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale University. His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on morality, religion, fiction, and art. He is a past president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and a co-editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, one of the major journals in the field. Dr. Bloom has written for scientific journals such as Nature and Science as well as for popular outlets such as The New York Times, the Guardian, and the Atlantic. He is the author or editor of four books, including "Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human." His newest book, "How Pleasure Works," will be published by Norton in June 2010." 
 
[This link points to the segment of the interview title: "How Are Kids Smarter Than Adults?"]

children language socialinteraction brain plasticity psychology imagination pretending interviews paulbloom play pretend development fiction evolution perception childdevelopment morality art religion pleasure reality purposefuldeception self-deception from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Economist's View: Increasing Taxes on the Wealthy is Unfair???

"The immorality is based upon the idea that the wealthy earned every penny they received and it would be immoral to take it away and give it to those who didn't toil as hard, as effectively, or at all (you know, the people whose wages have not kept up with their productivity). The arguments against the idea that pay at the top reflects merit alone are well known -- the contention hardly passes the laugh test -- and I won't repeat them here. But anyone who thinks the reward for crashing the financial sector ought to be unimaginable wealth should rethink their ideas."

taxes budget debt 2011 morality right left income wealth policy politics trickledowneconomics economics money society wealthdistribution from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco

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Chris Hedges: Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig

"A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs…" 
 
[Printable: http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410/ ]

education politics reform us corruption class money policy rttt nclb testing standardizedtesting billgates michaelbloomberg schools schooling chrishedges socrates hannaharendt civilization civics morality authority obedience consciousness self-awareness skepticism thinking criticalthinking lcproject tcsnmy greed from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco

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The Mavenist: "And whereever I’ve been, once it begins to shift from why to how, I simply leave: I’m gone."

"I would think that the most immoral thing one can do is to have ambitions for someone else’s mind. That’s the crux of the challenge and the responsibility of having the opportunity to deal with young people at such a crucial time in their formation. One of the hardest things to do is not to give them clues—‘Here, do it this way, it’s a lot easier’—and instead to keep them on the edge of the question… The problem with teaching full time … is that there comes a moment when there occurs a shift from why to how. I mean, people want you to be their guru, and that’s the last thing you can do for them, that’s the worst thing. And whereever I’ve been, once it begins to shift from why to how, I simply leave: I’m gone."

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march 2011 by robertogreco

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Condemned to Joy by Pascal Bruckner - City Journal

"The second shift was the rise of individualism. Since nothing opposed our fulfillment any longer—neither church nor party nor social class—we became solely responsible for what happened to us. It proved an awesome burden: if I don’t feel happy, I can blame no one but myself. So it was no surprise that a vast number of fulfillment industries arose, ranging from cosmetic surgery to diet pills to innumerable styles of therapy, all promising reconciliation with ourselves and full realization of our potential. “Become your own best friend, learn self-esteem, think positive, dare to live in harmony,” we were told by so many self-help books, though their very number suggested that these were not such easy tasks. The idea of fulfillment, though the successor to a more demanding ethic, became a demand itself. The dominant order no longer condemns us to privation; it offers us paths to self-realization with a kind of maternal solicitude."

happiness philosophy culture history society individualism morality joy pascalbruckner depression fulfillment 2011 self-help from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco

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What the science of human nature can teach us : The New Yorker

"cognitive revolution…provides different perspective on our lives…emphasizes relative importance of emotion over pure reason, social connections over individual choice, moral intuition over abstract logic, perceptiveness over I.Q…

We’ve spent generation trying to reorganize schools to make them better, but truth is people learn from people they love…

…she communicated distinction btwn mental strength & mental character…stressed importance of collecting conflicting information before making up mind…calibrating certainty level to strength of evidence…enduring uncertainty for long stretches as answer became clear…correcting for biases…

…gifts he was most grateful for had been passed along by teachers & parents inadvertently…official education was mostly forgotten or useless…

There weren’t even words for traits that matter most—having sense of contours of reality, being aware of how things flow, having ability to read situations the way a master seaman reads rhythm of ocean."

psychology neuroscience science brain culture toshare tcsnmy learning whatmatters emotions emotionalintelligence eq davidbrooks uncertainty relationships teaching education careers consciousness cognitiverevolution cognition morality preceptiveness cv observation connections connectivism love bias character certainty reality schools unschooling deschooling people society flow experience racetonowhere fulfillment happiness subconscious from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco

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Online, Anonymity Breeds Contempt - NYTimes.com

"Even in the 4th century B.C., Plato touched upon the subject of anonymity & morality in his parable of the ring of Gyges. 
That mythical ring gave its owner the power of invisibility, & Plato observed that even a habitually just man who possessed such a ring would become a thief, knowing that he couldn’t be caught. Morality, Plato argues, comes from full disclosure; without accountability for our actions we would all behave unjustly… 
 
Psychological research has proven again & again that anonymity increases unethical behavior. Road rage bubbles up in the relative anonymity of one’s car. & in the online world, which can offer total anonymity, the effect is even more pronounced…There’s even a term for it: the online disinhibition effect. 
 
