The original article post for this discussion is here.
elections = democracy?
elections can create dictators
In 3000 years experimentation of democracy, there's been only elections only 200 years, since the American and French revolutions
before elections, they did “lottery” “sortition”
“The appointment of magistrates (= public officials) by lot is democratic, and the election of them is oligarchic/aristocratic.” —Socrates
archy = order
an = no
anarchy = no order
hierarchy
hiero = layers
hierarchy = 等級制度
patriarchy
patrio = father
patriarchy = rule by the fathers
oligarchy
oligo = the few
oligarchy = rule by the few
if you choose people by lot, you get people from all walks of life
if you give them time and information, they can make decisions, based on their experience and this information, and having time to understand it.
because the job changes hands a lot, and so lots of people will have experience doing the job, so then people will understand how their city runs better.
increased public trust
decreased corruption
increases long term thinking
2018/10/24
What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people?
Here are two sort of very passionate persuasion videos for a concept called "sortition".
Is sortition a good idea? Let's talk about it!
More videos and articles about sortition can be found here:
Top ten best sortition videos
https://democracyinpractice.org
https://democracyinpractice.org/resources/
Is sortition a good idea? Let's talk about it!
What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people? Link with transcript
More videos and articles about sortition can be found here:
Top ten best sortition videos
https://democracyinpractice.org
https://democracyinpractice.org/resources/
2018/10/13
討論逐字稿：Iceland's Gender Equality Education
The discussion for which this is the transcript is here.
極光 = northern lights
nature vs nurture = was it innate or was it learned
innate = born that way, born in to the person
—Our ancestors seriously discussed the idea of nature vs nurture 1000 years ago. Confucious said that humans were born good, we’re naturally good, but others, Mengzi, said that humans are born , can’t see evil, but at least not good, and we need to teach them to the right path.
that’s the two ideas we learned as a child. but neither of those ideas matter, we still also need to send kids to school to be educated, and this is since Confucious.
students can be molded in certain ways, based on your education system.
—can you explain to me what was this kind of education that surprised you?
—uh
—because i just read part of it, and I don’t understand the difference between a regular kindergarten, what do they do differently.
—the main points are
.keeping the kid segregated by sex
.understanding that boys and girls have certain basic tendencies based on their sex
.giving extra education to each sex to counter the tendencies of that sex
For example: boys are naturally more violent, (according to this article) so teaching boys self control and compassion, thinking about others
girls are naturally more compliant, so teach them self-reliance and independence
—so they separate the boys and girls into separate classes, and do so with different materials.
—I think it’s largely the same, with just some behavioural differences
—in the video the guy said, that gender segregation is NOT the goal, it’s just a tool, to work on the negative mirroring that children do
have you spent a lot of time around children?
—not a lot, but i have a niece and a nephew, and they’re getting very naughty right now. one’s already in kindergarten
—like 3 and 5
—one is two and one is around 4.
I don’t understand why they use this way to… Like they already know, or assume that boys are more violent and girls are more emotional, and they set this as a goal to do something that will counteract this result. For me I feel like it’s something like this. But to do it on purpose is not too good. And boys become more violent, girls play dolls or girly stuff, I think mostly because we’re affected by society. kids don’t know things, so we adults teach them. but we already have our concepts and ideas, and we project those things in their daily living. for example, last time I went to the US I bought two coloring books for my niece and nephew, I bought one is a car, and the other is Froze, and i thought the girl would take Frozen, but she took the truck. and I asked her mom, did you leave the truck one to the little boy, and she said, no, her daughter took the truck. and what about the brother? she said, they can play together. but I was thinking, why? I already projected that she would take that, but I didn’t realize she would also think cars are interesting. and I think it’s because we adults we project those kinds of ideas, and so when they grow up that’s how we see things. so if we give her a different environment, then she’ll adapt to it and have different living style. so that’s how I think about education for kids. so for gender equality, it’s what we show them that they learn.
—I think that’s the idea of this kindergarten too.
極光 = northern lights
nature vs nurture = was it innate or was it learned
innate = born that way, born in to the person
—Our ancestors seriously discussed the idea of nature vs nurture 1000 years ago. Confucious said that humans were born good, we’re naturally good, but others, Mengzi, said that humans are born , can’t see evil, but at least not good, and we need to teach them to the right path.
that’s the two ideas we learned as a child. but neither of those ideas matter, we still also need to send kids to school to be educated, and this is since Confucious.
students can be molded in certain ways, based on your education system.
—can you explain to me what was this kind of education that surprised you?
—uh
—because i just read part of it, and I don’t understand the difference between a regular kindergarten, what do they do differently.
—the main points are
.keeping the kid segregated by sex
.understanding that boys and girls have certain basic tendencies based on their sex
.giving extra education to each sex to counter the tendencies of that sex
For example: boys are naturally more violent, (according to this article) so teaching boys self control and compassion, thinking about others
girls are naturally more compliant, so teach them self-reliance and independence
—so they separate the boys and girls into separate classes, and do so with different materials.
—I think it’s largely the same, with just some behavioural differences
—in the video the guy said, that gender segregation is NOT the goal, it’s just a tool, to work on the negative mirroring that children do
have you spent a lot of time around children?
—not a lot, but i have a niece and a nephew, and they’re getting very naughty right now. one’s already in kindergarten
—like 3 and 5
—one is two and one is around 4.
