Michael Apted: The "Up" series

The "Up" series of films documents the lives of 14 British children since they were 7 years old up to the present. The first documentary in the series, "Seven Up!", was shot in 1964, and the latest film (so far), "63 Up", was shot in 2019. The series was directed by Michael Apted after the first film, in which Apted worked as a researcher. The series is remarkable in offering a unique look into human development using as example lives of ordinary people traced from childhood into the old age. The "Up" series is a monumental achievement in the history of filmmaking. The entire experience of watching the films in sequence and following the lives of the people cannot be reduced simply to a set of lessons learned. You have to watch the films to really "get it", and definitely watch multiple times. I will mention just a few most memorable things that struck me as significant. 

Chance favors the prepared mind. This very successful series of documentaries came to life by chance: the first film was planned only as a single stand-alone feature, not a series. The studio offered Michael Apted a chance to create a sequel only later, when the children were about to turn 14. He took this opportunity, and offered to commit to come back every seven years to shoot the subsequent films.

Also, regardless of the social class (the subjects ranged from working class to upper class), most people eventually recognized how important good education (for example, college) is. Those that had good education themselves made sure to offer the same for their children. And those that did not have good education themselves understood the significance of education later in life and tried to give their kids and grandkids something better than what they had. 

Social class into which a person is born is hugely important: it often determines the person's social class for decades. 

One of the biggest psychological traumas that most people experienced was the death of their parents. Reflections on the death of their parents almost universally brought tears to the eyes of the documentary subjects, no matter what age. Truly cherishing every moment together with the people you love may be one of the most lasting and uplifting lessons from the "Up" series.

Brett Hennig: What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people?

In the TED talk "What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people?", Brett Hennig makes a case for sortition, a system of governance which replaces at least a part of the elected government officials with randomly selected people.

If you think democracy is broken, here's an idea: let's replace politicians with randomly selected people. Author and activist Brett Hennig presents a compelling case for sortition democracy, or random selection of government officials -- a system with roots in ancient Athens that taps into the wisdom of the crowd and entrusts ordinary people with making balanced decisions for the greater good of everyone. Sound crazy? Learn more about how it could work to create a world free of partisan politics.

Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days

In his talk TED talk "Try something new for 30 days", Matt Cutts suggests practicing new habits for 30 days.

Think about something you've always wanted to add to your life and try it for the next 30 days. It turns out 30 days is just about the right amount of time to add a new habit or subtract a habit -- like watching the news -- from your life.

I learned that when I made small, sustainable changes, things I could keep doing, they were more likely to stick. There's nothing wrong with big, crazy challenges. In fact, they're a ton of fun. But they're less likely to stick.

Note: The time to form a habit varies a lot, and 30 days is likely just a ballpark number:

The time it took participants to reach 95% of their asymptote of automaticity ranged from 18 to 254 days; indicating considerable variation in how long it takes people to reach their limit of automaticity and highlighting that it can take a very long time.

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C.H.M., Potts, H.W.W. and Wardle, J. (2010), How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 40: 998-1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

A.J. Jacobs: My journey to thank all the people responsible for my morning coffee

 A.J. Jacobs (familiar to readers of this blog from this and this posts) published a new book "Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey", described on the TED talk "My journey to thank all the people responsible for my morning coffee". While doing research for this book, A.J. Jacobs set out on a trip around the world to thank all the people who made possible his morning cup of coffee, from the barista in New York, to the coffee growers in Colombia, to the people who paved the road on which coffee arrived to New York.

Here are several new lessons that A.J. Jacobs learned during this journey:

Look up. [...] When dealing with people, I'm going to take those two seconds and look at them, make eye contact. Because it reminds you, you're dealing with a human being who has family and aspirations and embarrassing high school memories. And that little moment of connection is so important to both people's humanity and happiness.

Smell the roses. And the dirt. And the fertilizer. [...] I decided to really let the coffee sit on my tongue for five seconds -- we're all busy, but I could spare five seconds, and really think about the texture and the acidity and the sweetness. And I started to do it with other foods. And this idea of savoring is so important to gratitude. Psychologists talk about how gratitude is about taking a moment and holding on to it as long as possible. And slowing down time. So that life doesn't go by in one big blur, as it often does.

Find the hidden masterpieces all around you. 

