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Friday, March 04, 2016

Are Choosers Losers ...

Why, above other pugilists, does Muhammad Ali remain the focus of so much literary attention? His moral ambiguity makes him an ideal muse Boxing .... 

This is one of the more understudied behavioral biases, so I was pleased to see this new paper by Bobadilla-Suarez, Sunstein,and Sharot:
Human beings are often faced with a pervasive problem: whether to make their own decisions or to delegate decision tasks to someone else. Here, we test whether people are inclined to forgo monetary rewards in order to retain agency when faced with choices that could lead to losses and gains. In a simple choice task, we show that even though participants have all the information needed to maximize rewards and minimize losses, they choose to pay in order to control their own payoff. This tendency cannot be explained by participants’ overconfidence in their own ability, as their perceived ability was elicited and accounted for. Rather, the results reflect an intrinsic value for choice, which emerges in the domain of both gains and losses. Moreover, our data indicates that participants are aware that they are making suboptimal choices in the normative sense, but do so anyway, presumably for psychological gains.
I believe this is one reason why individuals can be so tribal, because otherwise they fear losing control to outsiders.
- Via  marginalrevolution

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner is putting your boss to shame. The head of the professional networking site decided to forgo an annual equity package tantamount to a yearly bonus and instead distribute the $A19 million to other employees.

The city of NY daily count of homeless people — which does not include some adolescents, some domestic violence victims and those in shelters overseen by unrecorded agencies — is currently 58,247.

Melbourne Australia Riches to Rag a family made homeless

Australia Finds Something Else to Export to China Wall Street Journal 

From smells to sounds: In old Japan, it is said, the courts of Edo (now Tokyo) were presented with the complaint of a shopkeeper whose upstairs neighbor had enjoyed the delicious smell of his cooking without, as the plaintiff said would be fair, paying a price for it. To find out how the samurai judge cleverly resolved the complaint, read on…. [Dan Lewis, Now I Know]

Over at BuzzfeedRachel Kaadzi Ghansah travels to James Baldwin’s home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, and explores his life as an expat. She writes, “Baldwin left the States for the primary reason that all emigrants do — because anywhere seems better than home.” Pair with Justin Campbell Millions essayon Baldwin and fatherhood.
cute squirrel
Rebuilding trust in government came a little easier once the UK government's communications officials re-evaluated if anyone was listening and stopped sending contradictory messages It’s OK to talk to bloggers’ and other things Whitehall eventually got right

I don’t know if there is a statute of limitations on confessing one’s sins, but it has been six years since I did the deed and I’m now coming clean.
Against academic pomposity. Peter Dreier, a left-wing academic, is fed up with the abstract theorizing and impenetrable prose of left-wing academics... Confessions: "On the Absence of Absences” 

This video shows what Ancient Rome actually looked like Vox

Forensic Backdoor Ex Post Facto Burden Zdziarski’s Blog of Things. Guurst: “What about Congress, how could they let FBI?NSA/…make the law? I mean, where is the oversight? What is driving the USA? Scarier and scarier.”


 A startling one in two working Australians is living from payday to payday while having unrealistic expectations about their living needs in retirement.
*Report -
Australia today: A look at lifestyle, financial security and retirement in Australia



Deloitte’s workplace pulse survey was conducted to understand how employees view work-life balance and well-being at their organization.Work-life balance and well-being


A summary of the ARC Linkage Research Project: Understanding and addressing workforce vulnerabilities in midlife and beyond 2012-2015 ‘Too old to work, too young to retire’ 

World’s super rich keep buying up luxury goods in face of wealth decline Guardian 

These are the 13 jobs in London where a robot is most likely to steal your job Business Insider

The neo-colonial booming industry of private mercenaries failed evolution 

Damage report reveals LA methane leak is one of the worst disasters in US history Inhabitat   

Nic Cavell, a former reporting fellow for WIRED, has been fired from the magazine after editors were alerted to a pattern of plagiarism in four of his stories. The plagiarism came to light last week, after WIRED articles editor Adam Rogers received a direct message on Twitter from freelance journalist Christina Larson, according to the correction sleuthing website Retraction Watch 

The story of the Brontë sisters is that of women with time. Isolated by geography, a needy father, and a drug-addled brother, they wrote constantly My four Sisters

David Cay Johnston (The National Memo), 9 Key Points About Trump’s Income Taxes (And Many More Questions)


jay and berries links
Liberal democracy has triumphed over Soviet-style communism, authoritarian capitalism, and fascism. But another threat looms: Martin Heidegger... Velvet Governments
Archibishop of St Louis says Girl Scout Cookies encourage sin Boing Boing. Only in America…

On-line tutors and the cheating economy


The trillion-dollar-plus pool of assets controlled by Australia’s high-net-worth (HNW) individuals has taken a hit as the markets continue their volatile run, according to new research
Turbulent markets take their toll on wealthy Aussies
 
Trends offer the promise of new and possibly valuable information – we share stories like this to increase our social capital. Why can’t we help ourselves? What makes the promise of a new trend so compelling?
From hamsters to half-night stands, why are we so obsessed with trends?


Senators questioned the firms about why at least 20 leading multinational companies had switched from general purpose accounts to special purpose accounts, resulting in fewer financial disclosures and lower transparency Big four accounting firms avoid scrutiny in multinational tax avoidance

The reality hunger of Henry James. Misunderstood as a literary traditionalist, he wrote autobiographies that anticipated Knausgaard... Literary