Philosophy
Perhaps the most famous line of Plato's Apology is the one in which Socrates makes the bold claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living." This is also where we get the exhortation "know thyself." The problem is that, quite often, the more we learn about human beings as a group, the more obvious it becomes that we know far less about our individual selves than we might have originally suspected, and worse, that the more we try to introspect and discover, the less we end up knowing ourselves. It's not just like walking toward the horizon and expecting to reach it; it's more like walking toward the horizon and somehow ending up farther away from it than before but still believing we've made some progress...
Marketers, politicians, broadcasters and many others rely on polls and participants' assessment of their own preferences, beliefs, attitudes, etc. in order to push some product or endorse a political trend. After all, who would know better about your own preferences than yourself? Funny thing is that when you are asked to evaluate your own preferences and justify them, the preferences you end up defending are either not your own, and you don't even know it, or you end up defending them in some really pathetic way that should not convince a retarded dodo.
In the following presentation, pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell discusses some of these findings and meditates on some of the ways we might be able to overcome these natural and subconscious proclivities and, as is his interesting style, he begins with a seemingly trivial example, this time: office chairs :)
Sometimes the solution to some of our problems is much simpler than we normally imagine.
.
- Dangerous Fiction And More Dangerous Non-fiction
Gwydion asks, "What is the most dangerous fiction of the last 2500 years?"It depends upon what we mean by dangerous. Dangerous to whom? Fiction derives its power by creating worlds which do not exist, but yet bear enough resemblance to the world which...
- Plato - Apology
In ancient Greece, when visitors went to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, the very first thing they encountered there was an inscription chiseled on the entrance: "know thyself." While many people today think of this as an invitation to meditative self-reflection,...
- Malcolm Gradwell - Her Way
What do you do when your best friend decides to marry someone who crushes his spirit, who loves him only on condition that he not be himself, who takes his sine qua non away from him, who makes him feel ashamed of the very things for which most people...
- The Examined Life
While defending himself against his accusers (at least in Plato's Apology), Socrates uttered a sentence that has captured the essence of philosophy and that has reverberated through the centuries: "The unexamined life is not worth living." More than...
- Malcolm Gladwell - Where Does Success Come From?
When we think about how our lives have turned out, we have a tendency to blame circumstances for our misfortunes and talent for our success. As you may already begin to suspect, there's something missing with this convenient explanation. In the following...
Philosophy
Malcolm Gladwell - Can We Believe What People Tell Us?
Perhaps the most famous line of Plato's Apology is the one in which Socrates makes the bold claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living." This is also where we get the exhortation "know thyself." The problem is that, quite often, the more we learn about human beings as a group, the more obvious it becomes that we know far less about our individual selves than we might have originally suspected, and worse, that the more we try to introspect and discover, the less we end up knowing ourselves. It's not just like walking toward the horizon and expecting to reach it; it's more like walking toward the horizon and somehow ending up farther away from it than before but still believing we've made some progress...Marketers, politicians, broadcasters and many others rely on polls and participants' assessment of their own preferences, beliefs, attitudes, etc. in order to push some product or endorse a political trend. After all, who would know better about your own preferences than yourself? Funny thing is that when you are asked to evaluate your own preferences and justify them, the preferences you end up defending are either not your own, and you don't even know it, or you end up defending them in some really pathetic way that should not convince a retarded dodo.
In the following presentation, pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell discusses some of these findings and meditates on some of the ways we might be able to overcome these natural and subconscious proclivities and, as is his interesting style, he begins with a seemingly trivial example, this time: office chairs :)
Sometimes the solution to some of our problems is much simpler than we normally imagine.
.
- Dangerous Fiction And More Dangerous Non-fiction
Gwydion asks, "What is the most dangerous fiction of the last 2500 years?"It depends upon what we mean by dangerous. Dangerous to whom? Fiction derives its power by creating worlds which do not exist, but yet bear enough resemblance to the world which...
- Plato - Apology
In ancient Greece, when visitors went to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, the very first thing they encountered there was an inscription chiseled on the entrance: "know thyself." While many people today think of this as an invitation to meditative self-reflection,...
- Malcolm Gradwell - Her Way
What do you do when your best friend decides to marry someone who crushes his spirit, who loves him only on condition that he not be himself, who takes his sine qua non away from him, who makes him feel ashamed of the very things for which most people...
- The Examined Life
While defending himself against his accusers (at least in Plato's Apology), Socrates uttered a sentence that has captured the essence of philosophy and that has reverberated through the centuries: "The unexamined life is not worth living." More than...
- Malcolm Gladwell - Where Does Success Come From?
When we think about how our lives have turned out, we have a tendency to blame circumstances for our misfortunes and talent for our success. As you may already begin to suspect, there's something missing with this convenient explanation. In the following...