“Inclusivity has to be seen as a benefit to the community. The lack of diversity has to be seen as a detriment to that community.”
Source: Love's Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities
“From this failure to expunge the microeconomic foundations of neoclassical economics from post-Great Depression theory arose the "microfoundations of macroeconomics" debate, which ultimately led to a model in which the economy is viewed as a single utility-maximizing individual blessed with perfect knowledge of the future.
Fortunately, behavioral economics provides the beginnings of an alternative vision of how individuals operate in a market environment, while multi-agent modelling and network theory give us foundations for understanding group dynamics in a complex society. These approaches explicitly emphasize what neoclassical economics has evaded: that aggregation of heterogeneous individuals results in emergent properties of the group, which cannot be reduced to the behavior of any "representative individual." These approaches should replace neoclassical microeconomics completely.”
Source: Adbusters #84 Pop Nihilism
“... none of them had it. They had no qualms about stealing, but they needed to be told. They liked to be told, and Viktor Chemmel liked to be the teller. It was a nice microcosm.”
Source: The Book Thief
“The downside of attending to the emotional life of groups is that it can swamp the ability to get anything done; a group can become more concerned with satisfying its members than with achieving its goals. Bion identified several ways that groups can slide into pure emotion - they can become "groups for pairing off," in which members are mainly interested in forming romantic couples or discussing those who form them; they can become dedicated to venerating something, continually praising the object of their affection (fan groups often have this characteristic, be they Harry Potter readers or followers of the Arsenal soccer team), or they can focus too much on real or perceived external threats. Bion trenchantly observed that because external enemies are such spurs to group solidarity, some groups will anoint paranoid leaders because such people are expert at identifying external threats, thus generating pleasurable group solidarity even when the threats aren't real.”
Source: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
“No group wants to be known locally or widely as "the group that is thoughtlessly, carelessly or intentionally unwelcoming to people of color.”
Source: Love's Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities
“Enigszins ontheemd stonden zij bij hen, maar zonder in hen op te gaan, als vetkringen in de bouillon.”
Source: The Discovery of Heaven
“Kahan devised a theory he calls “identity-protective cognition,” suggesting that when forced to choose between factual truth and group identity, most people choose the latter. “Individuals,” he concluded, “subconsciously resist factual information that threatens their defining values.” The problem wasn’t that people are dumb, irrational, or even superficial, as I’d formerly assumed. We’ve simply evolved—as a species—in a different way than I’d imagined. “Once group loyalties are engaged,” Haidt says, “you can’t change people’s mind by refuting their arguments.”
Source: I Have Something to Say: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking in an Age of Disconnection
“The speculative boom for Beanie Babies has resulted in an unsurpassed volume of high-quality, perfectly preserved, monetarily worthless plush animals for children most in need of the comfort of something soft.”
Source: The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute
“The donations are usually anonymous, because while philanthropy is a source of pride, philanthropy as the exit strategy of last resort from a comically bad investment isn't.”
Source: The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute
“If someone loves you, they should not be envious of you pouring your heart and soul and time and energy into the things that you are passionate about, but instead....they should love you MORE because you are so involved in those things.”