Dr. Benzer: Willpower Doesn't Exist

In a passage from Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus and his ship are about to pass through the Siren-infested waters. On the one hand, he knows that hearing their song will spell his doom. On the other hand, he's dying of curiosity and is tired of hearing about their song and just wants to hear their song, dammit, and be the only mortal to live to tell.

Now Odysseus is one crafty dude, so he tells all of his sailors to plug their ears with wax so they can't be tempted by the Sirens' song. He keeps his own ears unplugged, but has his mates lash him to the mast and ignore everything he says. That way, he gets to eat his cake and have it too: he hears the Sirens, but doesn't die.

[...]

Well, the good news is that you as a human possess the gift of arranging conditions to favor the outcome you want. It's not about your being perfect or having infinite willpower. It's about recognizing that, like Odysseus, you're fallible. So in lucid moments, you structure your life to serve your own best interest.

[...]

So if you're one of those people who wants to shed excess mass, start by emptying your fridge and cupboards of sugary, fatty food and never purchasing that stuff again. So there's no butter, mayonnaise, processed cheese, sweets, candy bars, ice cream or dessert anywhere in your household. Only healthy stuff like fruit, of which you can eat as much as you want, because you'll feel too full before you have a chance to ingest excessive calories.

Let's talk about your circle of associates. Are some of them bubbly, fun, positive people who are always propping you up? Great! If you like to grow as a person, spend more time around them.

Are some of them snarky, gossipy, negative people who always have something to complain about? Chances are those friends aren't going to be the catalyst to your greatness.

So quietly excise the merchants of negative energy from your life and spend as much time with the sunshine brigade as possible. They say that your income is the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. I'm guessing your attitude and contentment probably follow a similar pattern, so keep that in mind.

What else can we Odysseus here? Ah yes, dating. Let's say you do silly things when you're drunk on a date. Possible solution: try not to order any booze the evening of your next date.

But that's not the full Odysseus: you're still relying on willpower here, and we already know that doesn't work.

The key is to make it impossible for you to have the undesired behavior. So you have the date at a cafe where alcohol is not served at all. Or go for a walk in the park instead of the sit-down dinner.

[...]

The power is within you.

Silver On GM vs. GM

GM was willing to cut its employees some very attractive deals in the 1950s through the 1980s -- provided that they took them in the form of retirement benefits rather than salary, which wouldn't hit GM's books until much later and which until 1992 weren't even required to be carried on its balance sheets all, making its financial statements (superficially) more appealing to its shareholders. That health care costs have risen so substantially in the United States have made a bad matter worse.

This issue is wrongly portrayed by both the liberal and the conservative media as one of management versus labor, when really it is a battle between General Motors past and General Motors present. In the 50s, 60s and 70s, everyone benefited: GM and its shareholders got the benefit of higher profit margins, and meanwhile, its employees benefited from GM's willingness to cut a bad deal -- for every dollar they were giving up in salary, those employees were getting a dollar and change back in retirement benefits. But now, everyone is hurting.

Howard Suber, "The Power Of Film"

In 1898, German chemists synthesized a new psychoactive substance that inflated the user’s personality, giving him a grandiosity that led him to do reckless and foolish things — to act like a hero. Thus, the scientists called their substance “heroin.”

Strauss On Anti-Capitalism Protesters

In the late 1970s a farming commune in rural China was so poor that it could not even feed its own people. They were, quite literally, starving.

Finally, one night, the farmers got together in secret and made a pact that could have meant death: They decided to divvy up the commune into private plots and let each farmer farm their own land.

Remember - China was at the end of the Cultural Revolution and was still a communist country, in both theory and fact.

Within a year, that farm became the little commune that could, and was soon just about the most productive commune in all the land. Of course, the change (and success) caught the eye of Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping and he scheduled a visit to the commune.

The farmers were terrified. Would the be shot? Sent away? What?

They were rewarded.

Deng saw the proverbial writing on the wall and blessed the privatization experiment. Within a few years, all communes in the country had been partially privatized, and before long,China took a decidedly capitalistic turn. Within a generation China became one of the world's strongest economies, drawing hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty. In fact, it is said that China's embracing of capitalism became the greatest anti-poverty program in the history of the world. All because one small commune decided that farming their own land might offer more incentives than farming a collective farm.

Sen. Bernie Sanders On The 7th Circle Of Hell

The Bible has a term for this practice. It's called usury. And in The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri's epic poem, there was a special place reserved in the Seventh Circle of Hell for sinners who charged people usurious interest rates.

Today, we don't need the hellfire and pitch forks, we don't need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law.

We need a national law because state laws no longer work. States used to protect consumers from predatory lenders, but strong state usury laws were obliterated by a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision. Justices allowed national banks to charge whatever interest rate they wanted if they moved to a state without an interest rate cap. So major credit card issuers moved to places like South Dakota and Delaware that don't have usury laws.

That is why I have introduced legislation to require any lender in this country to cap all interest rates on consumer loans at 15 percent, including credit cards. Why did I select 15 percent as the appropriate rate to deal with the usury which is going on in this country? The reason is that 15 percent is the maximum that Congress imposed on credit union loans almost 30 years ago when it amended the Federal Credit Union Act. That approach has worked! Under current law, credit unions are allowed to charge higher interest rates only if their regulator, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), determines that it is necessary to maintain the safety and soundness of these institutions. Right now, while most credit unions charge lower rates, the NCUA allows credit unions to charge an interest rate as high as 18 percent.

Unlike their counterparts at the big banks, credit unions are not lining up for hundreds of billions in bailouts. In fact, they're doing quite well. They are responding to the credit needs of the small businesses in their communities and to individuals. They have not only survived this regulation, they are functioning exactly the way they are supposed to function. In my view, the rules that have worked well for credit unions for decades can work for all financial institutions.

fermion On Bearing Arms That Matter

second amendment rights (Score:5, Interesting)

by fermion (181285) on Monday March 16, @07:19PM (#27218773) Homepage Journal

People obsess over their right to bear arms, and I do no dispute the inherent importance of killing an animal or blowing off the head of your fellow person, but how long has it been since such primitive weapons as promoted by the NRA has actually really defended a country. The Iraqis defended themselves with IED. The Israeli's depend on missiles. In both cases an understanding of explosives is important, and in the later case the people must understand rocketry. sure, in some sense the NRA is right. If there is enough cannon fodder around with simple to use guns, of the type they support, battles can be won. This is proved by the weapons smuggled into Mexico from the US and used against the Mexican legal authorities. But really, such things are toys and the people who obsess over them are just playing games. The real action is rocketry, and anyone who infringes on our right to practice rocketry is risking the security of the free state.

Let the toy soldiers wear their camouflage underwear and play with their guns. Those of us in the know see the key in chemistry, physics, and the willingness to build a gadget that will solve the problem. For better or worse.