I don’t understand why they use this way to… Like they already know, or assume that boys are more violent and girls are more emotional, and they set this as a goal to do something that will counteract this result. For me I feel like it’s something like this. But to do it on purpose is not too good. And boys become more violent, girls play dolls or girly stuff, I think mostly because we’re affected by society. kids don’t know things, so we adults teach them. but we already have our concepts and ideas, and we project those things in their daily living. for example, last time I went to the US I bought two coloring books for my niece and nephew, I bought one is a car, and the other is Froze, and i thought the girl would take Frozen, but she took the truck. and I asked her mom, did you leave the truck one to the little boy, and she said, no, her daughter took the truck. and what about the brother? she said, they can play together. but I was thinking, why? I already projected that she would take that, but I didn’t realize she would also think cars are interesting. and I think it’s because we adults we project those kinds of ideas, and so when they grow up that’s how we see things. so if we give her a different environment, then she’ll adapt to it and have different living style. so that’s how I think about education for kids. so for gender equality, it’s what we show them that they learn.
—I think that’s the idea of this kindergarten too.
2018/10/09
Iceland's Gender Equality Education
A New Model for Kindergarten?
Iceland is consistently ranked first in the world for gender equality. But the Hjalli teaching model, as practiced in the nursery school, is considered progressive even in Iceland.
Founded in 1989 by self-described radical feminist Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir, Hjalli schools aim to counter stereotypical gender roles and behaviors.
Boys and girls are separated for most of the day and they actively compensate for their gender by practicing behaviors usually associated with the other sex: from being daring and taking the initiative to helpfulness and being considerate of others.
The best way to get closer to equality is to admit the differences?
“The best way to get closer to equality is to admit the differences,” Ólafsdóttir said.
According to the Hjalli theory, by keeping the sexes apart, boys and girls are free to develop their personalities and discover their interests without the pressures and constraints of conventional gender roles and stereotypes. The toys at the schools are all gender-neutral and all of the children wear identical uniforms.
Ólafsdóttir, 60, believes that if children practice only the stereotypical gendered behaviors as society encourages, they risk slipping into what she calls the "blue" and "pink haze."
Found at the two poles of the gender spectrum, this is where the natural strengths of each gender tip over into weaknesses, she explained.
Iceland is consistently ranked first in the world for gender equality. But the Hjalli teaching model, as practiced in the nursery school, is considered progressive even in Iceland.
Founded in 1989 by self-described radical feminist Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir, Hjalli schools aim to counter stereotypical gender roles and behaviors.
Boys and girls are separated for most of the day and they actively compensate for their gender by practicing behaviors usually associated with the other sex: from being daring and taking the initiative to helpfulness and being considerate of others.
The best way to get closer to equality is to admit the differences?
“The best way to get closer to equality is to admit the differences,” Ólafsdóttir said.
According to the Hjalli theory, by keeping the sexes apart, boys and girls are free to develop their personalities and discover their interests without the pressures and constraints of conventional gender roles and stereotypes. The toys at the schools are all gender-neutral and all of the children wear identical uniforms.
Ólafsdóttir, 60, believes that if children practice only the stereotypical gendered behaviors as society encourages, they risk slipping into what she calls the "blue" and "pink haze."
Found at the two poles of the gender spectrum, this is where the natural strengths of each gender tip over into weaknesses, she explained.
2018/10/02
Green is Good for Us?
This is a podcast from NPR, which is National Public Radio in the US. This show is called "Hidden Brain" and their topic this time is Our Better Nature: How The Great Outdoors Can Improve Your Life
Transcript:
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, HOST:
This is HIDDEN BRAIN. I'm Shankar Vedantam.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
VEDANTAM: If you're living in a city, you may have noticed new buildings popping up - a high-rise here, a skyscraper there. These concrete jungles make urban living possible. They allow millions to live together in close proximity and allow modern economies to flourish. But is there something important missing in this picture?
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
VEDANTAM: For most of the last 2 million years, humans lived in a natural world, relying on nature for food and shelter. The amount of time we've spent in urban dwellings is a small sliver of the total time humans have spent on Earth. When you look at it this way, our shift from forest life to freeways and overflowing cities has been very recent and very dramatic. Today on HIDDEN BRAIN, we explore how this shift in the way we live might be having powerful effects on our lives and our well-being.
MING KUO: We are overlooking a crucial ingredient in the urban fabric, which is nature and elements of nature. So parks and greenery turn out to be not just something that brightens our lives but turns out to be really functional. It helps us be our better selves.
VEDANTAM: Ming Kuo has been studying the effects of nature on humans for more than 30 years. She works at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Early in her career, Ming studied research looking at the well-being of animals in zoos. Researchers found that even what animals were provided all the basics of food, safety and shelter, they often failed to thrive.
KUO: It turns out that zoo animals, first of all, are extremely expensive. They die at fairly alarming clips. And so biologists have studied animals in the wild, and one of the ideas that they have is that there's this thing called habitat selection theory, which is that we are - we're wired for whatever habitat we evolved in. And so there seems to be this general kind of rule that animals who are in their, quote, unquote, "natural habitats" will do much better. They thrive both in terms of physically and psychologically and in terms of their social behaviors.
VEDANTAM: So if zoo animals thrive in their natural habitat, some researchers have asked, could this also be true for humans? Given that humans first evolved in the forests of Africa, could it be that depriving humans of this natural environment has effects similar to housing a zebra in a cage? We'll get to Ming's answer to that question in a moment. But first, it's important to understand how she came to be studying this in the first place. She wasn't particularly interested in the benefits of greenery and nature. She was interested in the negative effects of noise and crowding.
