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Betterment

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The neural reward circuit implies that small, rewarding tasks that share environmental context are going to be the most addictive, so break tasks into small steps that end in a clear good feeling and optimise for a shared environment.

Addictive Work

Article

It’s very trendy to say stuff like ‘start your day by making your bed and something something life is better’. But this is usually some kind of comment about the value of small and simple acts in promoting a sense of order and discipline. I’m not so interested in that. I’m more interested in those small and simple acts that make you addicted to those acts. I like other things that people say are addictive, so this sounds much more my speed, when it comes to productivity.
The neural reward circuit implies that small, rewarding tasks that share environmental context are going to be the most addictive, so break tasks into small steps that end in a clear good feeling and optimise for a shared environment.
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betterment gratification on-being-fruitful somatic-architecture wealth-architecture

article

Everyone is suggestible, not just children or the easily hypnotised; our memories and behaviours are heavily influenced by external suggestions, more than we like to acknowledge.

Everyone's Suggestible

Article

There’s this idea that some people are more suggestible than others—more susceptible to psychic influence. These people are the ones that do wild stuff at a hypnosis show, or are more susceptable to misinformation online. What this idea misses is that suggestion is actually something that works on all of us.
Everyone is suggestible, not just children or the easily hypnotised; our memories and behaviours are heavily influenced by external suggestions, more than we like to acknowledge.
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betterment on-thinking-and-reasoning somatic-architecture

article

Without more tasteful social behaviours to sample from, we’re liable to attach very strongly to the behaviours of our group. Add a hostile environment, normalised physical and emotional violence, and a lack of mental and physical resources, and you have the ingredients for atrocity.

When groups go bad

Article

There’s this cluster of classic social psychology experiments from the 50’s through the 70’s that you’ll be presented with in documentaries and whatnot whenever groups of people are behaving crazily. You’ve probably heard of some of them. Milgram’s ‘shock’ experiments, or Zimbardo’s prison experiment, or Asch’s conformity tests, and so on. These things gloss over just how hard it is to get people to do atrocities on a large-scale. Luckily, you have me to tell you how they really happen.
Without more tasteful social behaviours to sample from, we’re liable to attach very strongly to the behaviours of our group. Add a hostile environment, normalised physical and emotional violence, and a lack of mental and physical resources, and you have the ingredients for atrocity.
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betterment collective-architecture connection on-culture on-ethics on-friendship on-leadership somatic-architecture

article

The strength of our attraction to a group is a function of how different a group is from other groups in ways that we feel like we are, or like we want to be. Our participation in the group depends on how we see it benefitting us, and see us benefitting the group. The stronger both are, the stronger our biases to stay engaged.

Useful groups are biased groups

Article

There’s this cluster of classic social psychology experiments from the 50’s through the 70’s that you’ll be presented with in documentaries and whatnot whenever groups of people are behaving crazily. You’ve probably heard of some of them. Milgram’s ‘shock’ experiments, or Zimbardo’s prison experiment, or Asch’s conformity tests, and so on. This is the second in a third on group dynamics. Here we’ll talk about what makes our attraction to groups stronger, as well as what makes people participate in groups, and how all our group biases make sense in the context.
The strength of our attraction to a group is a function of how different a group is from other groups in ways that we feel like we are, or like we want to be. Our participation in the group depends on how we see it benefitting us, and see us benefitting the group. The stronger both are, the stronger our biases to stay engaged.
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betterment collective-architecture connection on-culture on-ethics on-leadership

article

For group dynamics to produce really bad behaviour, you really need to work at it. You have to train your authority figures to be cruel, prevent dissent or disengagement, and intervene all the time to stop people fixing things. It’s <em>hard</em>.

Catastrophic leadership is actually really hard

Article

There’s this cluster of classic social psychology experiments from the 50’s through the 70’s that you’ll be presented with in documentaries and whatnot whenever groups of people are behaving crazily. You’ve probably heard of some of them. Milgram’s ‘shock’ experiments, or Zimbardo’s prison experiment, or Asch’s conformity tests, and so on. This is the first in a little series on group dynamics. Here we’ll talk about the classic experiments, and show that the kinds of catastrophic group dynamics people trot out to illustrate them are actually really difficult to achieve.
For group dynamics to produce really bad behaviour, you really need to work at it. You have to train your authority figures to be cruel, prevent dissent or disengagement, and intervene all the time to stop people fixing things. It’s hard.
Read this article

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betterment collective-architecture connection on-ethics on-leadership somatic-architecture on-culture on-friendship
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