At Facebook…approach is to try to replicate real-world social norms by emphasizing the human qualities of conversation. People’s faces, real names & brief bios are placed next to their public comments, to establish a baseline of responsibility."

community trolls internet anonymity commenting facebook trolling morality onlinedisinhibition 2010 ethics human humannature cars driving plato gyges parables ringofgyges disclosure accountability behavior etiquette social interaction online web socialnorms conversation classideas cv responsibility toshare todiscuss from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco

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Justice with Michael Sandel - Home

"Justice is one of the most popular courses in Harvard’s history. Nearly one thousand students pack Harvard’s historic Sanders Theatre to hear Professor Sandel talk about justice, equality, democracy, and citizenship. Now it’s your turn to take the same journey in moral reflection that has captivated more than 14,000 students, as Harvard opens its classroom to the world."

michaelsandel harvard justice law opencourseware philosophy politics morality lectures from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco

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Human Kind: Sissela Bok reviews "The Price of Altruism" by Oren Harman | The American Scholar

"For Darwin, the question of human morality never had to do with pure selflessness. In The Descent of Man he expressed his considered conviction that cultural factors such as “the effects of habit, the reasoning powers, instruction, religion, &c.” play a much more important role than natural selection in advancing what he called the moral qualities of human beings, “though to this latter agency the social instincts, which afforded the basis for the development of the moral sense, may be safely attributed.” 
 
Harman, in his closing pages, underscores the role that culture and education still play in human altruistic behaviors, despite claims by biological determinists that genes run the show. His book is an important contribution to the collaborative work on altruism as it relates to self-interest now increasingly under way, not only in the natural sciences but also in philosophy, political science, economics, and anthropology."

humans humanism altruism selflessness education teaching learning culture economics philosophy politics anthropology collaboration empathy biology evolution darwin behavior society genetics naturenurture nature biologicaldeterminism determinism orenharman sisselabok morality humannature from delicious
september 2010 by robertogreco

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Infinite Manic Sadness: DFW's Universal Inner Child | Culture | The American Scene [Additional quote: "For some of us, reading is a highly complicated, vexatious game."] [via: http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2010/08/feeney-on-jest.html]

"Part of it sounds of false modesty, & part of it sounds of fear. But then you read the seemingly cornball quote above & you have to concede that at least some of it is sincere. He’s speaking in the first person plural– throwing down something like a moral injunction–but what “we” are enjoined from doing is the sort of thing that mainly only people like DFW need to be told not to do. You can hear him speaking as a seriously depressed person who, in his dark moments, succumbs to self-laceration & -recrimination, who inflicts terrible violence on his own spirit, who is not nice to himself at all. He has to know that not everyone is depressed like he is. But when he thinks of people in general, what he sees & worries about is their vulnerability to the kind of extreme pain he lives with." 
 
"That extremes of feeling can be made both more intelligible (psychologically & aesthetically) & more dramatic & beautiful through extremes of structure, syntax, & tone, &, maybe, vice versa."

davidfosterwallace writing depression emotion syntax tone structure psychology aesthetics mattfeeney jameswood hystericalrealism postmodernism morality ethics empathy vulnerability infinitejest from delicious
september 2010 by robertogreco

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Amazon.com: Unto This Last (9781420925968): John Ruskin: Books

"Originally published in "Cornhill" magazine, "Unto This Last" is a series of four essays on the politics of economics. Considered by Ruskin as one of his most important works, "Unto This Last" argues that economics, art and science must have a foundation in morality. Ruskin, who cannot be strictly labeled as a liberal or conservative in his political ideology, crafts a thought-provoking exposition of prevailing economic theories that is as relevant today as when first written."

johnruskin books untothislast morality science art economics toread from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco

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Profile: Umberto Eco | Books | The Guardian

“He teaches 3 days a week, “for pleasure not money”...enjoys company of young people...he’s an old adolescent...

via:cburell umbertoeco interviews writing religion problemsolving academia youth howwework teaching ethics morality life death 2002 belief elitism post-structuralism politics worldbuilding
july 2010 by robertogreco

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BigThink videos: Penn Jillette and Dan Ariely - Boing Boing

"A couple of great videos from BigThink. First, Penn Jillette on how reading the great religious texts will make you into an atheist, the future of magic, and how he and Teller work together."

