According to the ICI Fact Book, an estimated 90 million individual investors owned mutual funds in 2014. These investors held 89 percent of total mutual fund assets, directly or through retirement plans. About 53.2 million households (43% of all households) owned mutual funds.
Humans are animals. Questions to ponder: What does it mean for an animal to become enlightened? Is it possible to become enlightened incrementally (like gaining expertise)? Is enlightenment on a continuum with regular human capacities, or does it represent a qualitative shift? Or is the approach to enlightenment incremental but then actual achievement is a qualitative shift (kinda like expertise too)? Can one be enlightened and then fall out of it? Why? Why not?
In “Self Comes to Mind”, Antonio Damasio writes of the homeostatic range associated with the well-being of living creatures. Venture too close to the periphery of this range and you get pain. Inhabit the middle and you get pleasure. ... Now compare the concept of the homeostatic range to the idea of homeostatic balance. Homeostatic balance is a perfectly respectable concept meaning a condition of equilibrium. But my interest is in the “use value” of the word ‘balance’: what it is meant to evoke and accomplish...
When you yield to a thought, you stay with it as it expands and meanders. You haven’t prejudged whether it will lead of anything of value. It may lead to a tangle of thorny bushes or to a treasure trove....
Affluence is mostly a matter of age and education in the US. The median net worth (2011) of young adults (less than 35 years) is $6,676; for 65 to 69 year-olds, it’s $194,226; for 75 and older: $155,714. Basically, people start accumulating wealth in their late 30s and then slowly deplete it after retirement.
When you have strong opinions, you may be wrong. When you have weak opinions, you may be wrong. When you think it's all too complicated to have an opinion, you may be wrong. If you keep having the same kinds of opinions (strong, weak, oppositional), you'll probably over-relying on heuristics and not trying hard enough.
What is the difference between “awareness” and focal attention? Is “awareness” the same as “consciousness”?... Is “awareness” of online focal attention possible, i.e., awareness simultaneous with and distinct from focal attention? Or is “awareness” really the same thing as focal attention? And if we are “aware” of focal attending, is it simultaneous with the attending or awareness of attending that just passed? Please answer and get back to me.
Denmark’s generous safety net is made possible by high taxes – and not particularly progressive taxes at that. Kicking in at incomes of roughly $6300/year, the lowest tax rate is 37.5%. The highest rate is 59%, starting at about $50,400/year. Counting all sources of taxation, taxes comprise 49% of GDP – the highest in Europe.
Ignoring possible human suffering and death caused by climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts is no different than drone pilots disassociating from the effects of their bombing runs. Of course, sometimes drastic – and lethal – measures are justified. But trade-offs are involved – and if you care about human life, trade-offs must be seriously considered.
“The problem with free speech is that it’s hard, and self-censorship is the path of least resistance. But once you learn to keep yourself from voicing unwelcome thoughts, you forget how to think them – how to think freely at all – and ideas perish at conception.” George Packer, p.20, The New Yorker April 13, 2015.
We often talk about thoughts as if they were an outpouring of words, with word after word reeling off like widgets coming off an assembly line. When I hear my thoughts they are more like participants in a conversation. As social animals, our behaviors are often communicative acts. And that includes cognitive behavior.
Can one truly embrace the scientific method and revere religious masters or teachings as depositories of wisdom? If so, is that because one has assigned different epistemological realms to science and religion? Or does one try to explain religious sentiments as compatible with an attitude of scientific scrutiny?
Viewing humans as primates-mammals-animals-life forms, the concept of “enlightenment” and of “enlightened” beings seems strange to me. If enlightenment exists, could animals other than humans become enlightened? Why? Why not?
We know that a lot of people will die because of the havoc wreaked by climate change. The (WHO) estimates that between 2030 and 2050, climate change will cause roughly 250 000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress.
Denmark draws the lines differently. Pro-union doesn’t mean anti-business. Having a strong safety net doesn’t mean squeeze the rich. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the lines are not there to begin with- that the ideal of ending poverty, facilitating economic mobility, and making sure everyone has access to the basics – healthcare, education, and family services – doesn’t have to pit Most of Us against a Despised Other (or at least an Undeserving Other).
Between “toxic” thoughts and feelings, unawareness, cancer-prone personalities, and just plain ol’ stress*, the unmindful among us are in mortal danger. Delicate homeostatic inner balance has been put to the service of New Age fear-mongering.
Climate change action priorities, simplified version: reduce green house gases, protect habitats, protect wildlife and protect humans. For this post, I’m going to focus on protecting humans – operationalized as reducing the extra deaths caused by climate change. A huge factor in reducing climate-change related deaths is economic development. Specifically, as GDP increases, mortality rates decrease. Mean death rates fall by 15% for every 10% increase in GDP. And we’re not just talking about old people getting a couple extra years: on average, a 10% increase in income means a 5% fall in infant mortality.
... Instead of thinking about political differences in terms of values, think of these differences in terms of priorities. Priorities are informed by multiple, often competing, goals based on multiple, often competing, values. Since multiple goals and values are involved, at least some are likely to be shared across the political spectrum.
The world places conflicting demands on our brains. When we are intentionally paying attention to sense impressions or tasks, “stimulus-independent-thought” (aka “tasked-unrelated-thought” aka “mind wandering”) is unable to proceed. This is because focusing on something taps into the same general cognitive resource, one which can only “handle only one coherent data stream at a time” (Teasdale et al 1995, p 38).
This is a continuation of the Denmark explorations. This time around, we’ll be checking out Denmark’s pension system.