Gladwell redefines our understanding of the story of David and Goliath. In short, most things you know about the story is wrong. This talk goes with his book David and Goliath.
Blog
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Malcolm Gladwell: The strange tale of the Norden bombsight
Gladwell recaps the tale of the Norden bombsight and applies it to modern life. This talk goes with his book What the Dog Saw.
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“How the Mind Works” by Steven Pinker
When I first picked up this book I thought, “Great, I can learn how the brain works.” It was not until I was pretty far into this hefty book that I realized that the word “mind” was carefully chosen because it was distinctly different from “brain.” Pinker delivers on his promise and the book wanders through many of the wonders of the mind. It contains many fascinating ideas, studies and theories about why we do the things we do.
Interesting tidbit 1: Children will generally accept any food given to them from birth through their second year, after which their tastes and generally “locked in” for life.
Interesting tidbit 2: Children generally learn fears and phobias between the ages of three and five.
Interesting tidbit 3: Tickling is a form of mock fighting and laughing while tickling is a way of saying, “I know this would otherwise be scary because it seems like I am attacking you, but I am just having fun.”
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Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world
Counterintuitively, McGonigal states “Gamers don’t sit around…” and in the game world, she is right. While gamers might be physically sitting around, in their game’s world they are usually running around a lot: getting quests, vanquishing enemies and leveling up. She goes on to suggest that we use this active nature of gaming to help solve big, complex world problems. -
Frans de Waal: Moral behavior in animals
Waal did an amazing study (that I love talking about) that showed that a sense of “fairness” is innate in a lot animals and is not just a societal contract (though the boundaries of fairness can be heavily shaped by a society).