surviving and even thriving..........

 

It's true that we can never be in total control of our fate.  Just because we're having some good luck doesn't mean we earned it, and just because we're having some bad luck doesn't mean we deserve it.  We can't outrun the chaos of life.  But the more we nurture positive relationships, the better our chances of surviving and even thriving on this bumpy ride.

-Waldinger and Schulz, The Good Life:  Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

The new predators.................

 

The mental shortcuts we use daily are what academics politely call "cognitive biases."  They exist because your ancestors who made fast decisions survived, and those who paused for careful deliberation were eaten.

Those shortcuts saved your species, but they will be the death of your autonomy.

In the world your brain was built for, these rapid-fire judgments worked beautifully.  You no longer live in that world.  The new predators are a new class I call Malware Engineers.  They are the marketers, political strategists, user-experience designers, and the social engineers who study the schematics of your mind with obsessive focus.

To defend yourself, and to become a conscious operator of these shortcuts, you must first learn the schematics of your own vulnerabilities.

-Stan Taylor

interesting times...................