New music, fashion, start-up companies – they come disproportionately from younger people. There is a theory – I first heard it from Paul Graham – that innovation comes from younger people because they haven’t yet learned what they are not supposed to be able to do.

Adora Svitak reminds us why old people suck.

I remember my first life crisis when I turned 26 because I had already passed the age where Newton and Einstein did their most famous work.

Daniel Kahneman describes two selves.

Your experiencing self lives in the present. It cares about what is happening right now. Experiencing self is honest, forthright and direct. Ask your experiencing self if you are happy and it’ll give you an honest answer. Go on! Try it! Ask yourself whether you are happy RIGHT NOW.

Your remembering self lives in the past. It cares about what happened before. Your remembering self is a self-deluding, story-telling liar. Ask your remembering self whether you are happy and it will probably just make something up.

Kahneman describes a study where two groups of people were given colonoscopies.

The first group had a short, fairly pleasant experience (as colonoscopies go) but it ended abruptly. Probably, the doctor just wanted to get it over with quickly.

The second group had a long painful experience (as reported by their experiencing selves) where the pain just kind of tailed off at the end.

But – here’s the thing – the second group reported a much happier colonoscopy. Their remembering selves ignored the whole ordeal and focussed on the very last bit.

If you want to be happy, who should you please? Your remembering self or your experiencing self?

His examples are intriguing.

Experiencing self does not care much about the weather but remembering self thinks it is pretty important – bear this in mind if you are deciding which state to live in.

You can make remembering self – the one who reports on the experience – enjoy a colonoscopy much more by making it last longer (as long as the last little bit is not too unpleasant).

Having more money doesn’t really impress your experiencing self very much – as long as you have enough to live on.

I especially liked the questions at the end: public policy is mostly driven by our remembering selves. How would be things be different if out experiencing selves had a say?

How To Report The News – Watch more Funny Videos

Skip this one unless you are really into Ted talks and/or Elizabeth Gilbert. Or maybe just skip to the last minute for her inspirational idea.

Elizabeth recounts the Greek idea that genius is not something we are, it’s something we have; it’s something that acts through us. She suggests that genius is something like Doby the house elf who lives in the wall and leaps out every now and then to infuse our work with brilliance…or not.

Watch the video or scroll down for the spoiler. Your choice.

Spoiler alert:

If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cock-eyed genius assigned to your case, decides to let some kind of wonderment be glimpsed for just one moment through your efforts…then…¡Olé!

And if not… do your dance anyhow…then ¡Olé! to you nonetheless.

Ah heck. Go watch the video. It was good. she earned her ¡Olé!

WARNING: Don’t watch this if you are offended by cartoon penises. Definitely not safe for work.

My daughter’s favourite philosophy problem…

If you don’t watch bloggingheads.tv you really are missing out.

The basic format is the familiar, two people with opposing views debate but the genius of bloggingheads.tv is that the debaters try to seek common ground rather than score weak, partisan points or to shout each other down.

bloggingheads.tv/ posts several debates a week and, while many are lame, there are some real gems.

Today’s gem has Brink Lindsey (libertarian) and David Frum (conservative republican) discussing the reasons for the recent decline in conservative fortunes.

They cover all the usual ground (a dumbing-down populism, George Bush, Hannity& Limbaugh, tension between libertarians and social conservatives etc etc) but, about 24 minutes in, they rustle up a nice hypothesis that I find quite compelling. It goes something like this…

In the 60s and 70s, it seemed like traditional values were under assault from liberal ideas like feminism, welfare, homosexuality, multiculturalism, secularism etc etc etc. As a result, divorce, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, crime, teenage promiscuity and other social ills were spiralling out of control and America was headed to hell in a liberal hand basket.

Perhaps appropriately, conservatives organized around preventing this terrifying decline but…and here’s the punchline…

Among the people most likely to be liberal – affluent, college-educated people – the decline never happened! Among liberals, all those indicators of traditional conservative values – divorce, traditional families, illegitimacy, stay-at-home mums, crime, under-age sex, drug use, hard work and ambition – have steadily improved over the last 30 years.

The red states and the less affluent (less liberal) communities have not fared so well but the conservative movement still ascribes to theories of cause and effect that are thirty years out of date.

Not noticing that liberal values have not led to a collapse in traditional values, conservatives have redoubled their fight against what they wrongly perceive as the causes of social problems in their communities.

In a confusion of baby and bathwater, conservatives are still attempting to throw out the wrong thing.

Brink Lindsey is one of the pioneers of liberaltarianism – the idea that libertarians have more common ground with liberals than with conservatives. Since almost everyone I know describes themself as either liberal or libertarian and based on this exchange, I think there is something in it.

Dear All the Single Ladies (all the single ladies),

The effect that your – and Beyoncé’s – anthem has on you is mesmerizing.

With just the merest first few bars you become united in solidarity with your sisters everywhere. If you could harness just a little of the song’s awesome potency you would become the greatest political power the world has ever seen.

If you learned the dance moves too, you would rule the world.

Yours in admiration,

The Ragged Clown