Blog

• ‘If the kids you are with can only afford a Coke, that is all you order.’
• In the 1950’s, lower classes could more easily excel than today
• “We were poor and we didn’t know it”
• Gender had little effect in High School but a powerful effect in College
• Generally, Americans agree in equality of opportunity

• Chaos theory led to Complexity theory
• Complexity requires
  • Numbers matter
    • Fewer than 20 ants and no one follows order
  • Everything is local
    • There is no mastermind
  • Quenched disorder (low-level disorder)
    • Something to explore with possible alternative
  • Negative feedback loops are critical
    • Otherwise you get runaway growth
• Thinking of the body as a fluid may help explain how acupuncture works
• Body heat is crucial to allow mechanical processes
• Something smooth can be subdivided
• Until very recently, metaphysics was basically worthless to the scientific community
• The brain does not create consciousness but transduces it

• Economic blending (poor people living next door to rich people) does more to boost student performance than does giving poor schools more money
• Discriminatory housing today looks like mandating lot sizes, embellishments, and house sizes
• Meritocracy strikes again
  • (Things are rarely truly meritocratic; they almost always involve circumstances and bias)
• All affordable housing is dense
• “Housing policies are school policies”
• In progressive areas, racial discrimination is not acceptable but class discrimination is
• The US is unique in that is does not protect class… unlike most other countries
• The biggest problem for businesses is not that people do not know their jobs but that people cannot get along with other people
• Expanded housing would adjust market values down
  • (This is problematic for a lot of localities that tax percentages of housing value
  • A 0.01% property tax feels fine but a 10% tax is outrageous, even if the dollars are the say)
• More subsidies go to homeowner subsidies (interest deductions) than rental subsidies (Section 8)
• Gentrification is different from displacement
• It is important to make clear that poor white people are also benefited by anti-racism legislation

• Loneliness is pervasive and a key reason to “other”
• We need to get reconnected
• Isolation turns something dangerous into something deadly
• Loneliness drives obesity and other chronic diseases
• Much of depression is simply a lack of community
• The phrase “our kids” used to mean “the community” but now it is usually limited to immediate relatives
• Having a shoulder on the road gives more margin for correction
• “How we ought to live” is often a moral question
• In the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s we liberalized our laws at the push of the affluent
  • The affluent then realized this not a recipe for success and have become more conservative in living
• ATMs scared tellers thinking there would be no need for humans tellers; instead, they boosted the number of tellers because branches became cheaper to run
• We are meant to be “for” things, in absence of that we will be “against” things in order to keep a community
• News shifts to fit the delivery mechanism (‘You can’t use a smoke signal to share philosophy’)
• Retired people watch an average of 50 hours of TV a week
• “Nut picking” is searching for a “nut job” who can be broadly applied to a stereotype
• Naming the enemy limits what the they can do in our minds
• We set the agenda for the news outlets
• Part of public service is to head home once you are done
• “Money is power stored in the bank.”
• “Limited government” is not the same as “small government”
  • Limited in that the government should be constrained to enable citizen thought
• Use technology when it advance specific ends

Prenote: This was an audiobook of this title with speakers poorly identified. I have noted speaks as best I could determine.

• John Maxwell
  • Level 1, positional
    • People follow you because they have to
    • People do the least amount of energy and effort
    • The office is packed up at 430
  • Level 2, permission
    • They follow you because they like you
    • It is hard to influence someone you antagonize
    • Listen well
    • Observe what their people do
    • Learn
  • Level 3, results
    • Start producing
    • People do what they see
    • Be a tour guide, not a travel agent
    • “We attract who we are, not who we want”
    • Momentum solves problems
  • Level 4, people
    • Recruitment
    • Position
    • Equip
      • I do it
      • I do it with you
      • You do it with me
      • You do it
      • You do it with someone else
    • Successful leader find what other people are good at
  • Level 5, respect
    • Follow because they respect you
    • You will be at different levels with different people
    • Different levels will hear the same thing differently
• Simon Sinek
  • Golden Circle
    • How we work
    • Why we do it
    • What we do
  • People care why you do it, not what you do
  • Trust and feelings come from limbic system, detached from language
• Laura Sicola
  • Appearance
  • Communicating skills
  • Gravitas
  • Credibility issues when claims and evidence are disconnected
  • Don’t wing the delivery
  • “Vocal executive presence”
  • We focus on high pitch tones, and then fill in the lower pitches
  • Go up on the first name, pause, then go down on the last night

• Authorities are not leaders
• People who feel safe are willing to sacrifice
• Roselinde Torres
  • Here are trends that affect me; Here are trends that affect those around me
• Speech writing
  • Mirror hyperventilating
  • Group in three (tricolon)
  • If the sentence is balanced, then we assume the underlying logic is balanced
  • Metaphors
  • People are more likely to believe something if it rhymes
    • “‘I’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’” is only correct for 40 words but is wrong for 900 words
• Malcom Gladwell
  • Endorphins mask pain
  • Dopamine is a reward for getting stuff done
  • Serotonin is for leadership; this comes with public recognition
  • Oxytocin is feeling safe
    • Comes through touch
    • Doing nice things for others
  • Alphas need to sacrifice themselves for others
  • Email is good for sending information
  • Emotional questions should have personal communications
  • Cortisol is stress and anxiety
    • Shuts down other systems like nail growth and immune systems