On Improving Communication

“The mistake is to think that communications will solve the problems of communication, that better wiring will eliminate the ghosts.”
—John Durham Peters

“The mistake is to think that communications will solve the problems of communication, that better wiring will eliminate the ghosts.”
—John Durham Peters
Oscar Wilde is one of the most quotable people in history of the English language. He even had ideas about robots, many decades before people had any idea what robots could achieve. And in typical Wildean fashion, he provocatively tied it together with his attitudes on the advantages of slavery: “Unless there are slaves to…
As a behavioral scientist, I have long been interested in self-deception. But I’ve never thought about it this way before, as pictured in a tremendous drawing by Jonathan Bartlett: (Click here to view comments)
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.” (Click here to view comments)
In a recent post, I give you a flavor for Rich Cohen’s wonderful book The Fish That Ate the Whale. One of the things that struck me in reading his book was the psychology of entrepreneurial success. It is often difficult to be a superstar entrepreneur if you are realistic. Often the biggest successes in…
In a recent post, I wrote about the fact that many physicians in the US do not accept new appointments with Medicaid enrollees. I was surprised to see it quickly garnered over 25,000 views. I guess it’s good to write posts that people read. But I fear that many people read it because it was…
David Brooks is a pretty solidly moderate conservative, and one who is a big fan of behavioral science. But that doesn’t mean he can see beyond his own biases, especially when describing the differences between conservatives and liberals. He was particularly offensive on May 7, in an article titled “Beyond the Fence,” in which he discusses…