2018/09/30
討論逐字稿: Designing for Joy
The discussion for which this is the transcript is here: Designing For Joy
uptalk ˈʌptɔːk/
noun: uptalk; up-talk
1. a manner of speaking in which declarative sentences are uttered with rising intonation at the end, as if they were questions.
What are your first impressions after watching the video? What did you notice, what did you think of, what associations do you have?
—colorful and smooth and calm is common sense, most people would do that. but I have a different idea, that joy is related to something that makes you happy and comfortable, but some people like dark, or evil, or death. and i you ask ‘what makes you comfortable’ people might choose instrument music, or hyper or happy music. and some people prefer heavy metal and rock music, and they dress up, the idea they represent is all stunning, black and white, and pointy and sharp, like that, but they seem to enjoy that. and young kids listen to loud music, and the parents ask why , and they say that it makes them feel happy. so that’s what i was thinking about. it’s not colorful and peaceful, but probably most people would do it this way, but they do it another way. joy is related to being happy or comfortable, but there’s no good or bad in there.
—thoughts?
—I listened to really depressing music when I was a kid and i loved it. but it’s because i was depressed, and it made me feel less depressed when I listened to it’—
—I think what the author is talking about for common shared experience, is about physical design. and some of her observations quite surprise me. she mentioned like a sense of abundance, or elevation
—going up!
—it seems like, yes, that’s like a common human nature. so it seems like, probably there are some really something is crossing the limitations [borders] the common desire, for the physical, or visual intention.
—the image or designs may be subjective, because you may like this kind of design but I prefer another. so i think colorful is common for making people happy, but for some people, they prefer another way, a pure wall, a pure design makes them feel peaceful
—actually that’s something I wanted to talk about, because some of the spaces were so busy
—yes because color, so it was busy. only one color, it’s not colorful, but at least five colors, it’s a lot. but I agree the with too many colors it becomes too busy
—I agree joy, it’s related to colorful and abundance, does it imply unprofessional
—it does, doesn’t it. and I want to know why
—i have the point but I shouldn’t’ say it so early
—say it!
—because she mentioned that those joyful things are kind of human nature, very related to basic human experience. but being professional means you have to be away from natural.
—say more!
—for example, why people think colorful things are more joyful. because in the four seasons, in the winter everything is dead. so there’s no color. bu tin the spring and summer, the flowers are all in full bloom, so the colors bring a sense of joy. but in professional, we have to wear the black and white suits, because it means we have to be away from our nature ourself.
—I agree with you, and why is that?
—but some profession prefer colorful, like designer
—it signifies their profession in a way
—for me it’s hard to concentrate in a colorful environment. and if you can’t concentrate, you’re unprofessional. in a colorful environment, you want to have a party. so if your clothes are too colorful, you are not going to the office for work
—so you couldn’t be in a design office
—yeah, never
—although architects are famous for wearing very severe colors.
—but I found it very interesting, that for example that wearing official suits, black and white, it’s that you try to keep it simple so you can concentrate. but it’s like a conflicting idea that they want to make the working environment more colorful
—like google
—well you don’t wear a suit at google, probably!
—but like at EVA air, we all wear suits, because evergreen is a very old company, it has that kind of Japanese company spirit. so it’s very straight and serious. and recently they start modifying the company, making the cafeteria more colorful and relaxed, and I don’t know.
—do you not like it?
—well, I like it, it’s just like they restrict you to follow the rules, but they use the other way to change it and try t make you more joyful, relaxed, comfortable
—in THEIR way
—yes! they think you’re happy, and they ask you and you have to say yes you’re happy otherwise bye-bye
uptalk ˈʌptɔːk/
noun: uptalk; up-talk
1. a manner of speaking in which declarative sentences are uttered with rising intonation at the end, as if they were questions.
What are your first impressions after watching the video? What did you notice, what did you think of, what associations do you have?
—colorful and smooth and calm is common sense, most people would do that. but I have a different idea, that joy is related to something that makes you happy and comfortable, but some people like dark, or evil, or death. and i you ask ‘what makes you comfortable’ people might choose instrument music, or hyper or happy music. and some people prefer heavy metal and rock music, and they dress up, the idea they represent is all stunning, black and white, and pointy and sharp, like that, but they seem to enjoy that. and young kids listen to loud music, and the parents ask why , and they say that it makes them feel happy. so that’s what i was thinking about. it’s not colorful and peaceful, but probably most people would do it this way, but they do it another way. joy is related to being happy or comfortable, but there’s no good or bad in there.
—thoughts?
—I listened to really depressing music when I was a kid and i loved it. but it’s because i was depressed, and it made me feel less depressed when I listened to it’—
—I think what the author is talking about for common shared experience, is about physical design. and some of her observations quite surprise me. she mentioned like a sense of abundance, or elevation
—going up!
—it seems like, yes, that’s like a common human nature. so it seems like, probably there are some really something is crossing the limitations [borders] the common desire, for the physical, or visual intention.
