Fire and Knowledge

The placebo response is about far more than the pills - it is about the cultural meaning of a treatment, our expectation, and more. So we know that four sugar pills a day will clear up ulcers quicker than two sugar pills, we know that a saltwater injection is a more effective treatment for pain than a sugar pill, we know that green sugar pills are more effective for anxiety than red, and we know that brand packaging on painkillers increases pain relief.

–Ben Goldacre, “The end of homeopathy?“

We have become a society of wimps and complainers … because we are genuinely unhappy. The fact that our external conditions of life have improved immeasurably is irrelevant. Unhappiness is produced by internal, not external, conditions.

–Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture (UK Edition, 2004), p. 46

In a sense, early legal codes had to be extremely violent simply because people were so psychologically uninhibited. Unless they were quite literally terrified of the consequences of certain actions, they could not be kept under control. Modern man, on the other hand, is so guilt-ridden and repressed that public disembowelments are no longer necessary to maintain order; the threat of spending the night in jail is enough to deter most crime.

–Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture (UK Edition, 2004), p. 45-6

Unlike religion, which promised paradise after death, advertising promised paradise right around the next corner: through purchase of a new car, a suburban home or a labor-saving appliance. Consumer goods had become the new opiate of the people.

–Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture (UK Edition, 2004), p. 27

When you write down your thoughts, your chances of having the flash of insight you need in order to come up with a solution are significantly impaired – just as describing the face of your waitress made you unable to pick her out of a police lineup…. With a logic problem, asking people to explain themselves doesn’t impair their ability to come up with the answers. In some cases, in fact, it may help. But problems that require a flash of insight operate by different rules.

–Malcolm Gladwell, Blink (2005), p. 121

If you are a white person who would like to treat black people as equals in every way – who would like to have a set of associations with blacks that are as positive as those that you have with whites – it requires more than a simple commitment to equality. It requires you to change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and familiar with the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date, or talk with a member of a minority, you aren’t betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort.

–Malcolm Gladwell, Blink (2005), p. 97

All other things being absolutely equal, how does skin color or gender affect the price that a salesman in a car dealership offers?

The results were stunning. The white men received initial offers from the salesmen that were $725 above the dealer’s invoice…. White women got initial offers of $935 above invoice. Black women were quoted a price, on average, of $1,195 above invoice. And black men? Their initial offer was $1,687 above invoice. Even after forty minutes of bargaining, the black men could get the price, on average, down to $1,551 above invoice. After lengthy negotiations, [the] black men still ended up with a price that was nearly $800 higher than [the] white men were offered without having to say a word.

–Malcolm Gladwell, Blink (2005), p. 93

Of the tens of millions of American men below five foot six, a grand total of ten in my sample have reached the level of CEO, which says that being short is probably as much of a handicap to corporate success as being a woman or an African American.

–Malcolm Gladwell, Blink (2005), p. 87