Morals, Humanity, Liberals, and Conservatives
By Tim Berry
I was browsing the TED.com site the other day and stumbled upon this fascinating 18-minute talk on what divides liberals and conservatives, from a very deep psychological research point of view. It’s interesting to me how relevant this is on the long term, even after the cacophony of the last presidential elections. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt... Read More »
Are You Happy, Or Just Remembering Wrong?
By Tim Berry
Here is another great TED talk, this one from TED last month in California. Are you happy? Here’s the TED summary: Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our “experiencing selves” and our “remembering selves” perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for... Read More »
On Cities, Food, History, and Future
By Tim Berry
In honor of Blog Action Day, the video here is a 15-minute TED talk by Carolyn Steel, author and architect. Among the startling things she says here: We lose about 47 million acres of rainforest every year. And at the same time, we lose about 50 million acres of farm land to salinization and erosion.... Read More »
The Web as Random Acts of Kindness
By Tim Berry
Researchers put a cute-looking cardboard robot on the streets of New York. It could only go forward but it had a note asking people to help it to its destination. It got there quickly with the help of 43 people. They asked for nothing in return. A teenager got caught on YouTube with a humiliating... Read More »
Stewart Brand’s 4 Environmental Heresies
By Tim Berry
I’ve been a reader of, and kind of a fan of, Stewart Brand for just about 40 years now, since the first Whole Earth Catalog came out while I was in college. To me he stands for the long-term component of so-called “hippie” values that have since become mainstream, because they make sense. Among them,... Read More »
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