Thinking Fast and Slow Essay Example for Free

Thinking Fast and Slow Essay 1. One of the book’s more stunning examples of the priming effect takes place in an office kitchen. Employees would typically make themselves coffee or tea and in return would drop a small fee into an â€Å"honesty† box. Researchers designed an experiment that involved alternating weeks where either a picture of a flowerpot or a picture of a set of eyes was in the room. Donations were checked after ten weeks and researchers found that significantly more money was contributed on weeks in which the eyes were in the room. Given this, and other examples of priming, do you find it feasible for organizations to devise methods that attempt to prime their employees to perform or react in a desirable manner? 2. One of the errors of System 1 is known as the framing effect. This refers to the ability of the way in which a problem is presented to influence an individual’s solution to it. Kahneman’s example in the book involves doctors at Harvard Medical School. In seeking their opinion a question is framed using either survival rate or mortality rate, with relative figures being the same. Despite this, 84% of the participants selected surgery that referred to a patient’s survival rate. Knowing the effects of framing a question either too broadly, too narrowly, or incorrectly all together, what are measures that organizations can take to ensure that their employees understand how to properly frame problems in such a way that the companies’ primary objectives are being targeted? 3. The book advocates that in our search for a causal link between occurrences in our lives we often dismiss the legitimacy of luck’s involvement in our success. To demonstrate this point, Kahneman points out that the gap in corporate profitability and stock returns between high performance firms and less successful firms dissipates to nearly nothing over time. In fact, over a 20 year period the returns of companies that originally had the worst ratings went on to earn much higher returns than their counterparts, which he refers to regression to the mean. Given that we may not necessarily be as talented as we perceive ourselves to be, what are steps that organizations can take to ensure that top brass is better able to understand what may actually be creating the company’s success?

The History of the Rise Essay -- American History, Slavery, Clarkson

In 1808, Thomas Clarkson published his two-volume text, The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament, after the prolonged campaign to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire. Within this text, Clarkson inserted his own map of the path to abolition, consisting of the efforts by prominent intellectuals, politicians, and religious organizations. This essay will argue that Clarkson’s map neglects the informal abolition activities that coincided with the official abolition campaign both within and outside the map’s timeframe; it in fact ends twenty years before the passage of abolition legislation in 1807. This argument will also examine the role of marginalized groups, including women, blacks, and public opinion, in the non-informal activities involved in the crusade to abolish slavery. Recent scholarship and some primary texts will be utilized to posit that various informal activities are absent from Clarkson’s map and need to be examined for their contributions to the crusade. The map examines the activities and individuals missing from the current timeframe, ending in the year 1787, and so this study will explore the post-1787 activities that should have been included on the map. A point of conflict on the map is the twenty year gap between 1787 and 1807, arguably a critical period on the eve of abolition. The map fails to display the contributions that finally provoked Parliament to pass legislation to abolish the slave trade. Within this gap, Clarkson additionally neglects the important contributions made by marginalized groups to abolition. Historians have steered away from traditional scholarship of the abolition of the Trade to focus ... ...de. They served as a device to generate popular sentiment against the slave trade. Drescher argues this media was significant in the first national mobilization. For example, organizers of the Manchester petition advertised for the abolition of the slave trade by submitting their petition to all major newspapers in England to promote the creation of other petitions by readers (Drescher, 49). The Manchester Committee disseminated the info from their petition to others. Advertised to all major English newspapers to promote readers to submit/ organize similar petition (Drescher, 49). Manchester serves as a model petition. The published Manchester petition was critical to the public agitation of the slave trade. Ten days after newspapers first reported of the Manchester petition in the General post, public agitation/ attack of the slave trade (Drescher, 49).

