Bob The Badger

@Archied - I can share books in here and maybe others are interested.

I'll stick to easy to read stuff, not because I don't think you're capable of reading more academic stuff, but quite honestly a lot of it bores me senseless.

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis - A brilliant introduction to the work of Tversky and Kahnaman from the guy who wrote Moneyball.

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely - A cool intro into behavioural economics and why humans do irrational poo. Ariely is a Professor at Duke so a lot of the research he's done himself.

Influence by Robert Cialdini - Probably the seminal book on how and why we are influenced by others and outside factors. This book has been raped and pillaged by marketers, but it has real value for anybody wanting to understand human behaviour.

It has just been republished with a lot of new cutting edge research. I read the old one a couple of times and I'm working my way through the new one that is almost twice as long.

Like Ariely, Cialdini is a professor and much of the research is his own.

Situations Matter by Sam Sommers -Another book written by an academic but for laypeople and really entertaining. He breaks down the whole James Bulger murder when upwards of 50 people (I think, could have been in the 30s actually, but a lot) saw Thompson and Venables with James but nobody properly intervened. 

It seems none of us would, it was typical human behaviour and people who say otherwise are just victims of hindsight bias.

Anything by Malcolm Gladwell other than his short stories book which I forget the name of. I loved Blink which is a deep dive into rapid cognition and have read it maybe 5 times. But his last book Talking with Strangers was really good too and shows how we and why we jump to erroneous conclusions.

Gladwell pretty much turns every topic on its head and says it's not like we think it is and he's usually right. His revisionist history podcast is great too.

Freakonomics - Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner - A really fun read. Like seems to be a thing in this thread, they look at common misconceptions and explain why all is not what it appears on the surface. I read this 16 or 17 years ago so cannot remember many details, but the fact that it went to America with me in 2006 and came back again last year means I must have loved it.

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - One of my favourite books of all time and a must for anybody serious about understanding how we come to decisions and how/why we often get them wrong.

I have a couple of hundred books in my Audible.com account, but you cannot merge .co.uk and .com so when I moved back I had to set up a new account and now I cannot get to my older ones to scroll through.

Well, I suppose I could if I could be arsed, but I've lost my password and it would mean logging out of Audible.co.uk and then resetting my old password.

But I'm sure that should keep you going for the weekend.

1 hour ago, Archied said:

Just to clear things up , you are saying everyone wearing face coverings from chin to below eyes has no detrimental effect on how we communicate and view each other,  both physically and psychologically?

No I'm not saying it has no effect, just that the effect is not that great unless you rely on lip reading.

We may be forced to enunciate more slowly because of the physical barrier the mask creates, but that's about it.

When we read people. as we all do, we give more importance to all the things I mentioned previously before we do the mouth.

This isn't me offering an opinion btw, this is just how we interact as human beings.

Have you ever heard anybody say anything like 'I could tell be the shape of his mouth he was going to do that?'

What you hear is 'I could see it in his eyes' or "I could tell by his posture' or 'it was in the tone of his voice' etc.

Good security people aren't looking at people's mouth to gauge threat, they are studying their body language.

Another great book for your rapidly growing collection is The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. He's one of the worlds leading security experts and he talks a lot about this. A really fascinating read too.
 

59 minutes ago, Archied said:

Very strange really but when I was a kid you couldn’t drag me near a book , around the age of about 25 I suddenly became an avid reader , I will read 5 or 6 books on a holiday, can’t really get on with fiction , love history, when I trained and worked as an addictions counsellor I got very much into how our minds work across the spectrum, 

I actually phrased the haughty book bit wrongly in my post ( I’m sure you know how it’s meant to come across)

just because I was / am far better read in an area does not trump others real life experience but hey ho maybe we view things differently ??‍♂️

History was my favourite subject at school, but other than the English Civil War I'm ignorant on huge swathes of it these days.

Rather embarrassingly, II couldn't even tell you much about WWI and WWII other than we won.

So I'll not be debating that.

The big issue with our own experiences is that they can, and frequently do, give us a false perception of reality.

By giving our own experience more weight and credence (especially over things like science - not saying you with that, just generalising) we start to build a skewed view of what reality is.

We think our reality is the reality.

I love the Dalai Lama quote when on being asked by a journalist what would Buddhism do if science proved it to be wrong (the two are actually incredibly closely aligned, but I'm sure you know that) he replied 'Buddhism would need to change'.

I get that you're anti-mask and you think they pose a danger to kids development even if I don't know what you mean by that, or how it will manifest.

I don't think you're right, but I can't be sure as there have been no studies done (according to the scientist in the 5 Live debate I mentioned on Monday) so you're entitled to that opinion.

But it drifts from having an opinion to being demonstrably wrong when you suggest that as individuals we cannot communicate highly effectively without seeing the other persons mouth, nose and jaw.

In actual fact, the mouth is very easy to contrive. It's easy faking a smile with your mouth, the tricky bit is making sure the eyes get the message because people are intuitively very good at cueing in on people's eyes, or rather the muscles around them, and realising when somebody may be insincere.

