Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough

Michael Easter
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The author of The Comfort Crisis asks: Are we hardwired to crave more? From food and stuff to information and influence, why can’t we ever get enough?

“Reveals the biological and evolutionary foundations behind your brain’s fixations, so you can stop seeking and start living.”—Melissa Urban, Whole30 CEO and author of The Book of Boundaries

“Michael Easter’s genius is that he puts data around the edges of what we intuitively believe. His work has inspired many to change their lives for the better.”—Dr. Peter Attia, author of Outlive

Have you ever found yourself wondering “Why do I want more than I have?” Michael Easter, author of The Comfort Crisis and one of the world’s leading experts on behavior change, shows that the problem isn’t you. The problem is your scarcity mindset, left over from our ancient ancestors. They had to constantly seek and consume to survive because vital survival tools like food, material goods, information, and power were scarce and hard to find.

But with our modern ability to easily fulfill our ancient desire for more, our hardwired “scarcity brain” is now backfiring. And new technology and institutions—from dating and entertainment apps to our food and economic systems—are exploiting our scarcity brain. They’re bombarding us with subversive “scarcity cues,” subtle triggers that lead us into low-reward cravings that hurt us in the long run. Scarcity cues can be direct and all-encompassing, like a sagging economy. Or they can be subtle and slight, like our neighbor buying a shiny new car.

Easter traveled the world to consult with remarkable innovators and leading scientists who are finding surprising solutions for our scarcity brain. He discovered simple tactics that can move us towards an abundance mindset, cement healthy habits, and allow us to live our lives to the fullest and appreciate what we have, including how to:

Detect hidden scarcity cues to stop cravings before they start, from a brilliant slot machine designer in a Las Vegas casino laboratory

• Turn alone time into the ultimate happiness hack, from artisanal coffee-making Benedictine monks
• Reignite your exploration gene for a more exciting and fulfilling life, from an astronaut onboard the International Space Station
• Reframe how we think about and fix addiction and bad habits, from Iraq’s chief psychiatrist
• Recognize when you have enough, from a woman who left a million-dollar career path to adventure the world

Our world is overloaded with everything we’re built to crave. The fix for scarcity brain isn’t to blindly aim for less. It’s to understand why we crave more in the first place, shake our worst habits, and use what we already have better. Then we can experience life in a new way—a more satisfying way.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

香港古道行樂

郭志標
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香港的古道不少已逾百年歷史，然頑石盈徑，野草滋蔓，加之時代變遷，為研究帶來相當難度。作者是資深行山人士，數十年來斬棘披荊，透過田野調查及古籍所載，積極收集古道相關材料，在本書集中介紹香港眾多古道的歷史、走向和保存狀況，並附以列表作統覽，允稱「開山」之作。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

The Optimist : Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future

Keach Hagey
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
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From an acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter comes the first biography of the enigmatic leader of the AI revolution, charting his ascent within the tech world as well as his ambitions for this powerful new technology.

In The Optimist, the Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey presents the most detailed account yet of Altman’s rise, from his precocious childhood in St. Louis to his first, failed startup experience; his time as legendary entrepreneur Paul Graham’s protégé and successor as head of Y Combinator, the start-up accelerator where Altman became the premier power broker in Silicon Valley; the founding of OpenAI and his recruitment of a small yet superior team; and his struggle to keep his company at the cutting edge while fending off determined rivals, including Elon Musk, a former friend and now Altman’s bitter opponent.

Hagey conducted more than 250 interviews, with Altman’s family, friends, teachers, mentors, co-founders, colleagues, investors, and portfolio companies, in addition to spending hours with Altman himself. The person who emerges in her portrait is a brilliant dealmaker with a love of risk, who believes in technological progress with an almost religious conviction―yet who sometimes moves too fast for the people around him. With both the promise and peril of AI increasing by the day, Hagey delivers a nuanced, balanced, revelatory account of the individual who is leading us into what he himself has called “the intelligence age.”

