I’m out of town overnight for my brother’s wedding and sharing a room with the-almost-6-year-old so might as well catch up with some podcasts. First up is Arming the Donkeys.

  • Derek Koehler
    • Monitoring of goal helps you realize the goal
    • Reminders also help
    • (Over) Optimism can cause you to look over things that would make it more likely to achieve desired results
  • Danny Oppenheimer
    • Fluency – the ease of processing information; a subjective experience about how easy or hard it is for a person to process information
    • The easier it is to process a piece of information, the information is treated better
    • fluency is a sign of value
    • places of influence of fluency: stock IPO, politics
  • Phil Zambardo
    • All heroes are deviants as they have to step out of the crowd
    • Heroes are ordinary; acts of heroism are extraordinary
    • Heroes transform good intentions to actions
  • Barry Schwartz
    • threats to wisdom:
      1. Excessive reliance on rules which don’t let people make mistakes (which then you learn from)
      2. Clever incentives are not enough
    • The right way to teach: figure out what each person needs, and give them
    • There is no incentive system that smart people won’t be able to subvert
    • Incentives demoralize the activity (do the right thing)
    • Any work that involves other people should be considered ‘moral’ work
    • (monetary) bonus systems are corrosive
  • Todd Hare
    • If you think more about the health before easting, you tend to make better food choices (calorie counters)
  • Leif Nelson
    • In poor places, men prefer plumper women. In richer places, they prefer thinner women
    • Weight implies opulence or at least access to scarce resources (could survive next drought)
    • Interesting correlation: as GDP decreases, the weight of Playboy playmates increase
    • Cultural and biological anthropology seem like two cool fields I didn’t go into
  • Susana Martinez
  • Debu Purohit
    • Interesting take on piracy – If you have the money, you should pay for it. I love the qualifier at the beginning of that sentence
  • Colin Camerer
    • Hours worked correlated to wage has little affect in men, but does in women
    • Targeting – work until target is reached
    • Optimal behavior – work more in optimal situation, less in in-optimal