The Halftalk Post: January 2012

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Common regrets in 30s, 40s,....

(what follows is a reposting fom Quora, but related is my own blog post on regret HERE)

QUORA :

Bradley Voytek, BA in psychology and PhD in neuroscience":

110 votes by Laura Copeland, Emily Altman, Monika Kothari, (more)

In 2011 there was a large, national survey of Americans across all age groups that looked at just this. The paper was called Regrets of the Typical American published by Roese and Morrison in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/2...

Here's the main finding, outlined by Vaughan Bell over on the Mind Hacks blog:
http://mindhacks.com/2011/03/27/...

complete post is HERE in Society & Psychology subblog)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Atheism 2.0

I've often felt that even if one doesn't accept the mysterious supernatural tenets of religions, they are such developed and functional institutions that there is a lot to be reclaimed from then. Not only because religions have arisen and persisted because they tap into important elements of our nature, feelings of community and awe etc., but also because they have perfected many techniques that means they can harnass significant power to have an effect (albeit for bad as well as good) on the world. As this lecture discusses, this is in stark contrast to their generally individual and uncoordinated secular counterparts (artists, philosophers, even film makers) who also try to provide comment and guidance about 'higher' things, but often with much less effect. As de Botton says, there is a lot secular society can learn, and religion is too important to be left to the religious...

TED: Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0 - Alain de Botton (2011)

Friday, January 13, 2012

An informed conscience? there can be an app for that..

Given the often hidden power and impact (environmental and social) of large corporations, there's great advantage and potential in apps which enable easy responsible consumerism....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/12/boycott-sopa-app-informed-consumer-citizen

Though I agree that ideally an open source route is preferable, since otherwise comanies might be unfairly targetted. Some feedback (and improvement) mechanism is needed, and also safeguards against manipulation by competitors. But great idea...