“The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

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  • Definitions
    • Teacups are fragile: breaks easily and does not self-heal
    • Plastic is resilient: is not easy to break
    • People are anti-fragile: the may break easily the first time but can self-heal
  • Avoidance tends to make us more sensitive rather than protecting us
  • Things do not frighten or dismay us but our perception does
  • Feelings are compelling and are often unreasonable
  • The rider’s job is to justify the elephant’s actions
  • The propagation of “micro-aggressions” shifted focus from intent to impact
    • Focusing on impact while ignoring intent makes one responsible for the feelings of others
  • CARE
    • Conscious empathy
    • Active listening
    • Responsible reaction
    • Environmental awareness
  • Education is meant to make people think
  • Humans are wired for tribes and their morality
    • “Morality binds and blinds”
    • Identifying a common enemy is an easy way to expand your tribe, at least temporarily
  • Policies of pure tolerance generally only empowers the already powerful
  • Intersectionality requires looking at all classes, not just one
  • Anonymity allows one to lose their identity to the group, leveraging
    • Dogmatism
    • Crusaders
    • Groupthink
    • Anti-intellectuals
  • Concept creep is being used to normalize radical behaviors
  • Words do not cause stress directly, rather only to those who interpret them as stressful
  • Witch hunts
    • Come on suddenly
    • Crimes against the community
    • Infractions are trivial or fabricated
    • People are fearful to defend the accused
  • We have shifted from acting out of a love of our current tribe to a hatred of any other tribe
  • The less time a child has to be on their own, without a screen, the less capable of dealing with the world they are
    • While crime has decline dramatically since the 1970’s, our fears have not
  • Genes prime is but interaction finishes the learning process
  • We need rough and tumble play to become fully capable adults
  • “Perseverance without passion is drudgery.”
  • Free-play is critical for “the art of association” or, detecting how others are feeling and adjusting play to compensate
    • (Free-play for children is so important so they can learn how to keep the game going through their social interactions)
  • Thousands of small little hindrances can be worse than tyranny
  • Administrative interventions are required to support a culture of victimhood
  • “Fair” distributions in response to merit is the default for toddlers and most people
  • How the decision was made is important for justice, as is how people are treated
  • Intuitive Justice is an overlap of equity theory and process Justice
  • It is important for a Democratic society to open new inquiries about Justice debate them and act on them
    • (Active discussions is a consistent theme here; without discussion, we have little way to know see and hear new viewpoints)
  • Being wrong feels just like being right… The difference is the feeling when you realize you were wrong
  • Pay as much attention to what apps youth are using as how much they are using them
  • Your company should have a high tolerance for disagreement but no tolerance for violence or retribution

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