[Videos are at: http://bigthink.com/pennjillette AND http://bigthink.com/danariely ]

behavior rationality religion pennjillette skepticism atheism irrationality primarysources criticalthinking magic pennandteller performance business partnerships ikeaeffecy ikea onlinedating math politics tolerance respect morality right wrong glenbeck abbiehoffman libertarianism honesty humility tcsnmy classideas civics policy humanity context media perspective evil good wisdom disagreement debate philosophy drugs alcohol modeling
july 2010 by robertogreco

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Why School? - Practical Theory

"One of my frustrations right now is what I feel is a thin and destructive dialogue about public education in our country. Much of the dialogue is from a deficit model -- "How do we fix broken schools?" -- without ever recognizing the incredible work that happens in schools all over the country every day. Worse, the "fix" that is being advocated is often more reductive than what we currently offer - a focus on tested subjects, a focus on "work-ready" skills that ignores the civic needs of a nation. We look to the edu-capitalists to solve our problem at a time when, dare we suggest, the morality of the market should not be the model for school."

chrislehmann education mikerose whyschool books policy toread markets civics tcsnmy publicschools debate 2010 morality deficitmodel
july 2010 by robertogreco

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Strength in naughty or nice | Harvard Gazette Online

"New research from Harvard suggests moral actions may increase people’s capacity for willpower & physical endurance. Study participants who did good deeds—or even just imagined themselves helping others—were better able to perform a subsequent task of physical endurance.

health psychology power ethics evil brain behavior morality endurance willpower experience good 2010 kurtgray
july 2010 by robertogreco

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“We’re All Born Atheists”: A Religious Person Defends Non-Belief « SpeakEasy

"Being an atheist in America means being less than human. I know from personal experience, not from being an atheist but from being raised Christian in a conservative Christian town and holding negative biases about atheists. Like many others I thought that a belief in God was the foundation of morality, that Christians were superior to others and that atheists were a threat to believers. I didn’t, however, reach this conclusion consciously after weighing the facts and examining the issue independently. But rather it was something so ingrained within the culture that it permeated the social conscience. And of course atheists were just one group among many targeted by some Christians. But for several years now there have been movements both religious and secular that have championed the rights of other marginalized groups such as gays, people of color and women. Now it’s time for religious and spiritual people to take a stand for non-believers of all varieties."

christianity atheism society thought us culture discrimination religion ethics morality 2010 bescofield marginalization richarddawkins christopherhitchens samharris danieldennett dominance pervasiveness outsiders
june 2010 by robertogreco

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Newsweek (But if you turn out to be wrong, even temporarily,...)

""But if you turn out to be wrong, even temporarily, even only once, on a hot-button issue, that’s enough for effective excommunication from polite society. That, to me, is chilling: I’d much rather live in a world where people should be able to change their minds and should be allowed to be wrong on occasion. For surely we are all wrong, much more often than we like to think."

highstakes religion catholicism excommunication society consequences certainty learning fear rightandwrong morality felixsalmon change gamechanging mindchanges criticalthinking skepticism
june 2010 by robertogreco

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YouTube - RSA Animate - Smile or Die

"Acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the darker side of positive thinking."

rsa irony barbaraehrenreich economics positivethinking positivepsychology delusion emptiness housingcrisis willfulinorance attitude morality thesecret absurdity amorality optimism gloom negativity pessimism makingthingswork realism actuality truth science vigilance
may 2010 by robertogreco

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Greater Good Magazine | The Compassionate Instinct

"Parents who rely on induction engage their children in reasoning when they have done harm, prompting their child to think about the consequences of their actions and how these actions have harmed others. Parents who rely on power assertion simply declare what is right and wrong, and resort more often to physical punishment or strong emotional responses of anger. Nancy Eisengerg, Richard Fabes, and Martin Hoffman have found that parents who use induction and reasoning raise children who are better adjusted and more likely to help their peers. ... Parents can also teach compassion by example. A landmark study of altruism by Pearl and Samuel Oliner found that children who have compassionate parents tend to be more altruistic. In the Oliners' study of Germans who helped rescue Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, one of the strongest predictors of this inspiring behavior was the individual's memory of growing up in a family that prioritized compassion and altruism."

