TED Community » Andrew Millington

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• A comment on Conversation: Do you believe the human brain will continue to increase its capabilities?

  Mar 7 2013: Well my answer depends on if you mean within the current framework of the brain or outside it via natural or artificial evolution.
  
  If the question is inside the current framework, I don't think so because that locks our brains down into basically their current capacity. While we may develop a higher ability with a particular skill or something similar, the way the average brain develops precludes anything fundamentally new I think. With that said, if something freaky happened while a brain was being formed, it might actually do something useful instead of causing death or migraines, seizures, etc. But that's one case and is also in a sense outside the current framework.
  
  If we're taking artificial or natural evolution into account, I think that the brain could emulate anything that can be represented purely with circuits or programming. Bio-control could be done too. Other technology like radios could be emulated if organs formed to make up the hardware parts.
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  A comment on Conversation: Attitudes; share some worthy ideas of how we can change them?

  Mar 4 2013: As you pointed out, it's garbage in garbage out at some point. I find that changing the things you pay attention to has a lot to do with your attitude. That's why I don't listen to some music I used to listen to, read some webcomics I used to read, play some computer games I used to play, etc. Your whole environment effects you... other people especially.
  
  What you could directly is have a particular quality you want to change in mind and then start writing down ways that you can act out that quality in your everyday life. Take gratitude for instance. Saying thank you is a great way to do it on the surface, but even more can you show gratitude for someone who does things to make your life easier at work by doing things to make their life easier at work? Gratitude in particular can have an almost universally transforming effect.
  
  I think a certain level of unconditional acceptance is the best way to help other people to open up, but it is ultimately their own choice. Of course to really be able to listen and offer unconditional acceptance you have to have a certain degree of mental health in the positive psych sense also.

• A reply on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 4 2013: I think the most sustainable economic system would be a capitalistic system based on a gross nation well-being metric and a national/global environmental well-being metric.
  
  The amount of money that's moving around has little to do with happiness, health, and well-being once basic needs such as shelter, health care, food, etc. are paid for.
  
  Take a read:
  https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36238416/Beyond%20Money.pdf
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  A reply on Conversation: Should employers not hire you or fire you when they discover your bad credit history?

  Mar 4 2013: Well hopefully someone will do some research to help us figure out if there even a basis for this kind of thing then.

• A reply on Conversation: Should employers not hire you or fire you when they discover your bad credit history?

  Mar 4 2013: Well last resume like thing that I made I actually left out all specific details of my past work experience and made up a CV type thing instead because I felt my previous resume material was pretty irrelevant. As for the article I bumped into that comment from, I don't know if "lying" included leaving out irrelevant information. Obviously I put my own interpretation on what they meant since I quoted it here.
  
  But yeah... I tend to think more along the lines of embellishing or putting down experience/schooling that did not happen at all.
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  A reply on Conversation: Should employers not hire you or fire you when they discover your bad credit history?

  Mar 3 2013: Even further, a credit check can only show that you were irresponsible with money in the past. It's really sad that companies are okay passing over potentially good employees because of credit issues.
  
  Something in favor of companies doing this: Apparently almost a third of people are lying about schooling, employment, and other things on their resumes.
  
  Something against companies doing this: Between Google Scholar and the two big psych/social science databases I have access to, I couldn't find any academic articles providing any kind of evidence that credit score matters correlates with bad employee behavior of any kind.
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  A reply on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 3 2013: The fact that people corrupted what grew out of the pure seed does not mean that the seed is not pure.
  
  Capitalism in America is pretty messed up, it is systemically messed up all over the world even, but once you start to understand capitalism as it was intended before people started screwing with it for their own benefit you will see that in of itself it is a good idea.
  
  Every good idea has been corrupted or misunderstood at some point or another. It's just part of the standard of living in this world. You have to get good at seeing what is pure and hanging onto those individual parts of systems and ideas. Most people don't learn that though I think because most people don't ever grow up and start questioning their assumptions and using honest logic. It is way to easy to use blinders to see the world.
  
  Edit:
  All across human understanding you run into two ideas: something that is posited, which either means assumed to exist or describes something the way it should be, and normative, which is how it actually is. So basically what is going on is I am talking about positive capitalism and you are talking about normative capitalism. It's an important distinction to draw I think.
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  A reply on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 3 2013: I am not much for measuring specific numbers either despite what I said, but I do believe in being generous in accordance with how much money you have. This is the moral principle that I was getting at.
  
  I think there is a distinct difference between pointing out what should be done and going up to someone and saying "Hey you, you're not doing it right".
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  A comment on Conversation: "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"

  Mar 2 2013: I think our difficulties stem from people not seeing the world for what it is and for other people as who they are. It's a lack of relationship at it's essence. Lack of willingness to be open.
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  A comment on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 2 2013: The issue is not capitalism, the issue is that the rich and powerful tilt the system in their favor. Proper capitalism requires that no single person or company has enough wealth to manipulate the system - i.e. bribe officials, buy out the competition, fix prices, pay the $100,000 because they're making $1,000,000 breaking the law, etc. Not that the level of wealth has to be perfectly equal, but there has to be a relatively equal level and there has to be constant movement of money I think. There also is some incentive in wanting money, and there's nothing wrong with that - as long as you remember to be more generous as you gather more wealth. As much as I appreciate people who give away millions of dollars, if that's still only 1% of your income or if you have enough money to keep you wealthy for 5 lifetimes, that's not being generous enough.
  
  I expect there will always be people who are "rich" and people who are "poor" but I think what Bono is mainly saying is that people don't have to be destitute anymore, and he is right I think. There's also more involved than just flat out economics I think.