The honest truth about dishonesty

In the book The honest truth about dishonesty, author Dan Ariely, shows an interesting theory about honesty.

It seems that most people want to think of themselves as good honest people, but also want to benefit from cheating.

To achieve these conflicting goals people use rationalizations and the culture around them. This leads to most people cheating a little, with their combined effect dwarfing the cheating of the few big cheaters.

The book then shows how many different factors influence cheating behaviour:

Ability to rationalize, creativity, conflicts of interest, previous cheating, cognitive depletion, peer dishonesty, culture examples of dishonesty, helping others through cheating are factors which increase dishonesty.

The amount to be gained and the probability of being caught seem to have no effect.

RSA Animate Presentation of the ideas in the book.

Raising happiness

The book Raising happiness presents some interesting and insightful ideas about happiness.
First of all children cannot be happy if the parents aren't happy, so parents should take care of themselves if they want happier children. This includes taking time for yourself, taking care of each other, learning to manage conflicts better.
Children need a network of kind support to flourish, from parents and family to neighbours and friends. Also kindness is a major source of happiness.
Success is driven a lot by effort, so parents should praise effort not outcome in a growth mind-set.
One can actively focus on gratitude, forgiveness and optimism, which lead to a happier disposition.
Children need to learn emotions, and parents can help them by empathizing, labelling and validating.
Children respond better to requests when parents show empathy, offer meaningful rationales and use non-controlling language.
Self-discipline can be taught using games that teach self-regulation, can be improved by self-talk, self distracting and reduced stress.
Mindfulness (staying aware of the present) and meditation (keeping your mind relaxed and focused) significantly improve happiness. Mindfulness is actually something that children do better than parents most of the time during play.
Rats give up addiction when placed in a very good environment, without counselling. Likewise we should try give children an interesting and engaging environment for them to explore and free play.
And all can be brought together in the simple act of eating dinner together.
I think a "good" life cannot be an unhappy one, so learning to use these practical skills will improve your and your children lives.

DIY Brain stimulation

The Transcranial magnetic stimulation has many interesting applictions. For example:
Treat Alzheimers
Improve spatial memory
Improve math ability
Change attractiveness
It's interesting to see people going the Do-It-Yourself route. For example one claims he got a better pitch.
I thought that the edge of (relatively) low cost and unexplored science, where amateurs can have an impact by taking risks, had almost disappeared. It's interesting to see new avenues opening up.

A playlist of amazing ideas

TED has a playlist of amazing new ideas Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong Charity is low because it's discriminated compared to for-profit enterprises Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change Desertification can be fought by moving large herds over the deserted areas. Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice Too many choices produce paralysis and worst satisfaction. Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset The world has advanced significantly in the last 60 years, except the bottom billion. Terry Moore: How to tie your shoes Emily Oster flips our thinking on AIDS in Africa Low life expectancy leads to riskier behaviour, education is not enough. Bjorn Lomborg: Global priorities bigger than climate change How do we prioritize the global problems? Most effient: Malaria, Free trade(cut subsidies), Malnutrition(Micro-nutrients),Control HIV Sean Carroll: Distant time and the hint of a multiverse The entropy which make the universe is just a random fluctuation in the multiverse.

Yet another hit against counter-causal free will

Parasites probably have behavioural influence on humans.

http://style.uk.msn.com/health/zombie-nation-the-outside-forces-controlling-human-brains

The Happiness Project

This is a book about trying to improve the happiness in ones life. The approach of making this into a project makes it very personal. Being personal it doesn't translate to what makes other people happy. I found some advice that I would like to apply to my life: "Exercise better", "Blog more", "Enjoy now", "Acknowledge children's feelings", "Make new friends", "Be more grateful", "Pursue a passion", "Be mindful", but also a lot of advice which didn't appeal to me. The idea that stuck with me most is making a plan to change or improve your life and then, most importantly, following through. While increasing my happiness is not something I'm concerned about, there are other changes I would like to make. So I'll make a plan of small easy steps and put it into action.

Charity is kept low by discrimination

Activist and fundraiser Dan Pallotta calls out the double standard that drives our broken relationship to charities. Too many nonprofits, he says, are rewarded for how little they spend -- not for what they get done. Instead of equating frugality with morality, he asks us to start rewarding charities for their big goals and big accomplishments (even if that comes with big expenses). In this bold talk, he says: Let's change the way we think about changing the world.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong.html