Altman is a figure out of Isaac Asimov or Neal Stephenson. Or he is the author himself: if it feels as though we have all collectively stepped into a science fiction short story, it is Altman who is writing it.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

屍骨辯證 : 法醫人類學家的生死沉思

李衍蒨
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人的死亡可以有五花八門的原因，世上亦不一定有因果循環這回事，善良的人也可能無辜慘死。在法醫人類學來說，無論逝者是誰或是被誰滅聲，我們都會落力為他尋回身份，細心聆聽那埋葬在六呎以下的聲音。不論歷史背景、政治、宗教，一個人的死，總會為世界帶來一點有關人性的啟示。

法醫人類學家的其一工作就是令死者家屬清楚了解至親死前的一刻是怎樣的，縱然死者的人生沒辦法倒帶重來，但當中的答案可以為家屬帶來重新振作的力量。發掘真相是相當困難的事，因為真相與事實不一定相等，而法醫或法律的程序都沒有需要特別去了解犯案者的故事及背後緣起，因此，法庭上的判決，無論是有罪或無罪，也不代表真相的全部。我們能推敲事情的始末，回答你悲劇是如何發生，卻往往不能告訴你為甚麼會造成這悲劇。

要透徹了解一宗案件，就必須要理解「人」。我們與其他人之間，我們與善惡的距離，其實比你我想像中還要近。

作者說：「本書名義上是《骨子裏的話》的修訂版，但意義上是我審視自己的一個過程。修訂版中增添了黑暗的故事及內容的同時，也帶來災害後人們互相為大家增添希望及溫度之舉。」

希望讀者可以從這本書看到現實的殘酷、人類文明的有趣、歷史的啟示，以及最重要的——光與希望。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Jonathan Haidt
online access from EBSCOhost Ebooks
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THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of 2024 A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024 A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2024 Named a Best Book of 2024 by the Economist, the New York Post, and Town & Country The Goodreads Choice Award Nonfiction Book of the Year Finalist for the PEN Literary Awards

A must-listen for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.” —Shannon Carlin, TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height") lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

古人原來很會過日子 : 從衣食住行到婚戀職場, 古人自有好辦法

王磊
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★暢銷書《古人原來這樣過日子》作者「講歷史的王老師」再次鮮榨趣味歷史，
帶你看清最真實的古人，滿足你對古人日常生活的全部好奇。
★超過500萬次讀者點贊、1.7億次播放的抖音大號「講歷史的王老師」全新作品，
從衣食住行到婚戀職場，涵蓋古代日常生活的方方面面。
★6大類主題，53個話題，近60張珍貴史料插圖，帶你穿越遊走歷史現場。

古人一週上幾天班？古人要加班嗎？古代的薪水高嗎？古代老師的待遇好嗎？……

你知道古人結婚也要送彩禮（聘禮）嗎？先秦的時候士大夫喜歡送大雁，因為古人認為大雁一聲只有一個配偶，象徵著忠貞不渝的愛情。平民則歡送花椒，因為花椒的果實數量繁多，表達了古人對子孫興旺的美好願望。

古代的房價高嗎？漢朝的房價簡直是「白菜價」。普通人一兩年的工資就能夠在小城市買一間房了。唐朝的房價就不那麼友善了，官至吏部侍郎的韓愈，居然用了三十年才存夠買房子的錢。宋朝的房價更是高得離譜，蘇轍晚年在汴梁買房子花的錢，需要一個普通人至少一百二十年不吃不喝才能存夠……

本書作者是位中學歷史老師，歷史底蘊深厚不說，最難得的是擁有幽默的天賦把歷史講成一個又一個好笑的段子，用最日常的生活瑣事解答了你對古人生活的所有疑問，從衣食住行講到社會文化，覆蓋古人生活的各個方面。每一個腦洞大開的問題背後，都有可靠的史料支撐，既漲知識也長見識，讓你一面捧腹大笑，一面能具體想像古人真實的生活細節，滿足你對古人的一切好奇。原來，古人的日子過得如此多采多姿！原來，古人也很會過日子！我們許多的日常用語、習俗，原來是這樣演變流傳而來！

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)