Moral psychology: The 5 key tenets of morality underpin whether one is liberal or conservative (TED)

Really amazing and fascinating TED talk by Jonathan Haidt, professor of psychology and creator of yourmorals.org. In a nutshell, morality can be described as: caring about harm against the defenseless, fairness, loyalty, respect of authority, and overall purity. Conservatives consistently rank all 5 at about equal weight, whereas liberals rank harm against the defenseless and fairness far above the others.

Liberals value fairness and helping the weak above others for the sheer fact that in a society, the other 3 perpetuate and hold down the weak, defenseless, helpless and the victims of discrimination. Respect of authority is maligned because it is authority that traditionally perpetuates the systems of oppression.

Yet as Haidt points out, these 5 tenets of morality exist to create self-organizing society. Without all five, we would have never been able to create tribes and governments. Perhaps there would still only be anarchy. This stability sustains normal life and underpins the welfare of all.

I wonder in a historical context what red state vs blue state will really mean in the long run. Is 1960's era blue state liberal ideology a temporary and necessary concept in order to bring fairness and civil rights for all? Or is red state conservative ideology an anachronism now in the time of a fully multicultural, interconnected, global, modern society?

PS, TED is using Posterous. Subscribe to the TED Blog Posterous and welcome them to the neighborhood. =)

Why bad taste rules in business endeavors, and why that's a problem for creative industries.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball spoke at MacWorld recently and gave a brilliant talk called "The Auteur Theory of Design" -- about lessons we as creators of tech products can learn from the film making world.

The quality of any collaborative creative endeavor tends to approach the level of taste of whoever is in charge... whoever has final cut.

John Gruber

Final cut is the last say as to whether or not to ship. And this cuts to the core of how good design and great experience gets delivered in tech. THE FINAL CUT. Someone has final say for when a project is done and ready to go. At Apple, final cut is owned by Steve Jobs, and much has been made of the tyrannical brilliance and attention he pays to the details of the products they create. Final cut is what matters, because the person who makes the final cut can either ensure brilliance or ensure failure.

The leader with bad taste / poor design sensibility will absolutely salt out the great work of brilliant teams. They'll add random crap to something that might already be quite good. Or will allow bad stuff to ship. Or, most likely, force a product out to market when it's not ready. A blind adherence to meeting release dates, for instance, can essentially assure the death of quality in a product. That's why adding product managers or project managers to an already failing project often is like a bucket of gasoline for a man on fire.

In an ideal world, product managers and technology execs should be great designers who can identify and create amazing user experiences. They need to be user experience auteurs, because PMs and execs are de facto in charge when it comes to making final call on when to ship the product. They're the last line of defense against bad taste and bad design. Unfortunately, like Plato's mythical philosopher/kings, auteur studio exec is a rare breed, and the UX designer / tech exec is rarer still.

Gruber closes his talk with an exhortation to the auteur within. Sometimes on teams, final cut isn't something someone will give you. But when you know you're right, sometimes you have to take it.

Happy Chinese New Year!

We are at a Buddhist temple in San Francisco's Clement area. My dad is buying ornamental windmills that you're supposed to place in the northwest corner of the room, in order to turn your luck around.

 May the new year bring great fortune to you and yours.

---
Sent from my iPhone

Zai Beijing by Yin Tsang (隐藏)

After some searching I finally found the song featured in the NY Times video in my last post. Its catchy beat turns out to be a looped sample from an erhu, a Chinese musical instrument I remember writing a report about in Chinese school as a kid.

Yin Ts'ang's first hit was “In Beijing,” from the band's 2003 debut album, “Serve the People” (Scream Records); the title is a twist on an old political slogan. It sets a melody played on a thousand-year-old Chinese fiddle called the 'Erhu' against a hip-hop beat that brings Run D.M.C. to mind. The song, an insider's look at Beijing's sights and sounds, took the underground music scene by storm, finding its way into karaoke parlours, the Internet and even the playlist of a radio station in Beijing.

...

Some Chinese rappers address what they see as the country's most glaring injustices. As Wong Li, a 24-year-old from Dongbei, says in one of his freestyle raps:

“Don’t you know China is only a heaven for rich old men
You know this world is full of corruption
Babies die from drinking milk..."

Wong, who became interested in hip-hop when he heard Public Enemy in the mid-'90s, said rapping helps him deal with bitterness that comes with realising he is one of the millions left out of China's economic boom.

“All people care about is money,” he said. “If you don't have money, you're treated like garbage. And if you're not local to the city you live in, people discriminate against you; they give you the worst jobs to do.”

Read more about the group at thedailystar.net...

Yin Tsang is also has a myspace page.

Franklyn - Cool looking trailer for a long-awaited indie action/sci-fi film


Preest is a masked vigilante detective, searching for his nemesis on the streets of Meanwhile City, a monolithic fantasy metropolis ruthlessly governed by faith and religious fervor. Esser is a broken man, searching for his wayward son amongst the rough streets of London's homeless. Milo is a heartbroken thirty-something desperately trying to find a way back to the purity of first love. Emilia is a beautiful art student; her suicidal art projects are becoming increasingly more complex and deadly.

Filmed for $8.6 million, this UK film is still looking for a US distribution deal. But it's looking like my kind of movie, in the vein of Bladerunner, Dark City and The Matrix.  OK, How's this for cool -- the name of the city in the film is called Meanwhile City.

The trailer looks great. Hope it gets picked up in the States and we get to see it in theaters here.