The first set of my #studies is ready, two more to go. I've done a lot of those too. The first set came with 26 pages + the actual #competence #test material, which is sorted in folders.

The competence test is on June 5th. All the #material must be ready by May 14th. In between, I'll meet with the #Assessor (a #data #security #lawyer) and he will hopefully tell me if the material is ready." Wish me luck!
#suomimastodon #studying #finland

A quotation from William Feather

An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t. It’s knowing where to go to find out what you need to know, and it’s knowing how to use the information once you get it.

William Feather (1889-1981) American publisher, author
(Attributed)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/feather-william/1479…

Socially dominant individuals are more confident but not necessarily more competent, finds study

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-socially-dominant-individuals-confident-necessarily.html

Just worked with an #acting #coaching client and got into the immediacy in-the-moment nature of our work as #actors. It's different than a #director or #writer's between action and cut. Connected it to some of the concepts behind my phrase that "actors are the squishy" from a post I wrote long ago.

We All Lose in #Trump’s #War Against #Trans #Americans.

His cynical #executiveorders #targeting #trans #people will #harm important #American #institutions by taking away #talent, #energy, and the plain #competence our #country needs.

#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Conservatives #Extremism #Fascism #Religion #Hategroups #RepublicanParty #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #Genocide #Discrimination #Transphobia #ThePartyOfHate #EmptyThePews

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/we-all-lose-in-trump-war-against-trans-americans

Many administrations evolve in a kind of tug of war between the #activists who demand attention to their pet causes and the political #realists who grab the candidate’s arm and tap the sign that reads, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

And then, every few years, the majority steps back in,
determines whether politicians have taken care of prices, crime and peace, and then ruthlessly punishes failure
— regardless of whether the activists got what they wanted, and even if they might agree with the activists’ concerns.

️With Trump, the dynamic is different.
He’s so consumed with his grievances and his base’s grievances that rather than there being a tug of war between activists and pragmatists for the politician’s attention,
the activists and the politician are both aligned against the pragmatists.

That was the clear direction of Trump’s first term.
At first he surrounded himself with serious people.
Think of the contrast, for example, between Jim #Mattis as secretary of defense and Pete #Hegseth,
or between Alex #Azar, the secretary of health and human services for most of Trump’s first term, and an anti-vax conspiracy theorist like Robert F. #Kennedy Jr.

But the serious people told him no. They tried to block his worst instincts.
So they were purged.

Throughout the campaign, Trump ran with two messages.
On the airwaves, he convinced millions of Americans that they were electing the Trump of January 2019, when inflation was low, and the border was under reasonable control.
At his rallies, he told MAGA that it was electing the Trump of January 2021, the man unleashed from establishment control and hellbent on burning it all down.

But here is his fundamental problem:
The desires of his heart and the grievances of his base are ultimately incompatible with the demands of the majority,
and the more he pursues his own priorities, the more he’ll revive his opposition.

He’ll end his political career as an unpopular politician who ushered in a Democratic majority yet again.
The reason goes deeper than #ideology (many of his nominees are extremists)
or #scandal (Kennedy, Hegseth, and Matt Gaetz, each have their own histories of alleged sexual misconduct, for example).

Ultimately, it goes to #competence:
Can you do the job we ultimately hired you to do

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/opinion/trump-kennedy-gaetz-hegseth.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

We've all heard about the 39 minutes that the Dear Leader spent 'dancing' to music instead of answering questions at a town hall earlier this week. However, his answer to a question about ending grocery price inflation is easily just as disturbing.

#Trump #TownHall #GroceryPrices #competence

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/15/heres-how-donald-trump-will-lower-grocery-prices/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzI4OTY0ODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzMwMzQ3MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3Mjg5NjQ4MDAsImp0aSI6IjVjNmM0YjFhLTA5YTktNDNkMi04Y2EwLWFkNTIyMDI2ZmFiMiIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9wb2xpdGljcy8yMDI0LzEwLzE1L2hlcmVzLWhvdy1kb25hbGQtdHJ1bXAtd2lsbC1sb3dlci1ncm9jZXJ5LXByaWNlcy8ifQ.m6pD2Sx_LV9I8Q6mlX8B5pI-bP18hu2gBs6SQqriArw

#malcolmGladwell has another book, I guess trying to rescue his much-nitpicked #TippingPoint.

IDK if he's a net positive force in the world or not. As a #psychologist I've occasionally looked up the original #research he cites. He tends to portray findings in black-and-white terms, like "People do X in Y situation!" when, most often, I've found the research best supports something like "In some studies 12% of people did X in Y situation despite previous #models predicting it should only be 7%" or "The mean of the P group was 0.3 standard deviations higher than the mean of the Q group".

I see many of his grand arguments as built more or less on a house of cards. Or rather, built on a house of semi-firm jell-o that he treats as if it were solid bricks.

I'm not knocking (most of) the #behavioralScience he cites; Hell, I'm a behavioral scientist and I think this meta-field has a ton to offer. I just think it's important to keep #EffectSize and #PracticalSignificance built into any more complex theories or models that rely on the relevant research instead of assuming that #StatisticalSignificance means "Everything at 100%". I'm sure there's some concise way to say this.

Overall, I think he plays fast and loose with a lot of scientific facts, stacking them up as if they were all Absolutely Yes when they're actually Kinda Maybe or Probably Sort Of and I don't think the weight of the stack can be borne by the accumulated uncertainty and partial applicability indicated by the component research.

So I take everything he says with huge grains of salt and sometimes grimaces, even though I think sometimes he identifies really interesting perspectives or trends.

But is it overall good to have someone presenting behavioral research, heavily oversimplified to fit the author's pet theory? It gets behavioral science in the public eye. It helps many people with no connection to behavioral science understand the potential usefulness and perhaps scale of the fields. It also sets everyone--especially behavioral scientists--up for a fall. It's only a matter of time after each of his books before people who understand the research far better than he does show up to try to set the record straight, and then what has happened to public confidence in behavioral science?

Meh.

“I invite her [Harris] to use the office the American people gave her,” -JD Vance showing he does not understand the powers and limits of the office of the Vice President, while pursuing the office of Vice President