Sexual Politics, Slot Machines, Poor Man’s Son
Links and recommendations
My latest for City Journal:
Why women and men are diverging ideologically
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Links and recommendations:
Philosophical Malpractice by Daniel Kodsi and John Maier
The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition by
The startling rise of disability in America by Chana Joffe-Walt
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Three interesting findings:
1. Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong all shared at least one thing in common: they hated their fathers. Remarkably, all 3 seemed to have loved their mothers, and Hitler and Mao saw themselves in alliance with their mother against their father. (source: Father Nature The Science of Paternal Potential by James K. Rilling). When I shared this finding on Twitter, the psychoanalyst Jonathan Shedler posted a reminder that there’s a term for this.
2. In his 1759 book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith tells the parable of the poor man’s son who dreams of wealth and status, believing they will bring lasting happiness. He works tirelessly, enduring stress and hardship to attain success. Yet once he achieves it, he finds it brings far less joy or peace than he anticipated, and he is no happier than before. Smith notes an interesting paradox: although the poor man’s son doesn’t feel much better, society as a whole benefits from the illusion that ambition and tireless work will lead to lasting happiness, in the form of economic progress, improved living standards, increased access to information, and so on.
3. People who have a grateful disposition (inclined to feel gratitude in their lives) tend to be (source):
•High in Openness
•High in Conscientiousness
•High in Extraversion
•High in Agreeableness
•Low in Neuroticism
For that first finding, Alexander the Great was the exact same.
It seems to be a common occurrence of powerful men who make their mark on human history, whether evil or good. All seem to be mother’s boys and have a toxic relationship with their father or sometimes their father is not even in the picture (Marcus Aurelius being an example of the latter).
It’s weirdly ironic since it’s academically accepted and known that the absence of a good father/father figure in the home is very detrimental to boys but it seems like for a minority of boys, it fuels them with a rage/ambition to achieve greater heights.
I'm skeptical of the slot machines article. I know the author is quoting another work, but it seems uncritical of the claims being made. I have, in the past, heard many people say "the casinos are mazes! They are designed this way! They are hacking your BRAIN!" and then...the casinos move away from the maze design.
I suspect a lot of motivated cognition here. If you conclude slot machines are bad, or you observe gambling addiction, you might assume every single thing is being done to get that result. You back-fill the reasoning needed to support your conclusion.
The reality may be far less nefarious: casinos want their customers to have fun and be comfortable and many of the things that heighten fun and comfort will be correlated with addiction. Given the replication crisis in psychology and that the original claims seem to confuse the direction of causality and given my own experience as a game designer, I feel this article greatly overstates its claims.
I'm not defending slot machines. I think they are pretty bad, but I don't think every action of a casino is designed to manipulate the customer. I think they are designed to entertain the customer and that for some people, entertainments become vices.
FWIW, I make video games and I live in Las Vegas, so I may have some motivated cognition of my own leading me to be more light handed here than I should be.