The big questions

review: this book has a strong start. But it tries to cover too much and kind of lose focus. Philosophy today has retreated to individual science branches. The core is actually critical thinking.

The big questions: a short introduction to philosophy, 7th, 2006

Robert C. Solomon is a professor of philosophy at UT Austin. He died in 2007.

Later versions of the book is maintained by his wife Kathleen Higgins. (with, 2009), (9th, 2013), (10th, 2017).

he is best known among philosophers for his seminal work on the philosophy of the emotions and on existentialism. His 1972 book *From Rationalism to Existentialism: The Existentialists and Their Nineteenth-Century Backgrounds may still be the single best introductory text on existentialism in English, and his 1976 book on **The Passions* is a classic in the literature on the emotions.

Thousands of students, not trained in hard thinking but starved for ideas and understanding, will retreat to the easier alternatives — pop philosophies of self-help, exotic religions, extreme politics… If the hard thinking of philosophy does not address the big questions, then perhaps these easier alternatives will. The difference is the quality of ideas and the thoroughness of understanding. The choice is whether to accept a cheap and unchallenging substitute or to try the real thing.

doing philosophy

Playing football is cooperating with your team and running against the team that is out to stop you; philosophy is the attempt to coordinate a number of different ideas into a single viewpoint and defending what you believe against those who are out to refute you. indeed, a belief that can’t be tied in with a great many other beliefs and that can’t withstand criticism may not be worth believing at all.

abuse of buzzwords

Many people use buzzwords such as freedom, truth, reality, morality, love, and even God. These words make us feel good just because we say them. They seem to refer to something quite specific and concrete, but in fact they are among the most difficult words to understand, and they provide us with the hardest problems in philosophy.

Advertisements use buzzword scientific. Outrageous behaviors use buzzword artistic. politics use buzzword national security and self-determination. Such buzzwords not only block our understanding of the true nature of our behavior, but they also can be an obstacle— rather than an aid in philosophy. Buzzwords become not aids for thinking but rather substitutes for thinking.

2 crucial features of philosophy:

1. articulation: spelling out our ideas in words and sentences, by writing or discussing with others including strangers.
2. arguing: whether they are well thought out and can stand up to criticism from someone disagree with you, see how well you are prepared, how skilled you are and how convincing your views really are.

stating and defending a view is a way of making it very much your own.

concepts and conceptual frameworks

Concepts rarely occur in isolation; they virtually always tie together into a conceptual framework.

Abstract words, like freedom, are open to interpretation. Interpretation is the business of philosophy.

The most abstract and controversial concepts of all are not those through which we divide up the world into understandable pieces, but rather those grand concepts through which we try to make sense of it all together. Religion is the traditional vehicle for this total understanding.

If the conceptual framework is projected to a way of looking at life, it is a lifestyle. To politics and society, it is ideology. To historical viewpoint, it is a climate of opinion. To the whole world, it is a worldview.

You may find yourself using multiple frameworks:

• scientific framework in school
• pleasure-seeking framework for Saturday night
• religious framework on Sunday morning.

style

philosophy should be persuasive. philosophical writing should be somewhat entertaining, witty, dramatic, and even seductive.

philosophical questions

16 open questions, on die for, minutes to live for, belief in god, what’s real, what’ mind, describe yourself as a character in a story, visitor from another planet, happiness box, a good person necessarily be happy? life ultimately fair? freedom always good? want to have children?

the meaning of life

life as a game. Don’t take it too seriously. It depends on what kind of game? for fun, prove your superiority, kill time, social(bridge), make money, hurt the opponent(boxing), helping others.

life as a mission.

life as art

life as an adventure.

life as learning

life as suffering. Buddhism.

life as relationships.

god

the nature of reality

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theory of human motivation: 3 needs vs 3 factors

An update on Maslow’s hierarchy need theory is long overdue. In 1961, David McCelland proposed a Three Needs Theory: achievement, affiliation, power. People will have different characteristics depending on their dominant motivator.