Redemption in The Kite Runner Essay

It is only natural for humans to make mistakes, just like Amir in the novel The Kite Runner, but it is how the mistakes are resolved that will dictate ones fate. The main character of The Kite Runner, Amir, knows a thing or two about making mistakes. What he struggles with throughout the novel is finding redemption for those mistakes. Throughout all stages of Amir’s life, he is striving for redemption. Whether Amir is saying the wrong thing or hiding from a hurtful truth, he always finds new things he will have to redeem himself for. That is why redemption is a huge underlining theme in The Kite Runner. When Amir is a child, he feels his father blames him for his mother’s death and cannot love him. He does everything he can think of to try and make up for the mistakes he made in the past. Since Amir feels his father does not love him, he thinks of ways to make things right with him. Amir sees Baba as a perfect higher presence that he could never amount to. When the kite running competition comes around he takes this opportunity to prove to his father that he can be more of an â€Å"ideal† son to Baba, ultimately getting redemption for everything his father has not approved of. Amir sees Baba as a perfect father figure because everyone looks up to him. Amir could never live up to Baba’s expectations of him and that is where the theme of redemption comes to play between these two characters. Although Amir impresses his father by winning the kite running competition, he ends the day by hurting his best friend in a terrible way and one day he will have to find a way to make up for it. Amir and Hassan are two inseparable children, but their relationship is unusual because Hassan is Amir’s servant. Amir is never very nice to Hassan, but Hassan would never turn his back on Amir. This is evident when he says, â€Å"For you a thousand times over†. Amir makes a huge mistake one day by hurting Hassan and it takes a very long time for him to find a way to redeem himself. The kit running competition was supposed to be the best day of Amir’s life. He would win, and earn his dad’s unconditional love once and for all, but things are not always as they seem. Although Amir did win the competition, something went very wrong. Hassan will always have Amir’s back, until the day he dies he would do anything for him. When Amir cut the last Kite down from the sky, Hassan decided to run it. Assef and his two friends didn’t exactly want Hassan to bring the kite back to Amir. Amir is a very evil young boy and since Hassan would do anything for Amir, he refuses to hand the kite over to Assef. Hassan’s final act of bravery results in his rape and Amir’s next big mistake. Amir watches Assef and his friends rape Hassan, but he does nothing to help his friend. Amir goes many years knowing this information but never tells anyone, but what goes around comes around. When everything finally catches up with Amir, he is a grown man. Things in Amir’s life have finally settled down, but now the past is brought back up; he must go find redemption once more. Amir survived his childhood, made a good life for himself and marries a beautiful Afghan woman named Soraya. One thing Amir is deprived of in his life is the ability to have children. Amir’s inability to have children could possibly be looked at as coincidental or symbolic to him making amends for his past mistakes and misgivings. Amir receives a phone call from his father’s old friend Rahim Khan. Although Rahim is dying, he asks Amir to come visit him in Afghanistan. Amir soon realizes that the main reason Rahim Khan asked him to visit was not to see him before he died, but because Rahim wants to help Amir succeed in reaching his final redemption. Rahim Khan has known about the kite running competition for Amir’s entire life, and he has a way for him to try and set things right. Hassan, who is dead now, has a son, but he is an orphan boy. The Taliban has taken over Afghanistan and they killed Hassan and his wife in cold blood. Sohrab, who is Hassan’s son, has been taken by the Taliban as payment for the orphanage. Rahim Khan puts Amir up to the challenge of going to find Sohrab and giving him a proper home. He states, â€Å"I have a way to make things right again†. In order for Amir to redeem his past with Hassan, he must go and find Sohrab, who is the ultimate symbol of redemption in Amir’s life. Finding Sohrab was Amir’s greatest accomplishment, it was the ultimate redemption for all the evil and unjust things that have haunted his past. Amir fails to stand up for himself and others, as a child. As an adult, he redeems his uncourageous past by setting it right with the help of some very close family members. Amir goes through many stages in his life, but he always seems to be redeeming himself for something. Sometimes life seems to work out in the end, and the search for redemption may not always be easy, as witnessed in Amir’s case. However, a strong will and determination can help guide the road to redemption and possible forgiveness.

Karst Topography and Sinkholes

Limestone, with its high calcium carbonate content, is easily dissolved in the acids produced by organic materials. About 10% of the earths land (and 15% of the United States) surface consists of soluble limestone, which can be easily dissolved by the weak solution of carbonic acid found in underground water. How Karst Topography Forms When limestone interacts with underground water, the water dissolves the limestone to form karst topography - an amalgamation of caves, underground channels, and a rough and bumpy ground surface. Karst topography is named for the Kras plateau region of eastern Italy and western Slovenia (Kras is Karst in German for barren land). The underground water of karst topography carves our impressive channels and caves that are susceptible to collapse from the surface. When enough limestone is eroded from underground, a sinkhole (also called a doline) may develop. Sinkholes are depressions that form when a portion of the lithosphere below is eroded away. Sinkholes Can Vary in Size Sinkholes can range in size from a few feet or meters to over 100 meters (300 feet) deep. Theyve been known to swallow cars, homes, businesses, and other structures. Sinkholes are common in Florida where theyre often caused by the loss of groundwater from pumping. A sinkhole can even collapse through the roof of an underground cavern and form whats known as a collapse sinkhole, which can become a portal into a deep underground cavern. While there are caverns located around the world, not all have been explored. Many still elude spelunkers as there is no opening to the cave from the earths surface. Karst Caves Inside karst caves, one might find a wide range of speleothems - structures created by the deposition of slowly dripping calcium carbonate solutions. Dripstones provide the point where slowly dripping water turns into stalactites (those structures which hang from the ceilings of caverns), over thousands of years which drip onto the ground, slowly forming stalagmites. When stalactites and stalagmites meet, they forum cohesive columns of rock. Tourists flock to caverns where beautiful displays of stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and other stunning images of karst topography can be seen. Karst topography forms the worlds longest cave system - the Mammoth Cave system of Kentucky is over 350 miles (560 km) long. Karst topography can also be found extensively in the Shan Plateau of China, Nullarbor Region of Australia, the Atlas Mountains of northern Africa, the Appalachian Mountains of the U.S., Belo Horizonte of Brazil, and the Carpathian Basin of Southern Europe.