science collaboration psychology humanity adaptive morality empathy compassion rationality ethics self-interest religion evolution parenting
january 2010 by robertogreco

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Defending The Faith, And Morality, Of NonBelievers : NPR

"Humanism is a bold, resolute response to the fact that being a human being is lonely & frightening. Humanism means taking charge of the often lousy world around us & working to shape it into a better place that we know we cannot ever finish the task...a progressive life-stance or a progressive philosophy of life that w/out supernaturalism, w/out anything magical or supernatural, affirms our ability & our responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment, aspiring to the greater good of humanity...good without god...that struggle, that process of trying to live the best life that we possibly can for ourselves and for all human beings and for the sake of the natural world that surrounds us and sustains us and that we have put in danger...emphasis is not on the without god, everyone has something that they disbelieve...emphasis of humanism is really on what we do believe, it’s on the good & our pursuit of the good, & our determination to be good with others and for others."

gregepstein humanism religion atheism prayer judaism christianity culture faith ethics morality sherwinwine
december 2009 by robertogreco

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Strategic defaults – conditioning, morality, or naïveté? | The Big Picture

"To this point, we have lived in a country where the “What’s my monthly payment?” culture has thrived, but that seems to be changing and the question that more and more underwater homeowners are now asking is, “If banks can walk away from their obligations, why can’t I?”

mortgages banking foreclosures defaults housing markets morality 2009 doublestandards
december 2009 by robertogreco

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Creating God in one's own image : Not Exactly Rocket Science

"For many religious people, the popular question "What would Jesus do?" is essentially the same as "What would I do?" That's the message from an intriguing & controversial new study by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago. Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation & brain-scanning, he has found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs. Psychological studies have found that people are always a tad egocentric when considering other people's mindsets. They use their own beliefs as a starting point, which colours their final conclusions. Epley found that the same process happens, & then some, when people try and divine the mind of God. Their opinions on God's attitudes on important social issues closely mirror their own beliefs. If their own attitudes change, so do their perceptions of what God thinks. They even use the same parts of their brain when considering God's will & their own opinions."

politics science religion neuroscience values morality morals psychology brain
december 2009 by robertogreco

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Culture & Society Articles | Looking at Link Between Religion, Prosperity at National Level | Miller-McCune Online Magazine

"In a paper posted recently on the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, independent researcher Gregory S. Paul reports a strong correlation within First World democracies between socioeconomic well-being and secularity. In short, prosperity is highest in societies where religion is practiced least."

religion happiness atheism morality secularism prosperity government economics science politics culture society sociology statistics
november 2009 by robertogreco

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Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Contrasts in How Google Suggests Searches

"Someone once told me that there is nowhere we are more honest than the search box. We don't lie to Google. Period. We type in what we're thinking -- good, bad, and ugly. There's probably no piece of information that would better show what's on someone's mind than their stream of searches."

technology society google search honesty morality ethics computing linguistics culture internet psychology philosophy
november 2009 by robertogreco

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Falsebook ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes

"We are told repeatedly - most recently by President Obama - that we should watch out what we put in Facebook, because future employers may be looking. My own advice - that we should refrain from actually doing stupid things - doesn't get any airplay; people are far more concerned about the recording of stupid things than the doing of them. But this approach does suggest, as Alan Levine demonstrates, an effective strategy. Create a fake Facebook page, where we blatantly lie about our past. After all, since employers will be looking at these uncritically, this tactic is guaranteed to be successful. isn't it? "Who in their right mind will weigh your current achievements with the same consideration as what you were doing 20 years ago?" asks Levine. "It makes no sense to me.""

facebook falsebook stephendownes society truth ethics lying documentation morality parenting advice youth
september 2009 by robertogreco

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Morality Play / Science News

"Universal concerns, not cultural values, may shape kids’ developing notions of right and wrong"

psychology parenting children society philosophy culture ethics morality
september 2009 by robertogreco

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The real US healthcare issue: compassion deficiency | csmonitor.com