—the image or designs may be subjective, because you may like this kind of design but I prefer another. so i think colorful is common for making people happy, but for some people, they prefer another way, a pure wall, a pure design makes them feel peaceful
—actually that’s something I wanted to talk about, because some of the spaces were so busy
—yes because color, so it was busy. only one color, it’s not colorful, but at least five colors, it’s a lot. but I agree the with too many colors it becomes too busy
—I agree joy, it’s related to colorful and abundance, does it imply unprofessional
—it does, doesn’t it. and I want to know why
—i have the point but I shouldn’t’ say it so early
—say it!
—because she mentioned that those joyful things are kind of human nature, very related to basic human experience. but being professional means you have to be away from natural.
—say more!
—for example, why people think colorful things are more joyful. because in the four seasons, in the winter everything is dead. so there’s no color. bu tin the spring and summer, the flowers are all in full bloom, so the colors bring a sense of joy. but in professional, we have to wear the black and white suits, because it means we have to be away from our nature ourself.
—I agree with you, and why is that?
—but some profession prefer colorful, like designer
—it signifies their profession in a way
—for me it’s hard to concentrate in a colorful environment. and if you can’t concentrate, you’re unprofessional. in a colorful environment, you want to have a party. so if your clothes are too colorful, you are not going to the office for work
—so you couldn’t be in a design office
—yeah, never
—although architects are famous for wearing very severe colors.
—but I found it very interesting, that for example that wearing official suits, black and white, it’s that you try to keep it simple so you can concentrate. but it’s like a conflicting idea that they want to make the working environment more colorful
—like google
—well you don’t wear a suit at google, probably!
—but like at EVA air, we all wear suits, because evergreen is a very old company, it has that kind of Japanese company spirit. so it’s very straight and serious. and recently they start modifying the company, making the cafeteria more colorful and relaxed, and I don’t know.
—do you not like it?
—well, I like it, it’s just like they restrict you to follow the rules, but they use the other way to change it and try t make you more joyful, relaxed, comfortable
—in THEIR way
—yes! they think you’re happy, and they ask you and you have to say yes you’re happy otherwise bye-bye
2018/09/24
2018/09/15
討論逐字稿: Using Our Practical Wisdom
The discussion for which this is the transcript is here: Using Our Practical Wisdom
—rules and incentives are so important for pharmaceutical companies. they depend on SOPs to do their jobs. they have a lot of incentive criteria to their sales person. I feel very interested in these two words.
—I’d like you to say more
—about what?
—about how incentives work
—they set a target, for example you need, your target is maybe 1000 tables (for example, this is too little) and if you achieve 1000 tablets, you get a percentage of incentive.
—like a cash bonus?
—sometimes? because I don’t know too many details.
—that’s like a sales incentive
—he’s talking about incentives to follow the law or help people
—it’s a different explanation
—it’s more like a different purpose.
—yes, but the rules are so close to our daily work. not just pharmaceuticals, but in many industries, it also applies
—sales incentives are a thing
—the practical wisdom, it’s an unclear concept. what is practical? wisdom, I get, but what is practical wisdom?
his examples, I agree with, but what is practical wisdom.
—practical is ‘real life, not theory’, but it’s also ‘achievable’
—to be a good parent, to be a good spouse. why is that practical? is it not also theoretical?
—what people might think as practical might have to do with material gain, how much money is in something. practical has to do with money. impractical means that you’re not going to have material gain, so it’s not doable. When people don’t think it’ll make money, they say, ‘it’s not practical’, like especially in Taipei
—what’s the word in Taipei?
—現實
—so what’s practical wisdom?
—現實的智慧? does that work?
—I think he means more like ‘not theoretical’
—I think, after i reviewed this video, I think he want to explain, even if you obey the rule, but if the result is not as good as you expected, you can have another way, and that’s what he means by practical wisdom. he was explaining about the judge, and the teachers, you can obey the rules to teach the students, and the law, but if you have another choice to revers, you can choose to do another thing, that’s also what he means by practice,
—like I think he means like it’s not theoretical.
—practice like medical practice, architecture practice, the knowledge gained from being on the ground.
Practical Wisdom
—The moral will to do the right thing, and the moral skill to figure out what the right thing is.
—I want to add on to what he’s saying, I see a flaw in his thinking. we don’t actually know what the right thing is, but we know more about what the wrong thing is. I would say that to avoid to do the wrong thing, we don’t actually know what the right thing is. there are a lot of historical examples of people who thought they were doing the right thing, but what they were not aware of that they were hurting people in the name of doing “the right thing” but if you ask them to not ‘do the right thing’ just ‘avoid doing the wrong thing’ maybe then people wouldn’t kill each other in the name of the right thing.
—you might think your action is the right thing, I think i’m going the right thing, we might both, if we are kings, kill a lot of people in the name of doing the right thing.
so if we simplify it to , “let’s just not do the wrong thing.” killing people is a wrong thing, so we can avoid doing the wrong thing, at least.
—I feel Issac Asimov would agree with you
—yeah, it’s a little bit deeper, there’s a lot of people who thought they were doing the right thing.
—in the end of this video, he put an example for the doctors. actually they have a lot of choice, there won’t be a wrong thing, it’s just your choice. they want to influence the doctor to care for their patient. not only for their decision, they care about the patient, not just about ‘curing’ the patient. at harvard medical school, they put a course to let the medical students to have a class with their patients. he wanted to explain the practical wisdom, maybe it’s hard to explain, but for some reason, everything would be okay, the decision might be okay, but how do you improve the outcome. so that’s some thought there
—to improve the outcome.?
