btrmt.

Analects

Here you'll find all the btrmt. content from across the projects.

See everything I have on:
gratification

Other Projects  |  About btrmt.
btrmt.

Analects

filter by:

Gratification

stuff On self-celebration

show:

article

You could think of a collection of group dynamics like ‘groupthink’ or ‘deindividuation’ or whatever are bad. Or you could consider that our social identity is formed by making the distinctions between in- and out- groups clear. Then it all makes sense.

'Harmful' group biases describe all group dynamics

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 series on group dynamics. Here we’ll talk about how the same group dynamics people like to worry about actually underpin all group dynamics.
You could think of a collection of group dynamics like ‘groupthink’ or ‘deindividuation’ or whatever are bad. Or you could consider that our social identity is formed by making the distinctions between in- and out- groups clear. Then it all makes sense.
Read this article

filed under:

collective-architecture connection gratification on-culture on-ethics on-friendship on-leadership

article

Bias reduces noise—if you know <em>roughly</em> what to expect, then being biased by those expectations means you won’t get distracted by less relevant data points.

Bias is good

Article

If you haven’t heard of System 1 and System 2, you’ve probably heard one of its analogues. People who say ‘don’t let your amygdala hijack your frontal lobes’, or ‘get out of the sympathetic and into the parasympathetic nervous system’, or ‘something something vagus nerve’ are using pseudo-brain science to get at the same thing. But the thing everyone seems to have taken away from this book is the thing we always take away—System 1 stuff, a.k.a. bias is a bad thing. This is not what Kahneman was going for. Kahneman was trying to show us how both System 1 and System 2 have their place.
Bias reduces noise—if you know roughly what to expect, then being biased by those expectations means you won’t get distracted by less relevant data points.
Read this article

filed under:

betterment gratification on-being-fruitful on-thinking-and-reasoning somatic-architecture thought-architecture wealth-architecture

article

We usually complain about systems ‘getting in our way’, with arbitrary criteria that determine success. But this goes the other way too. Much of my success and that of those around me is similarly mechanical. Not luck, effort, or nepotism.

Mechanical success vs nepotism and luck

Article

People will often say something along the lines of: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Largely this is true. Nepotism is a very greasy grease. But I want to talk about some under-rated alternatives. An alternative that often looks a little like luck. Bad luck, to be specific. But we can flip it.
We usually complain about systems ‘getting in our way’, with arbitrary criteria that determine success. But this goes the other way too. Much of my success and that of those around me is similarly mechanical. Not luck, effort, or nepotism.
Read this article

filed under:

betterment gratification on-being-fruitful wealth-architecture

article

The nervous system teaches us the most important lesson about human behaviour: the main thing our body does is transform the world into adaptive responses, and the nervous system is at the very core of it. But beyond that, it’s mostly just a mess.

Nervous Energy

Article

A very basic principle of living creatures is that they respond adaptively to the environment. It isn’t the only principle. But it’s really rather important. And more-or-less, this principle is what the nervous system does. But many people talk about the nervous system in mystical tones—the key to altering your maladaptive responses. Sadly, these people have no idea what they’re talking about.
The nervous system teaches us the most important lesson about human behaviour: the main thing our body does is transform the world into adaptive responses, and the nervous system is at the very core of it. But beyond that, it’s mostly just a mess.
Read this article

filed under:

gratification on-being-fruitful somatic-architecture

article

The ‘naming’ problem, where by naming something we feel we have explained it, the ‘language’ problem, where the words we use stop others from understanding, and the ‘question’ problem, where we fail to find the right questions, are common and funny.

There are no levels

Article

Today I want to tell a story. It’s one of my favourites. Certainly my favourite ‘when I was a consultant’ story. Hopefully, we’ll laugh a little, and then I’ll use it to point out three ‘problems’ that often get in the way of us solving other problems. I won’t really have a solution. I just think it’s amusing.
The ‘naming’ problem, where by naming something we feel we have explained it, the ‘language’ problem, where the words we use stop others from understanding, and the ‘question’ problem, where we fail to find the right questions, are common and funny.
Read this article

filed under:

betterment gratification on-being-fruitful on-culture on-thinking-and-reasoning thought-architecture
Newsletter
Join over 2000 of us. Get the newsletter.
Read it first | Privacy | Not working?