Psych-itis →

Published April 6, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 6

So basically all of these systems are intimately interconnected, and probably before this is done with researchers will find five more systems intimately interconnected with all of these. It might be that inflammation is the master system which causes a cascade of events in all of the others. It might be that one of the others is the master system. It might be that depression is a collection of multiple different diseases, and some are caused by one thing and others by another. It might be that looking for a “master system” is silly and that the true mathematical relationship between all of these things is such a chaotic process that all you can say is that they all stumbled together into the wrong attractor point and things deteriorated from there.

~ Scott Alexander from, Chronic Psychitis

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This is one of those stories where science has been carefully teasing something apart for many years, only to find out, in the end, that they had it all wrong along the way.

Clarity: SCIENCE FOR THE WIN.

But — via my confirmation bias — this jumps out as another place where being “certain” about things turns out to be — wait, no — I’m not certain. Dammit. Oh well, it’s just turtles all the way down.

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Skill is developed →

Published April 5, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 5  ·  

The separation of talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who want to do things. Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.

~ Will Smith

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How much harder is it? →

Published April 4, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 4  ·  ,

How much harder is it to do the right thing when you’re surrounded by people with low standards? How much harder is it to be positive and empathetic inside the negativity bubble of television chatter? How much harder is it to focus on your own issues when you’re distracted with other people’s drama and conflict?

~ Ryan Holiday from, The Daily Stoic

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I consider myself lucky that I’m surrounded by such a terrific group of people: loving, supporting, listening, encouraging– just so many ‘ings.

Also, I’ve built upon my intial luck (parents, gender, skin color, country of birth, the century, etc) by working hard to seek out people who require me to improve. I don’t particularly like the old adage, “you are the average of your five closest friends,” because it’s so trivial as to be of little help. I prefer…

People are like goals in that they pull (or push, this is a choose-your-own metaphor) you in some direction. Sometimes, one person pulls you in several directions at once. Each person pulls you in “lurches” and “yanks”; The more time you spend with them, the more of a concerted effect they’ll have. Some people you cannot choose (to add or remove them from your life, to change their behavior or innate qualities). So you best think very carefully, and act very intentionally, to choose those whom you can.

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Well that escalated quickly →

Published April 3, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 3

Warning, this post is so meta even this acronym…

This blog just had it’s first month with more than 10,000 page-views.

Wanna guess where most of my traffic comes from? Ok, sure, most of my traffic comes from the Goog. That’s trivial. But where does most of the non-goog traffic come from?

https://www.stumbleupon.com/

By a long measure too. Years and years of all the other social channels, nary a bump — deleted. Bookface? nary a bump… I think about 7 (s e v e n) people click through from Bookface.

I urge you to click over and join my growing email list before Facebook implodes entirely ;)

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Type 2 diabetes →

Published April 2, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 2  ·  

The traditional approach—which is clearly not working—is to “manage” this chronic condition with medications and the ever-ubiquitous “eat-less-avoid-fat-exercise-more” lifestyle interventions. At best, this approach only slows down the progression of the disease.

~ Peter Attia from, Is Type 2 Diabetes Reversible at Scale?

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Often the things I’m commenting on are “close to the ground” — things that are immediately actionable, or suggestions of things to go explore or do directly.

This one is different. Peter Attia sits in a certain niche — if you know of him, you are nodding knowingly — but this particular article is a neat attempt to zoom way out to think about wether the more “on the ground” sort of “do this”, “do that” personal direction is inherently scalable out to population-wide solutions to problems.

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Meditation →

Published April 1, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 1

People who haven’t tried to meditate have very little sense that their minds are noisy at all. And when you tell them that they’re thinking every second of the day, it generally doesn’t mean anything to them. It certainly doesn’t strike most of them as pathological. When these people try to meditate, they have one of two reactions: Some are so restless and besieged by doubts that they can hardly attempt the exercise. “What am I doing sitting here with my eyes closed? What is the point of paying attention to the breath?” And, strangely, their resistance isn’t remotely interesting to them. They come away, after only a few minutes, thinking that the act of paying close attention to their experience is pointless.

~ Sam Harris from, Taming the Mind

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I don’t consider myself “very good” at meditating. Beginning in ’98, through 15 years of Aikido practice and beyond, I have spent “some” time sitting in seiza, meditating and breathing. It was only after many years that I realized how wonderful the sitting, meditation, and breathing was for me personally.

There’re approximately 10 gazillion intros and primers on meditation and breathing on the Internet, so I’m not even going to give a hand-waving explanation. I’ll just say: Yes! Do! You can mail me a Thank-you card later!

…and I suppose also: If we meet in person, strike up a conversation and I’d love to talk shop.

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Beware the man →

Published March 31, 2018  ·  All posts on Mar 31  ·  ,

But I worry that most smart people have not learned that a list of dozens of studies, several meta-analyses, hundreds of experts, and expert surveys showing almost all academics support your thesis – can still be bullshit. Which is too bad, because that’s exactly what people who want to bamboozle an educated audience are going to use.