Dominant Motivator	Characteristics of This Person
Achievement	Has a strong need to set and accomplish challenging goals. Takes calculated risks to accomplish their goals.Likes to receive regular feedback on their progress and achievements.Often likes to work alone.
Affiliation	Wants to belong to the group.Wants to be liked, and will often go along with whatever the rest of the group wants to do.Favors collaboration over competition.Doesn’t like high risk or uncertainty.
Power	Wants to control and influence others.Likes to win arguments.Enjoys competition and winning.Enjoys status and recognition.

The problem for McCelland’s theory is that human’s need is never a clear cut and may evolve over time.

Alternatively, Sirota’s 3-factor theory of human motivation in the workplace is more persuasive to answer this question: So have you seen people begin new jobs with lots of enthusiasm, ready to start contributing, but then watched as they’ve steadily lost that motivation?

The three factors, which together build enthusiasm, are as follows:

1. Equity/Fairness – People want to be treated fairly at work.
2. Achievement – People want to do important, useful work, and be recognized for this.
3. Camaraderie – People want to enjoy good relationships with their co-workers.

According to Sirota, to ensure that your organization demonstrates equity, you need to address all three fairness elements:

Physiological Safety

Ensure the physical safety of workers.

• Create safe working conditions.
• Establish expectations that give your staff a reasonable work/life balance.
• Make sure you meet all workplace safety requirements.
• Provide safety training on a regular basis.

Economic Security

Provide a reasonable level of job security.

• Consider all possible alternatives before laying off workers.
• Ask for voluntary layoffs when a layoff is inevitable.
• Communicate openly and honestly about the layoff.
• Provide outplacement and financial support for staff who have lost their jobs.
• Maintain the fairness needs of the workers who remain.

Provide fair compensation.

• Pay competitive wages, and keep up with inflation.
• Include some variable pay (bonuses) for performance.
• Allow workers to share in company success through stock ownership or other profit-sharing programs

Sirota’s theory is strong on compensation. He doesn’t believe (as some others do) that money is low on the list of motivating factors. His theory says that pay represents respect and achievement, not just the ability to purchase life’s necessities.

Psychological Health

Create an environment of respect.

• Treat all staff similarly, regardless of how much power they have.
• Use power fairly.
• Minimize status distinctions in the workplace – for example, by avoiding separate parking lots or eating areas.
• Provide sufficient and appropriate autonomy and independent work.
• Pay attention to what staff say they want and need. (Management By Wandering Around is an effective way to stay in touch with workers’ needs.)
• Provide positive feedback and recognition.
• Show interest in workers, and insist on common courtesy.

Factor Two: Achievement

People want to be proud of their work, and they want their achievements to be acknowledged. They also want to feel proud of what the organization as a whole achieves.

Sirota asked workers questions about the amount and type of feedback they received, how participative their work environment was, whether adequate resources were provided, and how proud they were of their company.

To help people feel this sense of achievement, an organization needs to do four things:

1. Provide an enabling work environment

Give people what they need to do the job well.

• Use teams effectively.
• Use participative leadership practices.
• Make the organization as flat as possible-in other words, eliminate bureaucracy and hierarchy where you sensibly can.
• Delegate effectively, and avoid micromanagement .

2. Provide challenging work

Allow people to do interesting work that uses their skills and abilities.

• Hire people based on fit.
• Design jobs for enrichment and satisfaction.
• Communicate how each job contributes to the company as a whole.
• Provide training, and opportunities for people to learn new skills.

3. Use feedback, recognition, and reward

Let people know how they’re doing.

• Communicate clear expectations.
• Establish and agree on priorities.
• Use tangible rewards to acknowledge achievement.
• Balance criticism with plenty of praise.
• Promote from within where possible.

Read more about giving feedback .

4. Be an organization of purpose and principles

People want to work for trustworthy companies that they can be proud of.

• Create a vision that can make workers proud.
• Communicate the principles of the company.
• “Walk the talk.”
• Adopt and apply ethical leadership .
• Provide a quality product or service, and use quality management practices.

Factor Three: Camaraderie

When people go to work, they want to enjoy themselves. That makes interpersonal relationships very important. A culture that supports and encourages cooperation, communication, friendliness, acceptance, and teamwork is critical for maintaining enthusiasm. As such, partnership needs to be an important part of company culture.

Partnership Culture

Workers want to feel a sense of community and teamwork.