—yes
—With this doctor’s example, its something, if it happens to someone near you, you might be careful. with this medicine example, there’s treatments, which might at the time, medicine people thought this would improve the patient in some ay.
—I want to explain that his idea is, how do doctors care about the their patient, not just about medicine. He wants to just make their decision more vivid and care about people. The reason i’m getting so passionate. it’s because “you might be careful”, it’s not about my own thing, it’s about what he’s saying
—and I want to break down what he thinks, because I think he’s misleading. I would like to ask him questions i don’t think he could answer.
—his main theme seems to be “caring about outcomes”
—caring
—yes, and also about the results of the actions
—for the judges example, he cared about the person and his future, the judge care about the guy’s future,
—and also about the family attached to the guy
—other impressions?
—so what makes the people or the things to become better is what he’s emphasizing in his speech. How to make a better decision, it’s not only following certain rules
—or procedures?
—yes. like step 12345, no exceptions. for example we go to see a doctor, and he knows why my symptoms are, and I take medicine and go home, that’s a procedure.
—i’m not sure what your point is?
—just like you said, the speaker cares about the people future, or what they can get after some procedure or decision, so the speaker wants to explain what he thought practical wisdom means, and we just discussed a lot about what that means, he talked about Aristotle mentioned
—I was listening to one part of this article, a lot of rules is a lot of problems in our daily life. we need to do this and that, and then after work in our family. we ignore a lot of things, like feeling and love and some values of human beings. I think it’s really far to ‘how’ we have this practical wisdom. it’s hard for me to reach this in my daily life.
—when you’re saying ‘practical wisdom’ what do you mean?
—I can imagine this kind of wisdom, but I don’t know how to practice this kind of wisdom.
—I want to talk about the armed robbery case, what I noticed strongly, is that the speaker is biased to first judgement by the first judge. I noticed this because he is supportive of the first judgement, it’s an example of practical wisdom, for him. but this is one-sided. because we’re not saying, “he is not choosing to overlook that the person did commit an armed robbery” it’s the fact of this case. if this legal judgement, about an armed robbery could be given to judges, to give too much freedom to these judges based on their own judgement, it’s a slippery slope. the speaker is against minimum sentencing, but he’s not talking about arguments supporting this. he’s only talking about what he supports.
—I agree he maybe has bias, we cannot predict they guy may have done other crimes, or maybe he might actually do something worse. so the speaker may have some bias in this case.
—bias, everyone is biased. the point of listening to a person is, what’s their bias, what’s their points.
—what if I just only state only facts
—that doesn’t guarantee no bias, you can be selective with the facts
—what if I don’t know the other facts, if I believe I have all the facts, then I’d be unbiased.
—No, it doesn’t work like that. Even if you tell me every fact that you know, if you don’t know all the facts you’re still biased. my point is, we just take that into account. The point is, we understand that everyone who speaks has their own point of view, and we decide with our own judgement if that person’s ideas is something we agree with or not
—but this is leaving a weakness, he’s vulnerable, and I’m going to attack this
—so that’s your job, as the listener
—so I’m proposing that this is misleading
—so it’s on the listener to listen to other ideas. How is he misleading?
—the speaker is claiming moral high ground
—so his duty is to touch on all the different viewpoints? No, he only has to present his idea, and it’s on us to agree or disagree with him.
—It’s like he’s saying “I’m claiming moral authority to do the right thing, so you have to kill people to serve this country….”
—he could claim this moral authority, but does he have the power to make us listen? no, he’s not a president, or the leader of a church. IF he were, then he might have moral authority, and then his telling people to go kill other people would be a problem.
—it’s immoral to only present one view. it’s biased
—this is a persuasive speech, it’s about him presenting his opinion. that’s the very definition of bias. OF COURSE he’s biased, that’s his job right now, to present his selected opinion. like, right now you’re presenting an opinion that he’s biased, should you then go on to explain in what ways saying he’s biased might be wrong? are you not morally obligated to present all the viewpoints right now? is that not what you’re saying?
Final Statements
I understand the speaker’s point, I think from what i see, his point, my guess is to look at, in the medical example, to look at a patient more holistically, not as a disease or an organ. and with the judge to not see the person who committed the crime, not as an individual, but as part of a family. so it’s about giving them flexibility to see them holistically, to see them as people, rather than as a test score. so this is probably the main point of this talk.
before this class, I never thought about what is practical wisdom, and we discussed a lot just now, some ideas may not be true, we can discuss this. I think the speaker put a lot of examples to explain what is practical wisdom. without those examples i wouldn’t be able to understand. I can’t just look at the words and understand. but maybe the speaker wants to make our lives or everyone’s distribution more humanized., because he cares about people and their future, and their health and their emotion. maybe it is not true. but I think he wants to explain this part. maybe I’ll read some Aristotle, find some chinese transcriptions.
—there are intros in chinese
I only thought he tried to remind us to think about justice and better, because we know this about what we sacrifice for pursuing a better life, under economic financial world. we sacrifice a lot of things, how we feel, and family and love, we forgot a lot of things, nature and the environment.
there is a lot in this topic. I feel like the world is at a crossroads right now. we keep getting so many signs that we can’t continue on as we have. so I like to find people to see, are they pointing us in a good direction or not? like this speaker, I like the points he’s making, but whether these are practical actually? or sustainable, that’s what i wanted to talk about today. like the judge thing. mandatory sentences, it’s taking the judging out of judging, like their job is to judge, but we’re m making them executors, “executives”, people who ‘carry out’ rather than people who judge.
it’s a question of trust, really. do we trust these people to make good decisions or not. when society is too big, and we don’t know everyone personally, it’s hard to know, whether to trust this person or not. so we have guidelines, and certifications and certifying boards, and selection committees, and rules. but in the end, someone somewhere has to decide to put that person in a position of power and to judge.