~ Scott Alexander from, Beware the Man of One Study

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The way our civil discourse currently works, one has to be loud (or strident, or be an animated-GIF) to be heard. If one thinks, “This topic is complicated. I should learn more about it before engaging…”, then by definition you are not [yet] participating in the civil discourse.

Meanwhile, the discourse continues led by those who are willing to engage, and who may [or may not] be better informed than you.

So here’s a challenge — something to consider trying, not a challenge in the sense of me saying, “I challenge you, sir, to a duel!”…

Actually start those conversations where you don’t feel well-equiped. So for example, I should more often say, “I disagree with you because I’m not convinced that yours is the correct position . . . but I’m not entirely certain of my position either . . . can we help each other by unpacking our thinking a bit more?”

There’s a real skill to being fine with not winning the discussion. I engage, I discuss, and the other person holds their position not moving one iota. We each walk away disagreeing but at least we better understand that other individual human being. That would be civil discourse.

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The filter bubble →

Published March 30, 2018  ·  All posts on Mar 30  ·  

Well, personalization is sort of privacy turned inside out: it’s not the problem of controlling what the world knows about you, it’s the problem of what you get to see of the world.

~ Eli Pariser from, The Filter Bubble

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There are thousands — that’s not a typo — of companies which trade (buy, sell) data about users. We’ve reached a point where it is no longer possible to hide. You might also be interested in reading this:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_ca.html

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No hope →

Published March 29, 2018  ·  All posts on Mar 29  ·  

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.

~ Albert Einstein

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Code of conduct, and Principles →

Published March 28, 2018  ·  All posts on Mar 28  ·  

[We] spent weeks drafting the core principles that would support our classroom. We scribbled them down, and over the years they have become clearer and more concise:

Defining humanity, both masculinity and femininity based on the strength of your relationships and the contributions you make to society.

Developing relational skills with teammates, parents, siblings, teachers and friends and learning to maintain and sustain strong positive friendships.

Developing empathy toward others so that you can be supportive and understanding.

Practicing good sportsmanship before, during, and after practices, games, and events, and in life.

Defining success in life as being relationally successful and having a cause bigger than yourself.

Acting with integrity in every area of your life

Contributing to society by taking it upon yourself to get invollved in actions and projects that make the world better in some way.

Becoming an advocate of justice and an ally with others by speaking up on behalf of others and against injustice.

Refraining from committing acts of injustice, including bullying, harassment, racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of hurtful behavior and not accepting or tolerating this kind of behavior in others.

Refraining from violent behavior and learning how to resolve conflict in a postiive and productive manner.

Developing a coherent narrative by making sense of your life experiences, good, bad, and ugly.

~ Joe Ehrmann, InSideOut Coaching pgs 166-7, https://www.librarything.com/work/11172773

And…

COACHES’ CODE OF CONDUCT

The purpose of our coaching is to help boys become men of empathy and integrity who will lead, be responsible, and change the world for good.

Be mindful never to shame a player, but to correct him in an uplifting way. Affirmation!

Believe in every player. Remember, “In youth is where miracles are made.”

Protect our players. Be big enough to build up, not tear down. Our kids are getting attacked from many places that we don’t often see and of which we are not aware.

Remember our job is to put our players in a position where they can develop to their fullest potential through proper teaching and nurturing.

Each player is part of our family, deserves every chance to succeed, and deserves the utmost respect.

Coaches can disagree in meetings but never in front of our players or anyone else outside our family. Disagreements are saved for private meetings.

Our players are student-athletes and we are teacher-coaches. We hold ourselves accountable as teachers of young men and the lessons they need in order ot navigate masculinity and life.

If you do not know, say so and get approprate information. Don’t bluff our kids! They know the difference.

Remember that parents are our parnters. We strive to work with each family in helping their sons succeed. “Every boy is a son to his mother and father.”

Love your players and the other coaches.

No profanity!

Know the difference between shaming and coaching. No screaming, shaming, swearing, or sarcasm.

Don’t be afraid to apologize! We all make mistakes. When mistakes are made publicly, apologize publicly; when mistakes are made personally, apologize personally.

We are nurturing successful people, not just successful athletes.

Treat all opposing coaches and their taems with the honor true competitors deserve.

Respect all referees, officials, and timekeepers. They are imperfect and trying their best just as we are.

Regardless of our wins and losses, we will be successful if we carry out the above items.

Because I am a role model who has the power, position, and platform to make a positive difference in the lives of my players, I commit to this code of conduct. When failing to live up to our standards I will allow for accountabiity and take responsibility for my actions.

~ Joe Ehrmann, InSideOut Coaching pgs 191-3

These are much bigger than my usual pull-quotes. …both in the sense of word-count and in the sense of potential value if they were more widely known.

Ehrmann is writing in the specific context of sports-coaching boys in primary schooling, but one could easily trim out the parts that are specific to sports and still be left with a very useful set of principles, and a well-thought-out code of conduct. If you coach– no actually, scratch that– If you are a human being, I highly recommend you read this book.

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