We can communicate effectively without sight and sound - we're doing it now and depending on what research you want to believe that equates to less than 20% of how we communicate when in person. Some think closer to 7 or 8%

I'm not at all sure I favour making kids wear masks in school. In fact, I probably lean away from that, but in all honesty I'm not sure why I think that. I don't have a solid reason, just a sense that it's not a good thing.

Just like I have a sense that kids seeing adults wearing masks isn't a bad thing. I'm sure if somebody had a bad experience in the past it could be a trigger, but you could say that about everything from clowns to dogs. 

Maybe it was unnerving for some for a week or two, but as a species we're phenomenal at adapting, it's literally what we do best. So kids will adapt if they haven't already.

Interestingly @Archied if we'd never had any interaction and we met in a pub with @TexasRam, I'm pretty we'd have a lot more in common politically speaking than you and he would, or me and him for that matter.

Same goes for you and @G STAR RAM

Just a hunch of course, I'm still waiting to get to my copy of G Star Ram - An Autobiography. 

47 minutes ago, Archied said:

And there we go with the insults ,why is that the always go to of some , it’s just ignorance ,the opposite of education 

the face is whole ,,whole face , the elements work together as a whole , you started who’s real life experience my dads bigger than yours stuff , telling me I was so out of my depth that I needed flippers and a snorkel, because you’ve read a book?,

real life plus education is great until you get those arrogant foolish people who lose touch with real life because they consider themselves superior 

really sad to see education wasted ??‍♂️

The majority of the population don't read books on a regular basis.

And when it comes to non-fiction you're probably into single digits percentage-wise.

The fact that you dismissed a book you've never read as being haughty and said that you preferred real world experience suggests you're probably one of the majority.

I don't consider myself superior to anybody Archie. I'm a bleeding heart liberal.

I do consider that I'm better informed than some people in some areas though.

Just like I'm more poorly informed than many people in many areas.

The areas I'm poorly informed in outnumber the ones I know what I'm talking about by a factor of several hundred I would imagine.

I *think* you're a builder or roofer or something like that. Well, you're communicating now with the most incompetent DIY person you have probably ever known. 

I'd not debate you on anything to do with manual stuff like that because you'd probably wipe the floor with me. Which is why when you were talking about insulate Britain being ridiculous because it wasn't the issue that they were making out to be,  I didn't comment because I suspect you know a lot more about that than I do.

In circumstances like that real world experience probably does trump book learning. 

But, when you make statements that I know to be objectively false and you clearly don't understand the topic at hand when it is something I have studied and even had training in, then yeh,  I will say something and probably get sarcastic when you double down. 

I'm sorry I made you sad though.

12 minutes ago, Archied said:

Well you really don’t know or are ignoring the impact masks have had on children , masks do not just cover the mouth as you try to portray  it , we are mandated FACE COVERINGS and these face coverings / masks cover everything from under the chin to just under the eyes so actually yes it does impact hugely 

The chin and the nose are definitely two of the most expressive parts of the human body.

If you were any more out of your depth on this topic you'd need a snorkel as well as flippers and a mask.

59 minutes ago, Archied said:

As humans it has been fundamental that we communicate through facial expressions, the seatbelt analogy is extremely off base in fact nothing like each other, 

ive never seen a child be afraid of anybody wearing a seat belt , the mask instils the idea other human s are a danger to us / them

Well I for one am sick of seeing kids running around screaming in terror because people are wearing masks.

Be careful because now you're stepping into my area of expertise when it comes to body language and communication and you clearly know nothing about it.

Voice tonality, inflection, cadence, tone etc are super important with communication, !,000 x more important than seeing the other persons mouth, which is almost academic presuming you're not deaf.

Body position, angle of head, use of hands and general stance are also infinitely more important in how we judge a situation as to whether it poses a threat or not. Although I realise you never mentioned danger.

And we have something called eyes, that are much more important than the mouth is, although in genuine people they work together. 

Not being able to see a persons mouth does not necessarily impact on the ability to communicate in any meaningful sense, unless somebody actually wants it to.

Go and check out the work of Paul Ekman, especially his book, Emotions Revealed, although there are aspects that are somewhat in doubt now, especially certain expressions not crossing cultures.

Amy Cuddy has done some good stuff including an interesting Ted Talk too. 

I take it all back.

5 Live just interviewed a virologist from the University of Brighton.

She said they're pretty sure that omicron is more contagious than Delta, but they're not sure at this stage if it's more or less dangerous.

It could be that it's more contagious but less severe which would be a good thing because it would drive Delta out and leave us with something that we're more likely to catch but less likely to be hospitalised with.

Sweet.

She also said that to rid the world of Covid would require 85% of the population being vaccinated (and that includes 85% of kids) AS WELL as masks, social distancing etc.

She said 'we're not going to vaccinate ourselves out of this.'

She's clearly not aware of the BBC conspiracy going on.

44 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

I’m pretty sure I won’t get killed or badly injured not wearing a mask as I’m fully vaccinated. 
The seat belt analogy is so poor, if you wear a seat belt do you also wear a crash helmet? I’m guessing not 

No, but you have brakes on the car and many now have air bags and other safety devices.

