Merhaba! Welcome to this week's digest. This week is a very special "Conquer (Your Fallible Instincts)" edition. This week's topics include making better strategic decisions, subjective perceptions of (in)justice, and forming stronger human connections via empathy. Enjoy!


Source: Giphy

• TOPIC OF INTEREST - PRINCIPLES FOR STRATEGIC DECISIONS - I am creating a one-stop resource for anyone making strategic decisions (at work, in life, etc.) and would greatly appreciate your feedback!
   
• ARTICLE - The Point: Spoiled Rich Kids by Agnes Callard - Our perceptions of injustice seem to be based on our individual normative equations, i.e., what we each subjectively deem to be 'fair'.
   
• VIDEO - Cleveland Clinic: Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care - "Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?" ~ Henry David Thoreau
   
• OTHER INTRIGUING CONTENT - Finance Stack (Resource); AI beats professionals in six-player poker (Research); Exercise improves brain function in overweight and obese individuals (Research); Consumers less attentive to news content on small screens (Research); Social context influences decision-makers' willingness to take risks (Research); The Erotic Is an Antidote to Death (Podcast); Epistemic Spot Check: The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance (Blog Post); The Story of U.S. Government Cheese (Video); The Power of One Push-Up (Article); The Data or The Hunch (Article)

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• Sensible Living: Reflecting on the Fine Essentials of a Beautiful Life
   
• TSD Ventures Consulting: We give Proactive Health companies strategic and financial clarity for the best path forward.

• The philosopher Bertrand Russell puzzled over the fact that we seem to see such people, the downtrodden, as especially good—he called this the “Superior Virtue of the Oppressed”: “If it were indeed the case that bad nourishment, little education, lack of air and sunshine, unhealthy housing conditions, and overwork produce better people than are produced by good nourishment, open air, adequate education and housing, and a reasonable amount of leisure, the whole case for economic reconstruction would collapse, and we could rejoice that such a large percentage of the population enjoys the conditions that make for virtue."
   
• Is it just a given that there is a human impulse to try to oppress those below oneself and to experience the very existence of those above oneself as oppressive?
   
• ...consider why the uneven distribution between you, R[ich] and P[oor] bugs you enough to call for rectification. Randomization is, after all, one way of achieving a fair distribution. You might say, “resources such as parking spots should be distributed for reasons,” but what kinds of “reasons” are you thinking of? I haven’t told you enough to suggest that any other distribution might be more efficient. Your point is not pragmatic, it’s moral. Your hackles are raised by the injustice of…what? The fact that parking spots should in some way be earned. That is the normative equation.
   
• We are committed to the idea that there should be some price or other, and that that price be a set, fixed, real fact about the way the world is organized. The spoiled demand for unearned satisfaction stands as a threat to that commitment.
   
• The pressure to bring down the rich and raise up the poor comes neither from the selfishness of envy nor from the selflessness of true egalitarianism, but rather from an instinct to protect the status of the normative equation. The normative order they have inscribed into the world is more precious to most people than any narrowly selfish pursuit of self-interest.
   
• The deeper source of fragility emerges when we stop looking around us and look ahead of us. The work we do to earn our happiness will, if it succeeds, improve the lot of man in just the way Russell describes: better education, more air and sunshine, healthier housing conditions, a reasonable amount of leisure, etc. We work to change the normative equation to allow our children to work for their happiness under more favorable terms.