Aiding inner ruthlessness

Results from a recent experiment that studied body language of students from various socio-economic strata interacting with one another. The students did not know each other before the experiment.

Students from a higher socio- economic background were more likely to be rude during the silence. They would doodle, fidget or start grooming themselves. Less-privileged students made far more effort to engage with the other person, making “I’m interested” signals such as laughing or raising eyebrows. In short, the richer people were a lot ruder, while the poor were a lot more polite. The richer you are, the less reliant you are on other people. It doesn’t matter much what others think of you, since you are unlikely to be asking them for a favor any time soon. And yet while the rich may be rude because they are wealthy, it is just as likely to be the other way around. Just as plausibly, they are wealthy because they are rude. Carnegie and other self-help writers have missed the point the last few decades. Getting ahead in life isn’t about making people like you. It is about getting them to serve your interests and success depends, more than anything, on an inner ruthlessness.

Read full paper here:

Black / White or Shades of Grey

Yesterday Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama answered identical questions at the Saddleback Church under an interview format conducted by the church's pastor Rick Warren.

McCain's answers seemed scripted, pandering, straight off the cuff and tended to see issues in black and white. Life begins at conception; marriage is between a man and woman with little leeway for civil unions, the definition of a rich person as one who make more than 5 million a year and making weepy anecdotes combining Christianity and military service at the drop of a hat. Of course, he also drummed in his newfound mantra of drill, drill, drill for oil...

Obama on the other hand seemed analytical, taking time to think through the answers and seemed to not see radical issues in such black and white terms. Abortion was a right that women must enjoy as long as it is not late term and must be legalized, marriage was between a man and a woman but right under civil unions will be respected as much under his presidency, a rich person was one who makes more than 250,000 dollars a year and very little anecdotes pandering to the mostly evangelical white crowd. It is also interesting that he first two people Obama spoke of as important advisers were women.

Even if core issues such as the ones asked yesterday will never have pat answers, it is clear that people are blindly looking for the black and white. Very few seem ready for a deeper analysis that goes to the heart of such issues. People seem to be naturally gravitating towards the pandering, anecdotal, binary beanbag.