Plus there are speed limits, speed bumps and cats eyes and lighting and barriers in the centre of some roads and bad bends etc.

So the seat belt is just one measure in a raft of measures designed to keep people safe.

Ya know, a bit like masks in my poor analogy. 

And there was a time when you didn't have to wear a seat belt that then turned into a time when you were told it was mandatory a bit like with masks in my poor analogy.

I can definitely see why you think it was a poor analogy and I think I may be coming around to way of thinking.

Although I'm not sure thinking is the right word. 

Even though I'd been driving a year for a couple of years I cannot remember the introduction of compulsory seat belt wearing.

Were people kicking off about that and their civil liberties?

I think the comparisons are very strong.

You can still get killed or badly injured when wearing one.

And they're not especially difficult to wear, or particularly intrusive.

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

On the radio this morning.

Symptoms very mild but more contagious than the Delta variant.

 

Which channel? I've had Radio 5 on for probably 3 hours today and they've not said that.

1 minute ago, G STAR RAM said:

If its as contagious as we are being told its already too late.

Who's telling you this?

I literally haven't heard one person say they know yet. Nor have I read it anywhere.

Maybe there are people out there making such claims, but I've not seen them in fact, just the opposite.

All I'm hearing is 'we don't know'.

3 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

The most concerning part for me is that he doesn't know the difference between the words 'shear' and 'sheer'

????

I'm always making stupid mistakes like that. Of when I meant off, they're when I meant their or there and here when I meant hear. I'd expect an editor to have picked that up, but I cannot say it worries me. You can barely read the Guardian for 20 minutes without seeing a typo.

No Time to Die 

I'm a HUGE Bond fan and have seen all of them at least 3 times, some a lot more.

This was Craig's worst by some way.

It's the first I can ever remember watching first at home since Connery was Bond, so that may have had something to do with it, but I was bored at times.

SPOILER

COMING

WTf!

You don't kill Bond!

Everybody knows that Bond isn't one person so why do you kill him with a silly melodramatic ending?

My wife was in tears.

If she is blubbing you clearly went too far.

Steve Powell for the first half of his career/10 (Steve Powell for the second half of his career/10 if it wasn't the fact that it was Bond)
 

Very interesting read about Omicron written by a virologist.

58 minutes ago, Archied said:

Somebody claims delta omicron is an anagram of media control

I spotted it first!

I spotted Archie being funny.

Get in there my son!

46 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

omicron is an anaram of moronic.

<gasp>

Did you just work that out?

I'd not heard that before.

You should tell the internet.

I wonder if when we get to phi people will be saying it's an anagram of hip and that the BBC are really suggesting it's cool to contract it and that is the only reason phi was used and it has nothing to do with Greece or the Greek alphabet.

It could happen.

Anything could happen.

Brilliant.

Unless you think it's poo, then according to my rules of comedy, it then ceases to be funny.

A bit like Schrodinger's cat which was either funny or not funny depending on which box it was in.

Or whether it was funny or not too.

8 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

Your talking rubbish there @Bob The Badger. What about Archie's "follow the money" catchphrase? It's like the Fast Show on here ?‍♂️

Archie....in a forum.....at this time of day....with his reputation.

What were they thinking?

2 minutes ago, Archied said:

What even the subtle stuff

No.

13 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

I don’t think you are in a minority on that one ?

I've never seen it and from what I hear I doubt I'd like it, but doesn't it get millions of viewers and won best comedy of all time or something similar?

Humour is 100% subjective. If one person finds something funny, then it's funny even if we disagree.

19 minutes ago, Archied said:

Oh come on , Wernt you the one who admonished me for putting laughing imogi s in my posts a while back , very happy to have a laugh at pretty much anything as long as it’s not too over the top cruel and insensitive and that includes laughing at myself and having the mickey taken , to be fair I’ve poked you a few times too and you’ve not seen the funny side,

rest assured I believe if you can’t have a laugh in life you are buggered 

Hmm , I don't remember you posting funny stuff on this board or mocking yourself, but maybe I missed it because I can disappear for days at a time. Or perhaps it was just too subtle for me.

I shall be sure to look out for it from now on though.

As for laughing emojis. Well, they tend to get used online by people who probably aren't laughing, but are feeling outraged and their highest form of outrage is to be seen to be laughing at the perpetrators of their outrage....probably

Or people who aren't funny but want others to think they are and haven't got any canned laughter on hand.

Not that I like to speculate you understand , ?‍♂️

10 hours ago, Archied said:

I have never singled out the bbc as well you know , I’ve found the mainstream media pretty much the same , the censorship That I have had a problem with from DAY 1 has been people being de platformed all across the board ,

really sad effort yet again at accusing people of saying stuff they are not , show me posts where I am strongly anti bbc .

will save you the trouble , don’t bother you can’t ,it’s not there 

I won’t hold my breath waiting for you to be big enough to say actually you were wrong ??‍♂️

We were at that time talking about the BBC.

You could easily have said you were generalising, but you didn't.

You do realise that half the posts I make I'm having a laugh, right?

You seem to have zero ability to laugh at yourself or see the funny side in a lot of what is going on around us.

I have no problem with either.