• Make “people skills” a priority. Demonstrate empathy, consideration, and respect – and expect the same from every worker.
• Encourage interactions, and provide social opportunities.
• Reward positive team behaviors.
• Encourage cross-functional interaction and teamwork.
• Review department mandates and practices regularly to ensure consistency in the approach and message.
• Use team charters to develop ground rules.
• Use collaborative conflict resolution and win-win negotiation techniques to resolve differences.

By creating an environment that addresses all three factors for enthusiasm, you can better ensure high worker satisfaction, motivation, and productivity. However, these factors are not independent of one another: You can’t ignore compensation needs and expect to make up for it with increased camaraderie. Likewise, you can’t allow a manager to treat her staff poorly, even though you provide high achievement elements.

Copyright © 2005. David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind & Micaehl I. Meltzer “The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want”. Terms reprinted by permission of Pearson Education Inc, New York.

Tip:

One of Sirota’s findings is that the equity elements are most fundamental, and you must address them before adding other enthusiasm factors.

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How to pick your life partner

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner.html

The marriage quality is more important than the marriage status**

People in unhappy relationships have a 3-step to-do list

1. go through a soul-crushing break-up
2. emotionally recover
3. find a great relationship

The divorce rate is 50%, but 86% of young people assume their marriage will last forever.

choose a life partner means choosing a lot of things: parenting partner, eating companion or 20,000 meals, travel companion for 100 vacations, leisure time and retirement friend, career therapist,…

people tend to be bad at knowing what they want from a relationship

You don’t get good at something until you’ve done it bunch of time. However, there’s just not enough time.

Society has it all wrong and gives us terrible advice.

1. society encourage us to stay uneducated and let romance be our guide
2. society places a stigma on intelligently expanding our search for potential partners. our current opportunities wins over our preferences. people end up picking from the whatever pool options they have. So the suggestion is to broaden the candidate pool by doing a lot of online dating, speed dating and other systems, instead of hoping for the dumb luck.
3. society rushes us.

several unhappy relationships

• overly romantic. he repeatedly ignores the little voice during the constant fight, shutting down the voice with thoughts like “everything happens for a reason”, “I’m totally in love with her, and that’s all that matters”
• fear driven. fear of being the last single friend, fear of being an older parent, fear of being judged or talked about, which lead us to settle for a not-so-great partnership. However, the only rational fear we should fee is the fear of spending the 2/3 of life unhappily.
• Externally- influenced. It may look great from the outside, but not actually great from the inside. He listens to others over his own gut and ties the knot.
• Shallow. A strongly ego-driven person is more concerned with the on-paper description of her life partner than the inner personality beneath it.
• Selfish. Wants to keep her single life and the benefit of having someone. Self-absorbed without returning anything. never compromise.

What makes a happy life partnership?

To succeed at something big, is to break it into its tinniest pieces and focus on how to succeed at just one piece.

Marriage isn’t the honeymoon, isn’t Valentine’s Day. It’s Forgettable Wednesday

Traffic Test

why they’re my friends?

I enjoy spending time with them!

If you stuck in a traffic, who do you want to spend time with?

The ability to extract fun out of unfun situations.

A respect for each other’s brains and way of thinking. If you don’t respect the way someone thinks, you’re not going to want to tell them your thoughts on work each day, or on anything else interesting that pops into your head, because you won’t care that much what they have to say about it.

A decent number of common interests, activities and people-preferences.

In such friendship, you have endless room to deepen and grow richer.

Most comfortable position in a chair for 12 hours

You know even the slightest bit of discomfort would grow to pain and eventually, torture.

• secrets are poison to a relationship, because they build an invisible wall.
• If I am with someone with a different wavelength, I soon becomes exhausted.
• Human have flaws. The worst fates would be to spend most of your life being criticized for your flaws.
• John Gottman,

  positive/negative interaction should be at least 5:1

Expect to put great effort in relationship

1. learn the good, consistent communication style
2. Mental equality. If one person dictates the mood, needs or opinions over others, in a way they’d need stand for being treated themselve, it’s not going to last long.
3. Every relationship is flaw, don’t make things even harder than they need to be.

