Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Freakonomics, Meritocracy, and Political Myths

 


#2  July 25:  From Johann Hari in Freakonomics, author of Stolen Focus:  Americans only focus on a task for 3 minutes at a time! And if interrupted from sustained focus, it takes you 23 minutes to regain focus. 7/24

#3 July 26:  Meritocracy says work hard to achieve what you want…Not always true:  The slaves worked harder than anyone, and they got nothing.  Look for structural flaws before judging.  Yet Michelle Obama just posted a “you can do anything, pull youself up by your bootstrap type of speech.”  These don’t seem to go together. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EROCMGgfIuw 7/24

#4  July 27:  Stereotypes define our political parties, but do not make up the bulk of their constituents.  For instance, in some “myth busting research” according to Pew Research, Democrats aren’t young and Republicans aren’t old. This is because young voters while generally trending Democrat aren’t a large percentage of the electorate.  Therefore both Democrats and Republicans are both old!!  Also Republicans aren’t mainly rural and Democrats urban.  Statistically they both live mostly in the suburbs.  Republicans aren’t more religious than Democrats.  Most Democrats identify as Christian.  While Agnostics and Atheists usually trend toward the Democratic Party, they are a small part of their constituency. 7/24



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