better kind than nice, intelligent climate change sceptics & vending machines

CC#37 - Living a Dozen Lives, How to Make Coffee & hi Albert

May 15

Hey there and welcome to ✨ CuratedCuriosity - a bi-weekly newsletter delivering inspiration from all over the internet to the notoriously curious.

Things I Enjoyed Reading.

🎭 A dozen lives

Last time I shared an article about the benefits of staying put and compounding effects in career and skill building - today comes some support for the opposite side. Why not live a dozen lives if you can?

Anything meaningful takes five years to do, whether that’s getting a company off the ground or mastering a skill. If we start working at 20, that’s 60 productive years — or 12 five-year blocks to do new things, then move on. Instead of living one life or career, why not live a dozen instead? This ebb and flow of interest and desire feels natural to me, but totally at odds with my sense of how I “should” live.

🍬 The Economy Is a Giant Vending Machine

An easily readable primer on Universial Basic Income and how it could work out in practice

No small number of economists are hard at work studying how to bring the economy to full employment. But what these economists are forgetting is that full employment is not the same thing as full output. Ideally, we’d want to maximize what we’re getting out of the economy rather than what we’re putting into it. Full employment just means we’re keeping everyone busy. In an efficient labor market, jobs only exist because we want the product of the labor and the only purpose of wages is to provide an incentive for people to perform that labor. By forcing everyone to “earn” a living through a job, not only do we waste people’s time and other resources, but we also damage the environment. Jobs are bad for the environment.

😇 Are you nice or kind?

While niceness is certainly a desirable character trait, it means little when its not accompanied by kindness - it’s all about the execution.

“Niceness is saying ‘I'm so sorry you're cold,’ while kindness may be ‘Ugh, you've said that five times, here's a sweater!’ Kindness is addressing the need, regardless of tone.” (…) Green went on to explain how niceness-versus-kindness translates to institutional politics—the focus on woke signaling via language and optics (nice) versus material concerns like who has food, shelter, safety, agency (kind).

Food for Thought.

➗ It seems its not (ordinary science) intelligence that determines whether or not people believe in climate change but much more a person’s values and believes.

Souce: ‘Ordinary science intelligence’: a science-comprehension measure for study of risk and science communication, with notes on evolution and climate change

🏳 Putin ≠ Russia

Robert Wiblin @robertwiblin

I feel uncomfortable with seizing money from the bank accounts of Russians and giving the money to Ukraine, because I think of people as individuals who don't necessarily bear moral responsibility for the actions of a government in a country where they are a citizen.

💉 While COVID (luckily) seems to slowly slip out of our minds, it will be important for governments to reflect and distill some ‘key lessons learned’ - let’s not forget.

The New York Times @nytimes

Experts say deaths were all but inevitable from the virus. But looking back, it’s clear that many lives could have been saved in the U.S. The high toll is a result of many factors, among them political divisions and an overburdened health care system. nyti.ms/3sAPfIG

Random Stuff.

☀️ A list of 101 ways to get outside during spring - make sure to get some sun! :)

🔬 A great interactive story about reproducibility of scientific results - fun and interactive to click through (only a few minutes).

☕️ A guide on how to make really good coffee at home - haven’t tried yet, but seems pretty legit!

Personal Update.

Spring has arrived in Copenhagen! Enjoying spending some quality time outsides - you can really feel the difference as this city transitions to summer mood. 🌞
Moved office. Acquired a new friend - keep your fingers crossed for his survival! 🤞
Became a curator at Startupy - the worlds first community-curated knowledge base and search engine. Basically it is a bit like this newsletter but searchable and with many smarter and more knowledgeable peeps than me involved. If you are interested in recommendations for high quality online content on specific topics you should definitely check it out!

CuratedCuriosity