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Tame your mammoth

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/taming-mammoth-let-peoples-opinions-run-life.html

meet your mammoth

When I was in 2nd grade, I told the truth that I loved a pretty girl… This horrifying experience taught me a hard lesson: it can be mortally dangerous to be yourself.

Your Grandfaterh knows socially acceptance is critical to survival in a small tribe. This obsession can be called a human’s social survival mammoth.

Civilization has dramatically changed. But our social structure and biology evolved at a snail’s pace.

Romantic rejection is a nightmare for a mammoth, but caution in today’s world only makes you a coward.

Mammoth’s fear of soical disapproval makes you feel weird about going to a restaurant or a movie alone, makes you go to a more lucrative career you’re lukewarm about, marry to a person you’re not in love with.

The Mammoth needs to feel calm and safe, also needs to be fed with praise, approval, and feeling of being on the right side of any social or moral norm.

Prestige is something used to incentivize people to do meaningless jobs.

Mammoth focus on winning the approval of a Puppet Master in your life. It can be a parent, your significant other, group leader or an alpha member.

When we get to the toxic state in our relationship with a Puppet Master, his presence hangs over our entire decision-making process.

Authentic Voice

AV knows how you feel deep down about things like money, family and marriage. It knows which kinds of people, topics of interests, and types of activities you truly enjoy, and which you don’t.

AV is someone the mammoth tends to ignore entirely. Mammoth has the ability to quickly adapt the environment, then AV starts to feel itself irrelevant, which makes AV shrink, fade and lose motivation.

When you don’t know who you are, you make decision based on the crude, outdated needs and emotions of your mammoth. You don’t dip deep into the foggy center of what you really believe in to find clarity, you look for the strongest opinions around you.

Losing touch with your AV also makes you fragile, because when your identity is built on the approval of others, being criticized or rejected by others really hurts. A bad break-up is painful for everyone, but it stings in a much deeper place for a mammoth-run person than for a person with a strong AV. A strong AV makes a stable core, and after a break-up, that core is still holding firm—but since the acceptance of others is all a mammoth-run person has, being dumped by a person who knows you well is a far more shattering experience.

Likewise, you know those people who react to being criticized by coming back with a nasty low-blow? Those tend to be severely mammoth-run people, and criticism makes them so mad because mammoths cannot handle criticism.

Taming the Mammoth

The only way to take our lives back is to override the wiring of our brain and tame the mammoth.

get to know your AV

1st step: a clear and honest assessment of what’s going on in your head.

soul-searching, finding yourself:How does your gut really feel about your job and relationship status? Do you pretend to care about something?

Step out of your ordinary life and think. start being proud of whoever your authentic voice is.

figure out where the mammoth is hiding

When a mammoth is in control, the person is not really aware of it.

1st hiding place: fear. where are you most susceptible to shame or embarrassment? what part of life is a dreadful,sinking feeling washes over you? Which part of you life would clearly need a change?

2nd hiding place: good feeling you get from feeling accepted. Are you trying to please others at work or in your relationship? Are you terrified of disappointing Puppet Master and choose making them proud over aiming to gratify yourself? Do you get too excited about being associated with prestigious things? Do you care too much about status?

3rd hiding place: don’t fee comfortable making a decision without approval from others

Decide specific areas the mammoth needs to be ousted

The mammoth is alway with you. What you need to do is to carve out a sacred areas only for AV without mamonth influence

Mammoth has a low IQ

Everyone is talking about me and my life and just think how much everyone will be talking about it if I do this risky or weird thing.

No one really cares that much about what you’re doing. People are highly self-absorbed.

If I try really hard, I can please everyone.

Yes, maybe in a 40-person tribe with a unified culture. But in today’s world, no matter who you are, a bunch of people will like you and a bunch of other people won’t.

Being disapproved of or looked down upon or shit-talked about has real consequences in my life.

Anyone who disapproves of who you’re being or what you’re doing isn’t even in the same room with you 99.7% of the time.

Really judgy people matter.

Here’s how judgy people function: They’re highly mammoth-controlled and become good friends withand date other judgy people who are also highly mammoth-controlled. One of the primary activitiesthey do together is talk shit about whoever’s not with them.