In speaking of practical wisdom, I like his examples too, but like you said, i doubt this examples are practical, actually. For example, the texas teacher, I know not only the consultants and the teachers, make the mistakes or they have wrong ideas about teaching, so I the similar experience about teaching children. so parenting is important in this case, but it’s impossible to change parents thoughts, because parents only care about the scores. So that’s why I quit the job. as teacher, i didn’t know how to deal with the parents’ thinking, so the same is it practical in this example. the reason why I did the job, but I realized I have nothing to do with this situation. So I met the mother just like you described, I told her, the situation about her kid, but she doesn’t want to listen, she doesn’t care. She just wanted me to read the books to her kid. and play with the kid. she doesn’t care how badly her child’s behavior is, he’s very rude. I told her and she was just like, uh ok.
—rules and incentives are so important for pharmaceutical companies. they depend on SOPs to do their jobs. they have a lot of incentive criteria to their sales person. I feel very interested in these two words.
—I’d like you to say more
—about what?
—about how incentives work
—they set a target, for example you need, your target is maybe 1000 tables (for example, this is too little) and if you achieve 1000 tablets, you get a percentage of incentive.
—like a cash bonus?
—sometimes? because I don’t know too many details.
—that’s like a sales incentive
—he’s talking about incentives to follow the law or help people
—it’s a different explanation
—it’s more like a different purpose.
—yes, but the rules are so close to our daily work. not just pharmaceuticals, but in many industries, it also applies
—sales incentives are a thing
—the practical wisdom, it’s an unclear concept. what is practical? wisdom, I get, but what is practical wisdom?
his examples, I agree with, but what is practical wisdom.
—practical is ‘real life, not theory’, but it’s also ‘achievable’
—to be a good parent, to be a good spouse. why is that practical? is it not also theoretical?
—what people might think as practical might have to do with material gain, how much money is in something. practical has to do with money. impractical means that you’re not going to have material gain, so it’s not doable. When people don’t think it’ll make money, they say, ‘it’s not practical’, like especially in Taipei
—what’s the word in Taipei?
—現實
—so what’s practical wisdom?
—現實的智慧? does that work?
—I think he means more like ‘not theoretical’
—I think, after i reviewed this video, I think he want to explain, even if you obey the rule, but if the result is not as good as you expected, you can have another way, and that’s what he means by practical wisdom. he was explaining about the judge, and the teachers, you can obey the rules to teach the students, and the law, but if you have another choice to revers, you can choose to do another thing, that’s also what he means by practice,
—like I think he means like it’s not theoretical.
—practice like medical practice, architecture practice, the knowledge gained from being on the ground.
Practical Wisdom
—The moral will to do the right thing, and the moral skill to figure out what the right thing is.
—I want to add on to what he’s saying, I see a flaw in his thinking. we don’t actually know what the right thing is, but we know more about what the wrong thing is. I would say that to avoid to do the wrong thing, we don’t actually know what the right thing is. there are a lot of historical examples of people who thought they were doing the right thing, but what they were not aware of that they were hurting people in the name of doing “the right thing” but if you ask them to not ‘do the right thing’ just ‘avoid doing the wrong thing’ maybe then people wouldn’t kill each other in the name of the right thing.
—you might think your action is the right thing, I think i’m going the right thing, we might both, if we are kings, kill a lot of people in the name of doing the right thing.
so if we simplify it to , “let’s just not do the wrong thing.” killing people is a wrong thing, so we can avoid doing the wrong thing, at least.
—I feel Issac Asimov would agree with you
—yeah, it’s a little bit deeper, there’s a lot of people who thought they were doing the right thing.
—in the end of this video, he put an example for the doctors. actually they have a lot of choice, there won’t be a wrong thing, it’s just your choice. they want to influence the doctor to care for their patient. not only for their decision, they care about the patient, not just about ‘curing’ the patient. at harvard medical school, they put a course to let the medical students to have a class with their patients. he wanted to explain the practical wisdom, maybe it’s hard to explain, but for some reason, everything would be okay, the decision might be okay, but how do you improve the outcome. so that’s some thought there
—to improve the outcome.?
—yes
—With this doctor’s example, its something, if it happens to someone near you, you might be careful. with this medicine example, there’s treatments, which might at the time, medicine people thought this would improve the patient in some ay.
—I want to explain that his idea is, how do doctors care about the their patient, not just about medicine. He wants to just make their decision more vivid and care about people. The reason i’m getting so passionate. it’s because “you might be careful”, it’s not about my own thing, it’s about what he’s saying
—and I want to break down what he thinks, because I think he’s misleading. I would like to ask him questions i don’t think he could answer.
—his main theme seems to be “caring about outcomes”
—caring
—yes, and also about the results of the actions
—for the judges example, he cared about the person and his future, the judge care about the guy’s future,
—and also about the family attached to the guy
—other impressions?
—so what makes the people or the things to become better is what he’s emphasizing in his speech. How to make a better decision, it’s not only following certain rules
—or procedures?
—yes. like step 12345, no exceptions. for example we go to see a doctor, and he knows why my symptoms are, and I take medicine and go home, that’s a procedure.