Fake it till you feel it. [...] I would wake up every morning in my default mood, which is grumpiness, but I would force myself to write a thank-you note and then another and then another. And what I found was that if you act as if you're grateful, you eventually become grateful for real. The power of our actions to change our mind is astounding. So, often we think that thought changes behavior, but behavior very often changes our thought. 

Practice six degrees of gratitude. And every place, every stop on this gratitude trail would give birth to 100 other people that I could thank. [...] And it just drove home that it doesn't take a village to make a cup of coffee. It takes the world to make a cup of coffee. 

We use gratitude as a spark to action. [...] The research shows that the more grateful you are, the more likely you are to help others. When you're in a bad state, you're often more focused on your own needs. But gratitude makes you want to pay it forward. [...] And it's why I encourage people, friends, family, to follow gratitude trails of their own. Because it's a life-transforming experience. And it doesn't have to be coffee. It could be anything. It could be a pair of socks, it could be a light bulb. And you don't have to go around the world, you can just do a little gesture, like make eye contact or send a note to the designer of a logo you love. It's more about a mindset. Being aware of the thousands of people involved in every little thing we do.

Atul Gawande: The Checklist Manifesto

Atul Gawande: How do we heal medicine? https://www.ted.com/talks/atul_gawande_how_do_we_heal_medicine

Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande suggests using checklists in medicine. Checklists are a cheap and effective QC tool that found numerous uses in other professional areas, such as aviation.

Our medical systems are broken. Doctors are capable of extraordinary (and expensive) treatments, but they are losing their core focus: actually treating people. Doctor and writer Atul Gawande suggests we take a step back and look at new ways to do medicine -- with fewer cowboys and more pit crews.

"We created a 19-item two-minute checklist for surgical teams. We had the pause points immediately before anesthesia is given, immediately before the knife hits the skin, immediately before the patient leaves the room. And we had a mix of dumb stuff on there -- making sure an antibiotic is given in the right time frame because that cuts the infection rate by half -- and then interesting stuff, because you can't make a recipe for something as complicated as surgery. Instead, you can make a recipe for how to have a team that's prepared for the unexpected. And we had items like making sure everyone in the room had introduced themselves by name at the start of the day, because you get half a dozen people or more who are sometimes coming together as a team for the very first time that day that you're coming in."

REFERENCES:

The rate of death was 1.5% before the checklist was introduced and declined to 0.8% afterward (P=0.003). Inpatient complications occurred in 11.0% of patients at baseline and in 7.0% after introduction of the checklist (P<0.001).

Haynes AB, Weiser TG, Berry WR, Lipsitz SR, Breizat AH, Dellinger EP, Herbosa T, Joseph S, Kibatala PL, Lapitan MC, Merry AF, Moorthy K, Reznick RK, Taylor B, Gawande AA; Safe Surgery Saves Lives Study Group. A surgical safety checklist to reduce morbidity and mortality in a global population. N Engl J Med. 2009 Jan 29;360(5):491-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsa0810119. Epub 2009 Jan 14. PMID: 19144931: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19144931/

Atul Gawande (2010) The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right: https://www.amazon.com/The-Checklist-Manifesto-Things-Right/dp/0312430000/

Study: When their party switched its policy position on major issues, citizens' policy opinions followed suite

Slothuus, R. and Bisgaard, M. (2020), How Political Parties Shape Public Opinion in the Real World. American Journal of Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12550

How powerful are political parties in shaping citizens' opinions? Despite long‐standing interest in the flow of influence between partisan elites and citizens, few studies to date examine how citizens react when their party changes its position on a major issue in the real world. We present a rare quasi‐experimental panel study of how citizens responded when their political party suddenly reversed its position on two major and salient welfare issues in Denmark. With a five‐wave panel survey collected just around these two events, we show that citizens' policy opinions changed immediately and substantially when their party switched its policy position—even when the new position went against citizens' previously held views. These findings advance the current, largely experimental literature on partisan elite influence.

Via Rolf Degen.

Research-based charities guide

GiveWell is a site with evidence-based charity reviews. I found it to be a useful guide when selecting the best organizations for donations.
From their site:

We identify top charities by assessing them along four criteria: Their evidence of effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, transparency, and room for more funding.

Their top charities are supported by randomized controlled trials, the gold standard in economic research. 

SEE ALSO:
Esther Duflo: Social experiments to fight poverty