Dr Nesse believes that persistence is a reason for the exceptional level of clinical depression in America--the country that has the highest depression rate in the world.

Key to innovation and problem solving is looking at things from a different angle. Last year I did a post about how modestly changing your diet can not only improve your health -- it can also reduce carbon emissions as much as buying a hybrid:

Trimming...

Earlier I did a post about Silver Bullets. Silver Bullets are ideas or interventions that we get infatuated with, and we start thinking, "If only we could...

New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) in the UK has just published a brave attempt to make the case for more mergers and acquisitions among non-profits. In general, I agree that more mergers are likely to be beneficial, but it is surprisingly difficult to make...

Last Monday, I spent an hour with an Ivy League professor who is considered to be a contender for a Nobel Prize.  He has an idea that he is sure -- absolutely sure -- can revolutionize the field of development and economic growth.*  As I listened, my right brain could...

With the economy in recession, the auto companies getting bailed out and newspapers folding, it's not a surprise to learn that people are cutting back on everything, including charitable giving.

The nonprofit community is not at all immune to the fluctuations on Wall Street, either. As corporations take a hit,...

Only small NGOs it seems are able to actually get out in the field and get their hands dirty making things happen. Past a certain size (what is that size?) the demands for official looking papers, reports, audits and the like overshadow the demand to actually provide aid. Large donors...

I met this woman early one morning last summer at the Starbucks near our office. She walked up with her huge, hobbling dog, handed me the leash, went inside, came back out a few minutes later, and fed him a maple scone. She told me that he is seventeen years...

When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it looks like the carbon-intensive industries are likely to face either a tax on carbon or a market for buying and selling emissions allowances in coming years. But it is not just power plants and large manufacturing facilities that contribute to climate...

THE COMPUTATIONAL METHOD at the heart of Pascal's  work was actually discovered by a Chinese  mathematician named Jia Xian around 1050, published  by another Chinese mathematician, Zhu Shijie, in  1303, discussed in a work by Cardano in 1570, and  plugged into the greater whole of probability theory by  Pascal,...

On the web you best build an audience by organising a claque and stroking its prejudices. Extend elaborate courtesy to people you agree with and boorish contempt to those who do not get it...

Bill Easterly has just started a blog called "Aid Watch." And although Bill has bad judgement with respect to sports teams, you should subscribe to his blog if you want clear thinking about how to...

With the new administration coming to power in the US, there is a flurry of new proposals on how to reform the aid system. However, few of them propose real change. Instead, there are proposals to increase aid to such and such issue or country. Or to strengthen such and...

Last week I posted a trailer of the documentary of Bill Easterly's White Man's Burden.

Below is a clip where I talk about how much brainpower is wasted in top-down hierarchical systems like the World Bank:

Check out the trailer for the coming documentary for The White Man's Burden, a book by Bill Easterly. The movie is coming out in 2010, and I urge you to read the book in 2009 if you have not already.

Last night, my friend Clive lent me some music by John Martyn, an outstanding but little known Scottish singer. Martyn's obscurity led us to talk about the influence of chance, serendipity, and randomness on success. Much of what happens in life is influenced by unforeseen (and often unnoticed) events...