—i’m not sure what your point is?
—just like you said, the speaker cares about the people future, or what they can get after some procedure or decision, so the speaker wants to explain what he thought practical wisdom means, and we just discussed a lot about what that means, he talked about Aristotle mentioned
—I was listening to one part of this article, a lot of rules is a lot of problems in our daily life. we need to do this and that, and then after work in our family. we ignore a lot of things, like feeling and love and some values of human beings. I think it’s really far to ‘how’ we have this practical wisdom. it’s hard for me to reach this in my daily life.
—when you’re saying ‘practical wisdom’ what do you mean?
—I can imagine this kind of wisdom, but I don’t know how to practice this kind of wisdom.
—I want to talk about the armed robbery case, what I noticed strongly, is that the speaker is biased to first judgement by the first judge. I noticed this because he is supportive of the first judgement, it’s an example of practical wisdom, for him. but this is one-sided. because we’re not saying, “he is not choosing to overlook that the person did commit an armed robbery” it’s the fact of this case. if this legal judgement, about an armed robbery could be given to judges, to give too much freedom to these judges based on their own judgement, it’s a slippery slope. the speaker is against minimum sentencing, but he’s not talking about arguments supporting this. he’s only talking about what he supports.
—I agree he maybe has bias, we cannot predict they guy may have done other crimes, or maybe he might actually do something worse. so the speaker may have some bias in this case.
—bias, everyone is biased. the point of listening to a person is, what’s their bias, what’s their points.
—what if I just only state only facts
—that doesn’t guarantee no bias, you can be selective with the facts
—what if I don’t know the other facts, if I believe I have all the facts, then I’d be unbiased.
—No, it doesn’t work like that. Even if you tell me every fact that you know, if you don’t know all the facts you’re still biased. my point is, we just take that into account. The point is, we understand that everyone who speaks has their own point of view, and we decide with our own judgement if that person’s ideas is something we agree with or not
—but this is leaving a weakness, he’s vulnerable, and I’m going to attack this
—so that’s your job, as the listener
—so I’m proposing that this is misleading
—so it’s on the listener to listen to other ideas. How is he misleading?
—the speaker is claiming moral high ground
—so his duty is to touch on all the different viewpoints? No, he only has to present his idea, and it’s on us to agree or disagree with him.
—It’s like he’s saying “I’m claiming moral authority to do the right thing, so you have to kill people to serve this country….”
—he could claim this moral authority, but does he have the power to make us listen? no, he’s not a president, or the leader of a church. IF he were, then he might have moral authority, and then his telling people to go kill other people would be a problem.
—it’s immoral to only present one view. it’s biased
—this is a persuasive speech, it’s about him presenting his opinion. that’s the very definition of bias. OF COURSE he’s biased, that’s his job right now, to present his selected opinion. like, right now you’re presenting an opinion that he’s biased, should you then go on to explain in what ways saying he’s biased might be wrong? are you not morally obligated to present all the viewpoints right now? is that not what you’re saying?
Final Statements
I understand the speaker’s point, I think from what i see, his point, my guess is to look at, in the medical example, to look at a patient more holistically, not as a disease or an organ. and with the judge to not see the person who committed the crime, not as an individual, but as part of a family. so it’s about giving them flexibility to see them holistically, to see them as people, rather than as a test score. so this is probably the main point of this talk.
before this class, I never thought about what is practical wisdom, and we discussed a lot just now, some ideas may not be true, we can discuss this. I think the speaker put a lot of examples to explain what is practical wisdom. without those examples i wouldn’t be able to understand. I can’t just look at the words and understand. but maybe the speaker wants to make our lives or everyone’s distribution more humanized., because he cares about people and their future, and their health and their emotion. maybe it is not true. but I think he wants to explain this part. maybe I’ll read some Aristotle, find some chinese transcriptions.
—there are intros in chinese
I only thought he tried to remind us to think about justice and better, because we know this about what we sacrifice for pursuing a better life, under economic financial world. we sacrifice a lot of things, how we feel, and family and love, we forgot a lot of things, nature and the environment.
there is a lot in this topic. I feel like the world is at a crossroads right now. we keep getting so many signs that we can’t continue on as we have. so I like to find people to see, are they pointing us in a good direction or not? like this speaker, I like the points he’s making, but whether these are practical actually? or sustainable, that’s what i wanted to talk about today. like the judge thing. mandatory sentences, it’s taking the judging out of judging, like their job is to judge, but we’re m making them executors, “executives”, people who ‘carry out’ rather than people who judge.
it’s a question of trust, really. do we trust these people to make good decisions or not. when society is too big, and we don’t know everyone personally, it’s hard to know, whether to trust this person or not. so we have guidelines, and certifications and certifying boards, and selection committees, and rules. but in the end, someone somewhere has to decide to put that person in a position of power and to judge.
In speaking of practical wisdom, I like his examples too, but like you said, i doubt this examples are practical, actually. For example, the texas teacher, I know not only the consultants and the teachers, make the mistakes or they have wrong ideas about teaching, so I the similar experience about teaching children. so parenting is important in this case, but it’s impossible to change parents thoughts, because parents only care about the scores. So that’s why I quit the job. as teacher, i didn’t know how to deal with the parents’ thinking, so the same is it practical in this example. the reason why I did the job, but I realized I have nothing to do with this situation. So I met the mother just like you described, I told her, the situation about her kid, but she doesn’t want to listen, she doesn’t care. She just wanted me to read the books to her kid. and play with the kid. she doesn’t care how badly her child’s behavior is, he’s very rude. I told her and she was just like, uh ok.
