1. Be skeptical of medians.
2. The pattern recognition theory of humor, via GeekPress.com.
3. AmateurEconomist, a new on-line magazine.
4. Victor Niederhoffer on worry; see the comments for a partial summary of my talk.
5. A superb post on charity, from Freakonomics blog.
How do you order pieces of text in first place to get the median??
Unless it’s a joke, of course.
The “superb post on charity” is some kind of rambling first-person narrative. I’d have to read it again to really figure out what he’s going on and on about, and I’m not sure that’s worth the investment of time. Something about “throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily solve it”, yes?
I misread that as “be skeptical of mediums.”
There’s a little book called “Jokes” by philosopher Ted Cohen, which neatly explains the phenomena of humor. Cohen argues that jokes are a transaction between teller and prospective laugher. The pattern recognition theory is consistent with the transactional theory because some focal point is required for voluntary exchanges to take place. When the joke elicits laughter, the teller and laugher now know that they share a common focal point.
Now why not just talk about the focal point? Because usually, the focal point is a dangerous one to express publicly without knowing more about the listeners. Jokes, in effect, are a socially acceptable way to figure out something about the usually very private worldviews of your listener.
“Be skepitcal of medians”
And the linked post reads: “and arrived at this average:”
Ummmmm.
Re: AmateurEconomist. Amateur, indeed. One of the articles suggested a barter system for medical care. Won’t visit that link again.
I read about halfway through the article on charity and lost interest.
I think the level of charitable giving discussed there — millions of dollars — and the related level of expectation are so far out of the norm as to make them more or less irrelevant to a discussion of more typical charitable giving.
Speaking purely from an anecdotal point of view, by which I mean what I observe with my own eyes and ears, most folks give to charities because they have enough to give something away, and they think their gift might be useful. Full stop.
I don’t think most folks expect to make really dramatic changes in other people’s behavior. That’s good, because they probably won’t. They just want to help out a little bit.
Not sure how that affects whatever point the author was making, it’s just another data point.
Thanks -
Ned beat me to it. The humor study as summarized by that blog post sounds awful. First, how can one discuss or formulate a theory of humor in humans without reviewing the literature on why other primates laugh? Second, how can one miss the effect heirarchical relationships have on one’s response to humor. I suspect laughing originated to signal submissiveness, and smiling originated to signal lack of submissevness (slack jaw vs. bared teeth) in primates. I think it explains well our human aesthetics surrounding stand up comedy and the projection of confidence.
Comments on this entry are closed.