Month: April 2012

The Billion Dollar Mind Trick | TechCrunch

When a product is able to become tightly coupled with a thought, an emotion, or a pre-existing habit, it creates an “internal trigger.” Unlike external triggers, which are sensory stimuli, like a phone ringing or an ad online telling us to “click here now!,” you can’t see, touch, or hear an internal trigger. Internal triggers manifest automatically in the mind and creating them is the brass ring of consumer technology.

Source: The Billion Dollar Mind Trick | TechCrunch

 

Is “free will” doomed to manipulation by modern psychology powered by big data?

America’s endless apocalypse – Salon.com

Over the last decade, we’ve become obsessed with the end of the world — and it’s hurting us all

When we free ourselves from the hypnotic spell of apocalypse, when we let go of our desire to see how things will turn out, we are free to answer a more important question. Not, are my beliefs correct ? But, how do I live in accord with my values right now ? Our insistence that a new world is coming later is a delusion; it is already here.

Source: America’s endless apocalypse – Salon.com

RE: “The Last Myth” by Mathew Barrett Gross, Mel Gilles

Abundance Authors Diamandis and Kotler Answer Your Questions – Freakonomics Freakonomics

Image of the cover of the book titled Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.

 

We recently solicited your questions for Peter Diamandis, founder and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, and journalist Steven Kotler. They are co-authors of the new book Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. Below are their answers about the need for jobs (it’s not what you may suspect), the distribution of wealth, and the technological breakthrough that led the price of aluminum to plummet.

Our problem is not that we don’t have enough stuff—it’s that we don’t have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.

Source: Abundance Authors Diamandis and Kotler Answer Your Questions – Freakonomics Freakonomics