video: city planning and suburbia

sorry for posting so many videos. i have been watching them while having dinner, don't know what else to do [don't watch TV].

why do i like this video?
it's sarcastic, the presenter makes bitter comments about common people, e.g.
the common man according to him is saying "i am normal, please respect me".
the presenter also makes what seems to me a reasonable claim about the environment problem.

don't tell me to reduce my carbon footprint

I am on the wrong side of the debate about the environment and despite a lot of effort, mostly my own, I am unable to get on the right side. Please help me if you can (I will watch the inconvenient truth movie when I am able to get a copy from the local library).

In my opinion, the only really environmentally sustainable way of life is that of some tribe from 6000 years ago (warpaint not required). But nobody wants to live like that. Every other promise from any environment group is a joke, a fantasy. We may at most postpone the problems by a few years, which is not sufficiently attractive to me.

What is wrong with my attitude?

video: real impact in bangladesh

great talk about a successful project to reduce poverty. helps understand why OLPC could have an impact.

I don't know any more about this project than what is presented in the video. sounds very impressive, presenter seems a to humble man humble man.

TED video

for the last 2-3 weeks i have been watching these videos while having dinner, link to some good of the good ones:



1. A bit of a discovery channel video: Checkout the octopus at the end.

2. by the guy created the Lost TV show. I have never watched any of the show, but I like this video, so I will try to watch the show:

The trick of selective amnesia

This is the well known human tendency to be blind to one's faults (or other unpleasant facts). If you look carefully the amnesia happens quite often and I find it both amazing and scary how efficient we are at it. The blindness is quite complete, there is no awareness of it and hence no guilt. Can you think of any good everyday examples? I can't think of any right now, will add later if I find one.

Looking for: a catalog of the tricks our mind plays with us

Some of the philosophical books [Buddhism, etc.] I have been reading make brief references to the tricks our mind plays with us. I did not make note of a clear concise example I could use to explain in conversation and have been looking for one. One occurred to me this morning.

The trick of fantasy:
Our mind plays this trick with us and warps our expectations even from the real world [e.g. sex with a supermodel, etc. the fact that a sexy image of a super model can make you buy a bottle of perfume [real life, real world action] shows that you are connecting the two, and that while you know that 'sex with a supermodel' is a fantasy, it is affecting your expectation of the real world.]

While fantasy is creative and fun we are not always careful with out attitude towards it.

I am so excited about this these ideas that I am now looking for a catalog of all the tricks our mind plays with us. Do you know of any such book or website?