Loserthink

Scott Adams latest book gives advice on how to avoid unproductive thinking, Loserthink is the term he coins.  Perhaps the most common type of loserthink is to believe one can read minds.  For example, when someone says they are opposed to illegal immigration, critics invariably accuse the person of racism.  The critic presumes what is in the mind of the border control advocate.  Such does not advance opposing sides to a reasonable solution but only hardens differences and makes a compromise more difficult.  That is a key factor in loserthink; it doesn't lead toward resolution and is thus unhelpful.

Each chapter proposes that one think like a different kind of professional: economist, entrepreneur, historian, psychologist, leader, etc.  Each has a particular way of viewing issues that is unique to them and a cure for various types of loserthink.  Some of the suggestions are:

- Use ego as a tool, not an identity.  Too often ego prevents one from recognizing errors.

- The past is gone.  Don't let it influence current thinking.  Don't throw good money after bad.

- If the big picture is good, don't get caught arguing over the little things.
- Fairness is subjective.  The best you can do is equality under the law.
- Arguing by coincidence/anecdote is usually just confirmation bias.
- Analogies are good for explaining, not predicting.

There are many and all far more thoroughly discussed.  Everyone is in a bubble of their own biases and these are tools to help recognize when you are in a bubble and also how to pop the bubble of others.  He freely admits to committing loserthink on a regular basis himself but these techniques have helped to identify when or, in many cases, have it shoved in his face by others who have read the book.

 

Worthwhile read.

 

The Current War (2017)

It is 1880 and Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) is on the march.  His 13 hour light bulb will revolutionize the world and he has plans to electrify the country.  He has opted to use Direct Current (DC).  His influence is so great that he dictates what JP Morgan will pay him to accomplish this goal.

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) has plans to provide light to the country.  He views direct current as limiting, requiring power generation stations at short regular intervals.  He opts to use Alternating Current (AC), which has almost limitless range.  This proves surprisingly effective.  Unfortunately, though he can provide light, he can't power machinery with AC, a big drawback in his competition with Edison.

Recognizing that Westinghouse is providing power at a cheaper cost, Edison declares AC to be too dangerous to use when compared to DC.  To prove his point, he electrocutes a horse for a press gaggle.  As Westinghouse is undeterred, Edison eventually agrees to help design the electric chair as long as it is credited to Westinghouse's alternating current.

 

Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) arrives from Europe to witness the lighting of Wall Street as Edison gives the command.  He then gets a job working for Edison.  He is soon disillusioned and strikes out on his own.  Lacking the resources of either Edison or Westinghouse, he is soon destitute.  However, he has overcome the problem of powering machinery with alternating current.

 

The competition comes down to who will light the Chicago World's Fair: Edison or Westinghouse?

 

There is much more to the film, detailing the lives of these titans of industry and invention.  Normally, movies in this time period are Westerns.  Most of the action is in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.  Great film, highly recommended.

Judy (2019)

The story opens in Los Angeles as Judy Garland (Renee Zellweger) takes her daughter and son to a club where she performs, using them as stage props.  Afterwards, she takes them to her hotel but she is turned away.  She is in arrears on her bill and is ushered out the door.  Without options, she takes her kids to the home of her ex-husband, Sidney Luft (Rufus Sewell).  With the kids in bed, she sets out for her daughter's house.  Liza Minnelli has a party in full swing when Judy arrives.  Judy meets Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock) and hits it off with the younger man.  Broke and with a long track record of unreliability, Judy cannot find steady income and Sidney wants custody of the kids.  Desperate, she gets an offer from London and sees no other options.  Off she goes.  While in London, she demonstrates her unreliability again and again.  She also marries Mickey Deans, her 5th and final husband.

 

If I wanted to make a movie that would make people dislike Judy, this is the movie I would make.  It is hard to like Judy.  There are flashbacks to her time as a young actress for Louis B Mayer where she developed many of her self-destructive habits.  Was this an effort to blame 46 year-old Judy's problems on Mayer and the studio system?  It sure felt like it.  Beyond The Wizard of Oz, I can't think of another role where I saw Garland, thus it is hard to judge how well Zellweger did in capturing her.  Though she may have captured the personality and mannerisms, she didn't get the voice.  Renee sings well but she's no Judy Garland.

 

Not recommended.

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Finally saw this film and I was most let down.  The movie - set 25 years after the original - opens with a pair of lawyers posting an eviction notice on the door of the Banks' home.  Michael (Ben Whishaw) had taken out a loan after his wife died and has absent-mindedly failed to make payments for the last three months.  Though willing to pay the three month due, it is too late for that.  He must pay off the entire loan.  Not a problem, he has shares in the bank from his father.  But he has misplaced them.  When finally discovered, he had used the share certificate to draw a sketch because he must have been short on paper.  Only by happenstance does his youngest son save the sketch - not to frame or save as a family keepsake - to cut in pieces to patch an old kite.  Michael is a pathetic, incompetent man-child, a hopeless buffoon.  I disliked him from start to finish.  To make matters worse, Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) declares that she will stay until the door opens.  Which door is that?  The door that allows Michael to view the world as he did in childhood.  Helpless widower with three children retreats into childhood.

 

Then we have Michael's older sister, Jane (Emily Mortimer).  She is a spinster who spends her time picketing for workers' rights, a throw back to her mother's suffragette marches in the original film.  It is unclear how she earns a living or why, at this late date, she should be romantically attracted to Jack the lamplighter (Lin-Manuel Miranda).  She acts like some teenaged girl with her first crush around Jack.  Jane is in her mid-thirties and should have had much better options than Jack that she clearly skipped.

 

All the dazzling musical numbers, the return of Dick Van Dyke, and talents of Miranda and Blunt  can't overcome these underlying facts.  Michael is a failure and will continue to be a failure.  He escaped his deserved fate this time thanks to Deus ex machina.  He and his children will not be so lucky next time.  Jane's romance with Jack is just a fling; if she was seeking marriage, she would have long since been married.  Clearly, if this is the adults they came to be, Mary Poppins failed them as a nanny.

 

Watch the original instead.