Nothing about Everything

The results of most studies about origin of preference tend to bias towards biological origin. This doesn't necessarily mean that people behind the studies are not neutral. Most of the successfully identified origin are biological because good research design on identifying biological origin may yield conclusive evidences, where as identification of non-biological origin requires complicated disentanglement of confounding factors. The difficulty is worse when the non-biological origin is too abstract or not well defined such as "free will", culture or even seemingly simple things such as personality, comfortability, etc. It is worth to mention of an approach to identify the origin of preference, which is using evolutionary psychology framework. It basically states that natural selection makes surviving humans have a certain kind of preference. For such case, it's arguable that origin of that particular preference is biological since evolution mostly change biological ...

Commenting on The Future of Voting from Dilbert Blog, I'd like to talk about Scott's suggestion for making voters more informed. He suggested a website that summarized arguments of issues. The summarization is structured so that points and counterpoints can be added easily with links to proper sources or evidences. He also suggested a ranking system so that the better arguments are more visible. I have thought about creating a website implementing such tool ever since I have difficulty following arguments in a mailing list about evolution . Too bad I don't have that much leisure time anymore to play with various projects. But I did find some things I'd like to share: 1. Many people already thought about such tool, one even show a prototype on issue of abortion. But I cannot find it anymore, sorry.. 2. One major problem with the existing tools is how to assimilate all existing information in a glance, or even assimilating only relevant information in a glance. 3. Presen...

In a mailing list I joined (subcription is by other member's reference only, sorry), there is an article about meatless day . The poster persuades readers to observe this day, while offering them a reminder service. In short, she asked people's cell phone number and email address so she can remind them of meatless day. You probably ask, "who would give away his email address or cell number to such a stupid request? Don't people have any common sense?". The answer is "it depends on the community's culture". In community with high collectivism, giving away such information still fit the so called common sense. On the other hand, in a more individualistic community there is more concern on "why you need to know" and "mind your own business" thus such request is unlikely to be responded. Regardless of whether she had any bad intention, such as to sell contact numbers to spammer and telemarketers, this is an example of social engineer...

I just read "On the origin of preference" which extended the arguments in comment section of Econ101: Preference , questioning the origin of preference. Check out their blogs! His writing about Indonesia is consistently of high quality. Using the question of "what is the origin of preference", I will show you how Scott Adams preference influences his approach to this question. :-) Due to his obsession with occam's razor, he will try to find the simplest explanation on the origin of preference. The wittier it is, the more likely he will choose that explanation. He will also use evolution argument if possible since "survival of the fittest" is arguably a robust and flexible argument, that is evolution argument can support anything as long as you can explain how this anything gives human more chance to successfully reproduce. If the explanation is mocking humanity, it will be considered better. Also consider that "What is the origin of preferenc...

One of the few persons whose blog I subscribed to is Scott Adams' . He is the creator of Dilbert comic which is a satirical comic on corporate management. His view of corporate management can be summarized in 2 books: The Dilbert Principle and Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook . His blog made me realize that Scott's mind is very similar to one of my best friend. Both of them able to entertain possible but extremely satirical yet simple hypothesis. Their view on issues such as free will, religion, democracy, morality, ethics, and human relationships, are very similar, both in their arguments and sarcastic tone. Their differences are only what they choose to believe. For example let's look what I can infer from his latest blog "The Stuff in My Head" alone. They are both believer of indoctrination effectiveness, not necessarily by the government, but also by institution and corporation. Therefore they believe democracy is only an illusion. And if I may ...

The last couple of days I have been tutoring my brother on the art of driving. Since I failed to find any decent tips of driving in the internet, I was forced to make the tips up and create guideline along the way. Now I want to share those. In this post, I'll talk about guideline first. Without further ado, here it is: There are 3 components of driving environment: static, dynamic, and context dependent components. Static components is road. Dynamic components are everything that can change such as cars and pedestrians. Context dependent components are everything that depends on the situation.. If you are not familiar with the static component of an area, be cautious. You may assume that the static components always follow certain guidelines, such as a dead end will be marked however rudiment the mark is. But remember that some guidelines may not be reliable, for example a lack of continuous line in a wide road of a road pairs, do not imply a one way road. So again, be cautious. A...

I have stated that self-esteem is a fragile creature that depends on the stability of it's environment to stay intact . But there is an unusual way to create a high self-esteem that does not depend on environment. The method is what I call a nihilist method . Some people discover the nihilist method because their educational background or mental exploration, lead them to an appreciation that self-esteem might be an arbitrary construct without any intrinsic meaning. They key word here is appreciation , not understanding . Someone might understand or know the diversity of cultures in the world, but (s)he might not appreciate it. Anyway, in short, they will think that it really truely irrelevant what they think about themselves, and they mean it. Education background and mental exploration that lead to such appreciation are: 1. Theoretical physics Explanation: Exploration of high level of abstraction will eventually make you wonder whether there is any intrinsic meaning to.. anything...