"issue isn't about comparative quality of care...[but] what we will & will not put up with as a society...The fact that a significant number of Americans do not feel any urgency to revamp a system that leaves millions of our sick without care is symptomatic of the fact that we must be suffering from a hardening of more than our arteries. There was a time when highbrows were repulsed by the fact that Americans were not appalled by levels of violence in films. For a country that loves to moralize, we ought to acknowledge that what does or does not repulse reveals a lot about who we are. The pandemic lack of compassion for the un/under-insured is really not that distant from narcissistic indifference of the avaricious CEOs we love to sneer at. Anyone who values honesty will have to admit that many of us are not appalled by children dying for lack of medical treatment. We don't like it, we wish that it could be otherwise, but it doesn't exactly make us sick. And that is appalling."

healthcare compassion empathy us policy politics ethics society morality medicine
august 2009 by robertogreco

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Seven Lies About Lying (Part 2) - Errol Morris Blog - NYTimes.com

"RICKY JAY: When you’re talking about Kant and trust, it made me think of one of the ways I tell people about the con game. I say, “You wouldn’t want to live in a world where you can’t be conned, because if you were, you would be living in a world with no trust. That’s the price you pay for trust, is being conned.” And it’s very easy to substitute being lied to. Right?"

rickyjay errolmorris tryst lying truth lies morality psychology deception society religion myth illusion
august 2009 by robertogreco

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Alison Gopnik, The Philosophical Baby - B&N Review

""Children are unconsciously the most rational beings on earth," says Alison Gopnik, "brilliantly drawing accurate conclusions from data, performing complex statistical analyses, and doing clever experiments." And not only does empirical work reveal this about babies and small children, but what is thus revealed throws light on some of philosophy's more intriguing questions about knowledge, the self, other minds, and the basis of morality."

alisongopnik education children psychology rationality books religion reason knowledge self morality
july 2009 by robertogreco

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The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed Is Good (To a point) | Newsweek.com [Matt Taibbi responds: http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/06/24/fareed-zakarias-manifesto/]

"There's a need for greater self-regulation not simply on Wall Street but also on Pennsylvania Avenue. We get exercised about the immorality of politicians when they're caught in sex scandals. Meanwhile they triple the national debt, enrich their lobbyist friends & write tax loopholes for specific corporations—all perfectly legal—and we regard this as normal. The revolving door between Washington government offices and lobbying firms is so lucrative and so established that anyone pointing out that it is—at base—institutionalized corruption is seen as baying at the moon...We are in the midst of a vast crisis & there is enough blame to go around & many fixes to make, from the international system to national governments to private firms. But at heart, there needs to be a deeper fix within all of us, a simple gut check. If it doesn't feel right, we shouldn't be doing it. That's not going to restore growth or mend globalization or save capitalism, but it might be a small start to sanity."

fareedzakaria crisis economics capitalism greed regulation finance government policy politics control markets ethics morality
june 2009 by robertogreco

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The Meming of Life » My cover is blown

"The enemy of humanism is not faith. The enemy of humanism is hate, is fear, is ignorance, is the darker part of man that is in every humanist, every person in the world. That is the thing we have to fight. Faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in God is believing, absolutely, in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers." - Joss Whedon

josswhedon belief faith humanism atheism humanity evil hate fear ignorance philosophy morality
april 2009 by robertogreco

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Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code | Video on TED.com

"Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies the bugs in our moral code: the hidden reasons we think it's OK to cheat or steal (sometimes). Clever studies help make his point that we're predictably irrational -- and can be influenced in ways we can't grasp."

stockmarket psychology behavior ethics morality danariely ted economics rationality trust bias cheating
march 2009 by robertogreco

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Cognitive Edge - Phronesis

"TED talk by Barry Schwartz which is a call for practical wisdom in the face of a society in the thrall of rules and incentives. Some great contextual anecdotes about hospital janitors to set the scene and the absurdity of the lemonade story to provide an imperative for action. I recommend listening to the whole thing which makes a strong but balanced case that in appealing to rules and incentives we are engaging with a war on wisdom. He argues cogently that while rules prevent disaster then can to easily result in mediocrity. One of my favourite examples of this is that of teachers measured on their learning plans rather than their ability to inspiring pupils. Goodhart's Law that I popularise as any measure used as a target ceases to be a measure has a variant in this talk namely: Any incentive system can be subverted by bad will Just look at the current controversy over bank bonuses for illustrations of this."

learning teaching tcsnmy inspiration ethics philosophy morality practice davesnowden barryschwartz ted action theory phronesis wisdom thinking via:preoccupations
march 2009 by robertogreco

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Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom | Video on TED.com

"Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for “practical wisdom” as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world."

