We evolved with this uncanny ability to find patterns. The difficulty lies in separating what really exists from what is only in our minds.
Source: Gamblers, Scientists and the Mysterious Hot Hand – The New York Times
Beautiful article! If you have been following my blog at all, you must read this. And then perhaps follow up with a refresher from one of my early posts on stereotypes!
The most famous scene in the series is the Kodak pitch for their Carousel slide projector.
via How Mad Men left its mark on the advertising industry – The Globe and Mail.
“It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.” I would rank this as one of the all-time great lines said on screen. And somehow, at least in retrospect, it seems that only Jon Hamm could have done justice to it.
There is so much talk today about “data driven” decisions that sometimes people lose sight of the simple fact that humans make decisions largely based on emotion. For the better or for the worse, this is part of our humanity, differentiating us from (intelligent) machines.
Appealing to the customer’s better emotions, by techniques of Rhetoric, is an art that may be getting lost. Of course Rhetoric is often used (especially by politicians) to rouse our base and vile instincts. But just like big-data, Rhetoric is simply a tool, it can be put to good use or bad use. Our internal moral compass should guide how we use it.
If you want to hear more on the theme of Rhetoric and “What is Quality? ” do read the 1974 classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Pirsig.
Why we believe conspiracy theories – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.
Fareed Zakaria has this pithy piece on why people subscribe to conspiracies, and he refers several times to to Sunstein’s book.
The most important point he makes is that people want to believe that events are driven by human intent. We see patterns where none exist. We find it hard to believe that extreme events can happen just by chance. We find is difficult to digest that the reach and power of human intervention is ephemeral at best.
You may recall an essay I blogged some time back on “stereotypes”. The underlying mechanism for believing in conspiracies and stereotypes is much the same – a bit of intellectual laziness, a bit of anthropocentric bias and a bit of a romantic expectation on how the real world “should” behave rather than accepting how it actually works.
Anand's musings 