Imaginary conversations and scenarios are like the brain running through hypotheticals and counterfactuals, just in case. The imagined events may never happen but something like them may and the process of playing them out in the brain is a kind of problem-solving exercise that can sharpen one’s readiness for whatever may come one’s way.
We replay moments of accomplishment in our heads to feel something – a sense of pride, confidence, or optimism. That feeling is expansive and diffuse. We also replay bad experiences but even if the motivation if partly to re-experience the emotion, there seems to be something else driving the impulse to go over and over the bad thing that happened. Something is wrong and we’re dwelling on the problem...
“Relishing” triumphs is another way of saying replaying them in our minds. It feels good and we replay these moments over and over to have that feeling again. Our relation to negative experiences is different...
Just like with speech, thoughts aren’t only about their literal content but also their function. Morin et al (2011) found that one function of inner speech was self-motivation. Some inner outbursts do serve to boost confidence by self-praise (“that was brilliant”!) or motivate corrective behavior by self-chastisement (“that was stupid”!).
Temporal discounting undermines persistence in the pursuit of difficult long-term goals. It's too bad that the period of life associated with temporal discounting - aka youth - is also the time of greatest potential for skill/expertise building, which, unfortunately, also requires self-control, grit, emotion management, and conscientiousness.
In terms of predicting climate change and its effects, it’s essential to get population projections right. And in terms of climate change mitigation, the fewer humans the better. Per O’Neill et al, every 1% decrease in global population would mean a 1% decrease in emissions.
According to the scientists who proposed RCP8.5 [the scariest projection of atmospheric GHG concentrations], its trajectory is plausible based on assumptions of “…low income, high population and high energy demand due to only modest improvements in energy intensity.” Are these assumptions reasonable based on current trends - that is, do they represent a plausible“business-as-usual” scenario? Let's look at income first.
The problem with providing grants, low-interest loans, tuition waivers, and free tuition is that they exert no pressure on educational institutions to increase efficiencies, productivity, or otherwise keep costs down.
One thing I love about the scientific mindset is its humility. Scientific proposals about the nature of reality are tentative, provisional, and mindful of their limitations. That very humility feeds the wonderful feeling of awe and adventure that accompanies the scientific quest to understand something better.
I’ve written a lot about the Basic Income Guarantee, aka BIG, which is a proposal that all adults get some non-means-tested check from the federal government every month. Arguments for the BIG come from both the left and the right. Progressives consider it a compassionate way to eliminate poverty. Libertarians see it as an efficient way to provide a safety net.
Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) represent possible trajectories of atmospheric concentrations of green house gases (GHGs) over the next century. The RCPs are named after their targeted heating effects. For instance, RCP8.5 represents a trajectory that could result in atmospheric heating of 8.5 watts per meter squared by 2100. RCP8.5 is the most extreme of the four RCPs considered by the IPCC. It projects a mean temperature rise of 3.7°C and a likely increase range of 2.6 to 4.8°C by 2100, wreaking all sorts of havoc along the way.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has laid out a range of scenarios for what might happen to the planet, atmosphere, biosphere, and human society over the course of the next century. These scenarios are based on different “Representative Concentration Pathways” (RCPs), each with its own story line about population growth, economic activity, land use patterns, energy use, lifestyle, climate policy, and mitigation efforts.
Some may say the prosody of thoughts simply reflects their emotionality: words flowing on a sea of feeling. But when we engage in imaginary conversations, are the feelings heard in the words independent from the communicative intention, which is to have an effect on an imagined audience? Emotional expression is calibrated in the real world – why not in the world inside our heads?
Thoughts that amplify bad feelings aren’t necessarily dysfunctional – they may serve a useful purpose. Some unpleasant thoughts lead to breakthroughs; others become repetitive and reap diminishing returns.
Just 10% of Americans currently say that human-caused climate change is not happening or is not about to happen. Climate change “dismissives” are a vanishing species. Disagreement is mostly about how fast, how much, possible effects and what the best course of action is.
The main dictionary definition of "conservative" is "holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion." In European and Latin American history, "conservative" usually referred to supporters of the Church (and sometimes landed gentry), which was opposed to business interests. A strong strain of paternalism runs through the history of the European/Latin brand of conservatives. Pro-business advocates were (and still are) called "liberals" in Europe ...
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics News Release (March 30, 2016), the total number employed in the US for All Occupations was 137,896,660. ...administrative support jobs are by far the biggest occupational group. And yet for decades, prognosticators have been saying the computer will make office work near obsolete. So why are there more office jobs than ever?
...If one condition was more effortful and less fun than the other, would the groups differ in any systematic way in their expectations of cognitive change or in how they approach the post-training assessment tests?
Sometimes when I sound a note of hope about climate change, others seem irritated or even angry. As if hope negates strong measures, and unless we take strong measures, the situation is truly hopeless. As if hope engenders complacency. But hope can spur action, especially hope tempered by a sense of urgency and an understanding that sacrifice is also part of the equation.
My last post ended on a note of optimism: continued economic growth, cultural change and technological development can go a long way in ameliorating climate change, and the effects thereof. In short: with economic development, empowerment of women, intensification of sustainable agriculture, and urbanization, human populations plummet and wild habitat expands. ...