When people shit-talk, they set up a category division of which they’re always on the right side.

I’m a bad person if I disappoint or offend the person/people who love me and have invested so much in me.

No. You’re not a bad person for being whoever your Authentic Voice is in your one life. It’s simple— if they truly selflessly love you, they will for sure come around and accept everything once they see that you’re happy. Otherwise, they care about more themselves than me.

The earth is surrounded by 99.999% of eternal emptiness.

You life is only a blink of the entire time frame.

mammoth’s efforts are counterproductive

• AV is interesting because it’s unique, complex. Mammoth are boring, only do what they are supposed to do.
• AV lead, they draw their thoughts and opinions from an original place. Mammoth follow, they try so hard to be the status quo. They don’t want to change.
• AV is more attractive, because they have the strength of character to tame their mammoth.

start being yourself

That takes more than reflection— it takes some courage.

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Misleading thinking: Criticizing each other only creates hate

As human nature, it’s easier to be dissatisfied and criticize, it’s harder to build and appreciate, which requires more efforts.

I am very thankful to Bill and Pam for inviting me to the watch party and preparing nice light refreshments(celery, carrot,grape, thin crackers, green tea).

From my perspective, the documentary film “Hillary’s America: The secret History of the democratic party” is highly biased. It tells the audience that Democratic is trying everything to weaken US, such as Indian removal, slavery, segregation. And GOP is always fighting against these wrongs. He twisted the truth so much that I have to come out my version.

1st party system: 1792-1824

aristocrat vs democrat

Federalist Party, created by Alexander Hamilton, appeals to business community

Democratic-Republican Party, by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, appeal to the southern planters and farmers.

Starting from 1806, DR party had dominated both House and Senate with >80% seats.

In election of 1824, there’s only 1 party: Republican-democratic, but 4 candidates, none of them received over 50% electoral votes. Then decision comes to the hands of house of representatives. Top 3 entered the finalist with Jackson ranking No. 1. However, the final votes by representative choose Adam who was originally No.2. Adam won 13 out of 24 votes. (there were only 24 states at that time, TX belonged to Mexico).

2nd party system

Jackson began his revenge, formed a new party and won the election in 1828. He used spoils system to benefit his men.

• spoils system, or patronage system: when a political party wins an election, the government jobs are given to its supporters, friends and relatives as a reward and an incentive to keeping working for the party.

The modern Republican Party) was formed in 1854 to oppose the expansion of slavery.

In political science, there are 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th party systems, which are used to indicated that these two parties evolved or changed their respective ideology or campaign strategy over time.

donation limitation

Candidate Committee: 2700 for primary electron, another 2700 for general election, as you can see in Hillary campaign.

PAC: $5000, PAC usually represents business, labor or ideological interests

Super PAC: unlimited. But Super PAC makes no contribution to candidates or parties. They run independently.

D’Souza lied about what is his felony

He used a “straw donor” trick, which donated money under other’s name and that person get reimbursed.

“Mr. D’Souza agreed to accept responsibility for having urged two close associates to make contributions of $10,000 each to the unsuccessful 2012 senate campaign of Wendy Long and then reimbursing them for their contributions. Given the technical nature of the charge, there was no viable defense,” D’Souza Attorneys Benjamin Brafman and Alex Spiro said in a statement.

D’Souza argued for the charges to be dismissed on grounds of selective prosecution. Last week, a judge denied that motion, citing “no evidence” to support it.

“Following the court’s ruling denying Dinesh D’Souza’s baseless claim of selective prosecution, D’Souza now has admitted, through his guilty plea, what we have asserted all along – that he knowingly and intentionally violated federal election laws,” Bharara said in a statement.

my point of view

D’Souza’s supporters claimed that he was the victim of double standard/ selected prosecution. I think D’Sourza was so shameless:

1. Others doing the same crime without being prosecuted, doesn’t make you innocent. You are just trying to shift the point, the fact that you committed a felony.
2. If you know others doing the same crimes, why don’t you make a movie expose that? Why don’t you spend effort to improve the social justice, make the whole election system more transparent? The answer is very simple : no one is going to buy the ticket. You know it’s not a good business. You’re good at selling hate.

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