Synthesis #6: 💯 interesting stuff on leading, learning, and living better

The most wicked foreign accent of all was British English, according to the study. From Scar to Aladdin’s Jafar, the study found that British is the foreign accent most commonly used for villains. German and Slavic accents are also common for villain voices. Henchmen or assistants to villains often spoke in dialects associated with low socioeconomic status, including working-class Eastern European dialects or regional American dialects such as “Italian-American gangster” (like when Claude in Captain Planet says ‘tuh-raining’ instead of ‘training.’) None of the villains in the sample studied seemed to speak Standard American English; when they did speak with an American accent, it was always in regional dialects associated with low socioeconomic status.

In the past, with every change in consciousness (from Red to Amber to Orange and to Green), more powerful and life-enhancing forms of management have emerged. After the full emergence of the Teal paradigm, we will probably look back and find the organizational forms and practices of the late 20th and early 21st century alienating and unfulfilling. Already, it’s clear that we can create radically more productive, soulful, and purposeful businesses and nonprofits, schools, and hospitals. We are at an inflection point: a moment in history where it’s time to stop trying to fix the old model and instead make the leap to the next one. It will be better suited to the complexity and challenges of our times, and to the yearning in our hearts.

“Teachers have long pushed back against these general ideas [about teaching innovation] by saying, ‘But my classroom is different,’” Kizilcec says. “If we embrace that [attitude] too much, then we can throw all the science out and make every classroom a snowflake classroom.”

If you say something mean to my face and make me cry, you will probably start to feel uncomfortable. Unless you’re especially mean or psychopathic, my distress will trigger an empathic response and lead you to have mercy. If you tweet something mean and make me cry, no amount of emojis can convey what the sight of a grown man weeping can. If there is no social cue to elicit an empathic response, you might continue your tirade of meanness.

Unless another user was consistently liking the posts of teens like me, it would have been difficult to see most of their content, or in this case, the resulting plans. The app itself is marketed and created for teens. Older people generally seem to agree that its layout is confusing for them. (Many feel the same way about Snapchat.) So TikTok becomes a perfect place for like-minded teens to talk and plan together without others knowing. 

Putting off an important task makes us feel anxious, guilty, and even ashamed, Eric Jaffe wrote. Anxiety, guilt, and shame make us less likely to have the emotional and cognitive energy to be productive. That makes us even less likely to begin the task, in the first place. Which makes us feel guilty. Which makes us less productive. And around we go.

In the early 1990s, [Modern Monetary Theory] sprang partially formed from the mind of the hedge fund investor Warren Mosler. Mosler noticed that while politicians were concerned over deficit spending and raising tax dollars to pay for their initiatives, when you observed how the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and Congress actually worked, this was inaccurate. Taxes were useful for many things: They constrain spending to keep inflation in check, they guide citizens toward economic activities that the government wants to promote, they make the currency valuable by creating demand for it, and they create norms for encouraging or discouraging certain behavior. But they don’t raise money. When you pay your taxes, the Treasury just goes into your bank account and deletes the numbers from your digital balance.

It seems to have travelled to many countries & the story has been told and retold. As a folklorist, the giveaway was in the “beekeeper forgot the frame” wording. It kept coming up again & again. That is classic folklore, where a memorable snippet repeats and is passed on …

Because frankly, it is lovely. It’s something that we all want to believe in, that bees & Mother Nature would come up with this by chance - or indeed, by design. It turns out it was a lovely bit of synergy between humans & nature by a South African beekeeper called Brian.