2018/09/13
2018/09/10
2018/09/06
Public Banking
There's a political action to set up a public bank in Los Angeles happening. There's also campaigns in several other states. I'm interested in what the pros and cons of public banking might be, especially in terms of Taiwan's experience.
As always, the header of each section takes you to the original source material. To get access to JSTOR you can sign up for a free account.
Let's start with a definition:
This is what the movement's website says are the benefits of public banks.
As always, the header of each section takes you to the original source material. To get access to JSTOR you can sign up for a free account.
Let's start with a definition:
A Public Bank is a chartered depository bank in which public funds are deposited. A Public Bank is owned by a government unit — a state, county, city, or tribe — and mandated to serve a public mission that reflects the values and needs of the public that it represents. In existing and proposed US Public Bank models, skilled bankers, not the government, make bank decisions and provide accountability and transparency to the public for how public funds are used.Public Banks are popular globally, operating on a variety of models; and new models continue to be proposed. The US, however, currently has only one public depository bank — the Bank of North Dakota (BND). All state revenues are deposited in the BND by law.
This is what the movement's website says are the benefits of public banks.
Make affordable loans to small businesses, farmers, government entities, and studentsWe are pioneering something truly revolutionary: a banking and monetary system that supports sustainable prosperity for all of us.
-Save taxpayers up to 50% on infrastructure projects, like bridges and trains and schools
-Eliminate billions in bank fees and money management fees for cities and states
-Support a vibrant community banking sector
-Enable sustainable prosperity
2018/09/01
討論逐字稿: The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons
Here's the link to the discussion article: The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons.
—Don’t assume that people are selfish when we share the common goods. kind of intend to overuse it to maximize our benefit, which will make resources go quickly, because everyone will do the same thing. but that assumption is not really real, based on what we observed. like in England, people can work together to keep the land not overgrazed. the idea is there. it all depends on how to do. people can work together to make the good, or people can be selfish to make society crash it all depends.
—if we can start to think about how to make the people around us to live better not only ourselves, our lives will be better than thinking about ourselves.
—the video also mentions about the role that the government plays in governing the commons. so it seems that if they government work effectively it can actually make some good things for the entire community.
—I thought i twas interesting because there was a guess different models of what would go on, the economists’ idea of simple game theory where everyone is selfish and bad things happen, and then there’s the idea of government coming in and making mistakes, and then the idea of privatization where the company or landowner tries to maximise profits, but in the end, none of that was needed, the villagers self-regulated, and all the theories were wrong in the end, something different happened.
—how does that relate to us?
—we are regulated everyday, we don’t jaywalk because we’ll get hit by a car or ticketed by a policemen, people follow all the rules. that’s how people make things work. so it has to be that way, for human society can’t work smoothly.
—traffic is a good example of self regulating.
—but some do it better than others
—example?
—Germany is supposed to have good drivers, but they also have a strict licensing system
—the ways people self regulate is probably just as important as the regulation itself.
—that has something to do with culture
—also wouldn’t it have something to do with psychology
—what do you mean?
—we can learn and change
—people are flexible
—in the right conditions
—I drive recklessly in Taiwan but I follow the rules in the US
—so you change culture
—in Taiwan, I thought wow, people are so reckless, but then I realized nobody hits each other. it’s rare to see an accident. so they drive slower than America, and they’re paying attention to everything more. but the laws are strict in the US, so people pay attention less.
—Don’t assume that people are selfish when we share the common goods. kind of intend to overuse it to maximize our benefit, which will make resources go quickly, because everyone will do the same thing. but that assumption is not really real, based on what we observed. like in England, people can work together to keep the land not overgrazed. the idea is there. it all depends on how to do. people can work together to make the good, or people can be selfish to make society crash it all depends.
—if we can start to think about how to make the people around us to live better not only ourselves, our lives will be better than thinking about ourselves.
—the video also mentions about the role that the government plays in governing the commons. so it seems that if they government work effectively it can actually make some good things for the entire community.
—I thought i twas interesting because there was a guess different models of what would go on, the economists’ idea of simple game theory where everyone is selfish and bad things happen, and then there’s the idea of government coming in and making mistakes, and then the idea of privatization where the company or landowner tries to maximise profits, but in the end, none of that was needed, the villagers self-regulated, and all the theories were wrong in the end, something different happened.
—how does that relate to us?
—we are regulated everyday, we don’t jaywalk because we’ll get hit by a car or ticketed by a policemen, people follow all the rules. that’s how people make things work. so it has to be that way, for human society can’t work smoothly.
—traffic is a good example of self regulating.
—but some do it better than others
—example?
—Germany is supposed to have good drivers, but they also have a strict licensing system
—the ways people self regulate is probably just as important as the regulation itself.
—that has something to do with culture
—also wouldn’t it have something to do with psychology
—what do you mean?
—we can learn and change
—people are flexible
—in the right conditions
—I drive recklessly in Taiwan but I follow the rules in the US
—so you change culture
—in Taiwan, I thought wow, people are so reckless, but then I realized nobody hits each other. it’s rare to see an accident. so they drive slower than America, and they’re paying attention to everything more. but the laws are strict in the US, so people pay attention less.
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