praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: Influencing society
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2012/10/patterns.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. The link between family planning and education in itself is no mystery. As women have become more educated, birth rates have fallen. Education lets them pursue interests outside home, in work, and otherwise. We’ve seen this in Western countries over the past 50 years. Kerala’s transition, however, is a mystery for its suddenness. Mark Buchanan, in The Social Atom. Posted by Praveen Vaidyanathan. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). On culture and stuff.
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: The illusion of price
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2014/05/testt.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. The illusion of price. A McDonald’s burger that cost just 20 cents a few decades ago now costs around $5. Putting astronauts on the moon that cost $25 billion a few decades ago now costs almost $160 billion. We define prices by money. Which doesn't have a constant value. As prices go up over time, the value of money goes down. Therefore, the prices we pay aren’t an accurate guide to the real cost of things. So, if we convert prices into hours and minutes of work, the ...
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: The next big culture
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2012/07/integrative-culture.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. The next big culture. Just as the caterpillar held the blueprint for the butterfly all along, every culture retains parts of the one that preceded it. Hence, cultures don’t start from scratch. They build the new. By simply rearranging the old. We’re transitioning between control culture and integrative culture. Since these two systems have such opposing values, the transition is a struggle. Identifies that evolution is a continuous process of integrating dissimilar el...
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: Lure of unreason
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2013/01/lure-of-unreason.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. The philosopher Thomas Aquinas found that the pursuit of wisdom, through reason, is the most perfect, sublime and profitable of all human pursuits. As did Voltaire, Paine and Aristotle, who all maintained that happiness, from the use of reason, is the ultimate goal of life. For many such great thinkers, reason. Is the greatest good to which humans can aspire. The trouble is, many of us are notoriously good at abandoning it. Reasoning is also bounded by practical const...
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: Hip and its hipsters
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2012/10/hip-and-its-hipsters.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. Hip and its hipsters. It seems like everyone knows what hip is. Or at least, everyone seems to pick it when they see it. And yet, no one is quite clear about what hip is. Even the Tower of Power tried a song on it. They called it ‘What hip is? 8217; But landed quite like many would. ‘Hipness is — what it is! And sometimes hipness is — what it ain’t! A way to understand hip is to look back at its origins. The word hip comes from hepi. 8212; to see or open one’s e...
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: Securing second
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2012/05/challenging-brand-leaders.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. Most acorns don't survive the forest because they fall too close to their oak trees. Falling too close means they don't get enough sunlight to germinate and grow; so they die. Similarly, any brand that tries to grow too close to the leader is likely to suffocate and die too. Many brands however fail to recognise this principle. Perhaps it has something to do with our motivation. In The Origin of Brands. Posted by Praveen Vaidyanathan. 12 June 2012 at 00:14.
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: Right-brain revival
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2013/02/right-brain-resurgence.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. But some people are comfortable with logical, linear reasoning. A form of thinking that is functional, textual and analytic. They tend to become lawyers, accountants and engineers. The left brain directs their thinking. And has led to the Information Age that started in the 1970s. So it’s overemphasised in schools and prized by firms. Encouraging left-brain results. Into a society of creators and empathisers, of pattern recognisers and meaning makers. In other wor...
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: Trapped in common sense
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2012/08/common-sense.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. Trapped in common sense. Unwritten rules are informal rules. Then there are written rules that are formal rules. Formal rules seem less important than informal rules because we like to break them. Informal rules seem more important than formal rules because we like to use them. We use informal rules to solve many of our problems, from personal to social. And less about why. Firstly, the way we understand individual behaviour is flawed. When we think about why peop...
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: Contrived life at play
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2012/04/contrived-life-at-play.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. Contrived life at play. Perhaps the most common social media question at the moment is ‘What’s on your mind? 8217; Simple as it may seem, we struggle to come up with anything truly self-reflective. Here’s why. The sticky influence of our contrived life means that everyone everywhere is playing a role – to present a tailored version of life and its experiences better. This notion was put forward in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. On culture and stuff.
praveenvaidyanathan.com
Pencil stand: Thinking beyond purpose
http://www.praveenvaidyanathan.com/2012/12/thinking-beyond-purpose.html
Some sharp. Some blunt. Both useful. The human being ‘exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself,’ said the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. And the science writer Brian Christian, in The Most Human Human. 8217; marketing rhetoric proves just that. Our relationship with technology has evolved accordingly. We don’t decide what we need first and then go buy a piece of technology to do it. We buy a piece of technology first and then figure out what we...Zen philosophy ...
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