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fristechill's comments

fristechill | 4 years ago | on: The Scientific Virtues: Stupidity, Arrogance, Laziness

I'm glad somebody has referred to truth at last because the habit of truth, according to Jacob Bronowski, is perhaps the primary scientific virtue.

That is, telling and acknowledging the truth about even the minutest facts relating to one's scientific activity, whether in public print or in strictest privacy.

fristechill | 4 years ago | on: Scientific papers have has now used 94% of the 17,576 possible TLAs

As the web matures it is time now to abandon acronyms and most other forms of abbreviation, in my opinion. At best they confuse at least some people and at worst they are shibboleths. Little would be lost since those rare abbreviations which turn out to be genuinely useful and communicative will make it into the dictionaries regardless of what we do.

fristechill | 4 years ago | on: Being Slow to Criticise

Especially now, jammed together as we are in the global village, I suspect criticism is something we should only use defensively. Even criticism of ideas should be restricted to ideas we don't like but can't seem to avoid. Bearing in mind that if criticisms fail then perhaps the idea is a good one after all.

fristechill | 4 years ago | on: Schlep Blindness (2012)

Start with ignorance, but then make the schleps as conscious and explicit as possible?

People literally assemble jigsaws and exercise on treadmills in their spare time. Repeatedly! So it seems that even the most apparently mechanical tasks can be made interesting with some creative engagement.

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and - SNAP - the job's a game -- Mary Poppins

fristechill | 4 years ago | on: Arctic 'Survival Parenting'

>One way of subtly enforcing cultural norms is a [...] a kind of playful teasing. This has also been observed in other indigenous circumpolar peoples, such as the Inuit, but not in mainstream Scandinavian cultures [...] ensure they never say something really hurtful, or bully the child

Yes, I think there's a benefit here but it's more important as an inoculation against bullying. It's the verbal equivalent of playing rough and tumble games on the lawn with Dad. Humans don't fight with each other physically nearly so much as they fight verbally.

That said I'm sceptical one can learn much about parenting from other cultures. Being a father or a mother is hard enough without trying to emulate other lineages and contexts. What we're trying to do, I think, is to include the best bits from our own childhoods, those things which brought value and hope and joy, and to de-emphasize the bad bits, or the seeming bad bits. A lot of the knowledge is tacit, which is why it's important to honour our own parents, otherwise it simply doesn't get transmitted.

fristechill | 4 years ago | on: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

I think a major problem with the self-improvement books I've read is their emphasis on habits.

Depending on where you are, a positive habit may be useful for getting you out of a hole but ultimately consciousness is not about acting or reacting stereotypically. It's about having the option to do things differently.

Consciousness, or self-awareness, is the real key to improvement, and it's actually an anti-habit.

e.g. rather than relying on the force of habit for daily exercise, one eventually comes to realise and to experience repeatedly that being fit is not only better than being unfit but it feels better too. No self-coercion is then subsequently required to maintain fitness

fristechill | 4 years ago | on: I quit caffeine

I've 'quit' tea and coffee for long periods. It only takes a small daily quantity of caffeine to eliminate the withdrawal headaches. One 'Pro Plus' pill per day is probably sufficient (50mg anhydrous caffeine), reduced to half a pill per day after a week, then nothing after two weeks. Pills don't trigger the addictive yearning as much as the full coffee experience does. There's still sleepiness to contend with, however.

fristechill | 4 years ago | on: IQ decline and Piaget: Does the rot start at the top? [pdf]

It's not so much 'superior genes' as an absence of deleterious mutations. The brain requires the cooperation of the greatest number of genes (compared with other organs) in order in the develop in embryo.

Since the industrial revolution infant death has thankfully dropped but it seems likely this improvement has had the side-effect of increasing the number of deleterious mutations and therefore also of decreasing the average IQ in Western populations.

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