baryschwartz psychology education wisdom morality bureaucracy economics change leadership administration management character motivation incentives ethics philosophy process behavior morals failure decisionmaking exceptions human flexibility inflexibility commonsense procedure simplicity moreofthesame rules rulemaking tcsnmy learning teaching mediocrity banking crisis 2009 improvisation
february 2009 by robertogreco

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The Virtues of Godlessness - ChronicleReview.com

"It is a great socioreligious irony — for lack of a better term — that when we consider the fundamental values and moral imperatives contained within the world's great religions, such as caring for the sick, the infirm, the elderly, the poor, the orphaned, the vulnerable; practicing mercy, charity, and goodwill toward one's fellow human beings; and fostering generosity, humility, honesty, and communal concern over individual egotism — those traditionally religious values are most successfully established, institutionalized, and put into practice at the societal level in the most irreligious nations in the world today."

religion sweden denmark psychogeography psychology happiness ethics culture society atheism morality belief theology philosophy
january 2009 by robertogreco

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In the lap of luxury, Paris squirms - International Herald Tribune

"Some French intellectuals want to go much further, calling for the death of the entire luxury industry as a sort of national ritual of purification. "Since the ancient Greeks, luxury goods have always been stamped with the seal of immorality," said Gilles Lipovetsky, a sociologist who has written several books about consumerism. "They represent waste, the superficial, the inequality of wealth. They have no need to exist." ... President Nicolas Sarkozy, formerly known as "President Bling-Bling" ... and the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair hosted a conference of political leaders and Nobel Prize-winning economists to find ways to instill moral values into the global economy. The old financial order had been "perverted" by "amoral" and uncontrolled capitalism, Sarkozy said, deploring the fact that, "the signs of wealth count more than wealth itself." He praised the "return of the state" as a regulator of capitalist excess."

wealth society france austerity simplicity slow excess capitalism materialism values morality politics nicolassarkozy crisis consumption luxury credit markets modesty
january 2009 by robertogreco

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Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives | Video on TED.com

"Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most."

ethics morality politics liberalism conservatism philosophy psychology culture society sociology evolution education jonathanhaidt conservatives buddhism religion values morals liberals balance
december 2008 by robertogreco

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A Templeton Conversation: Does the free market corrode moral character?

"This is the fourth in a series of conversations among leading scientists, scholars, and public figures about the "Big Questions.""

freemarket capitalism economics politics morality markets character philosophy ethics
october 2008 by robertogreco

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Click opera - The hidden easter eggs of risk have come home to roost!

"Now, the current financial crisis is dauntingly technical -- and far beyond my comprehension. But it also contains a moral dimension which we can all understand, and I think the quote above is a way to the nub of it. That complaint isn't just about the failure of supposedly-intelligent brains to predict the current situation, it's about the specialization of intelligence, the narrowing down of intelligence from a general critical sense, a view of the big picture (the kind of view artists might take), to a very narrow form of self-interested cunning that focuses on devising ever-newer, even-more-complicated forms of personal gain -- ways to cheat the system and cheat other people, even out of their houses and food -- and studiously ignores the bigger implications."

momus art finance capitalism latecapitalism subprime banking economics ethics generalists cv intelligence society morality risk risktaking gamechanging
september 2008 by robertogreco

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Digital Natives » Digital Natives Definitions Redux, Episode n+x

"term Digital Natives was “relying too much on age as determining factor of Internet & technology savviness”...DNs are “not a generation but a population"..."As long as we divide the world into digital natives & immigrants, we won’t be able to talk meaningfully about the kinds of sharing that occurs between adults & children & we won’t be able to imagine other ways adults can interact with youth outside of these cultural divides."..."Technology does not have a moral component: it is the people who use it. Technology does not do the work: it is the people who use it. Today or yesterday or tomorrow, everything is mediated through technologies - it’s different technologies, but the same humans mediating."

digitalnatives howardrheingold communication digital socialnetworking socialnetworks children generations adults youth teens genx generationx generationy morality technology online internet web
august 2008 by robertogreco

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Richard Feynman: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
richardfeynman documentary science learning discovery understanding teaching parenting video differentiatedinstruction morality
may 2008 by robertogreco

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Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird - "What we call morality began in the mores, the life-conserving customs, of the village. When these primary bonds dissolve,...

"when intimate visible community ceases to be a watchful, identifiable, deeply concerned group, then the “We” becomes a buzzing swarm of “I’s,” and secondary ties & allegiances become too feeble to halt the disintegration of the urban community"

adamgreenfield urban urbanism morality cities humanity society etiquette customs bonds community comments
april 2008 by robertogreco

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