Category Archives: competence

80. The Agnostic’s Survival Manual

Posted on January 2, 2015 by thormay

The Agnostic’s Sur­vival Man­ual Thor May thormay@yahoo.com Bris­bane, Aus­tralia April 2013    Pref­ace Dear reader, are you really hop­ing for a book of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’? Do you want gen­tle ideas and a com­fort­able cor­ner in which to rest your … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in competence, culture, ethics, ideology, innovation, intellectuals, lifestyle, merit, motivation, philosophy, proportion, religion, truth, Uncategorized, value | Leave a comment

77. Fakes, liars, cheats, deceivers, animals in the forest

Posted on September 25, 2014 by thormay

It’s all around us. From face lifts to lux­ury cars on hire pur­chase, from inflated CVs to exag­ger­ated job titles, from com­pany pub­lic­ity mate­rial to the spin that gov­ern­ments put on their fail­ures and decep­tions. At what point does fak­ery … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in competence, culture, economics, ethics, evidence, ideology, individualism, law, lifestyle, management, merit, motivation, reciprocation, regulations, religion, rules, truth, value, war, wealth, work | Leave a comment

72. Crime without Punishment – the journey from means to ends

Posted on April 20, 2014 by thormay

Sooner or later every­one – indi­vid­u­als, gov­ern­ments, com­pa­nies – has to make choices about whether to put aside cer­tain val­ues to achieve a desired end. Michael Pas­coe, an Aus­tralian finan­cial jour­nal­ist, has recently dis­cussed this at http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/abandon-principles-and-pay-the-price-20140331-35tz4.html Image credit: Hugh … Con­tinue read­ing →

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71. Is learning “grit” is the best way to succeed?

Posted on April 6, 2014 by thormay

How have you man­aged your fail­ures, and has fail­ure made you a bet­ter per­son? Every­one fails at some­thing sooner or later. The impor­tant thing is how they han­dle fail­ure. A recent edu­ca­tional fad in Amer­ica is to teach stu­dents “grit” … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in competence, culture, ethics, ideology, individualism, Language learning, lifestyle, merit, motivation, philosophy, proportion, teaching, value, work | Leave a comment

62. Economic Complexity and the Engine of Psychology

Posted on August 14, 2013 by thormay

Con­text: The essay con­sid­ers eco­nom­ics as a psy­cho­log­i­cal phe­nom­e­non with the char­ac­ter­is­tics of a com­plex dynamic sys­tem. It is an ini­tial and some­what play­ful explo­ration, not a math­e­mat­i­cal paper on sys­tems the­ory. The orig­i­nal con­text was a dis­cus­sion group back­ground … Con­tinue read­ing →

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57. Anchluss or ANZAC? – A Solution for Taiwan

Posted on January 17, 2012 by thormay

In the minds of China’s rulers, past and present, there has only ever been one pos­si­ble view about the future of Tai­wan. For a mul­ti­tude of rea­sons – strate­gic, eco­nomic, eth­nic, lin­guis­tic, his­tor­i­cal and sen­ti­men­tal – they have believed that … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in China, competence, law, war | Leave a comment

52. Performance-Linked Micro-Tariffs

Posted on August 24, 2011 by thormay

The let­ter fol­low­ing was addressed to Prime Min­is­ter Keat­ing, 8 July 1995, and later posted on my web­site (http://thormay.net/politics/politic5.html). The reply to me from a min­der was what you might expect: vapid. Nev­er­the­less the points out­lined remain ger­mane to any Aus­tralian … Con­tinue read­ing →

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