You will often hear people spout the virtues of critical thinking. Ironically, they can often be the people who are least likely to exhibit it themselves in certain situations. The reason is the Primacy Effect, or when you become biased toward the first explanation you hear about a topic and only then display critical thinking of information...
Read MoreOne of the most popular existential questions in recent years is, “Do we live in the Matrix?”—of course, this is referring to the 1999 movie of the same name. As it ages, of course, people replace it with the more generic, “Do we live in a simulation?” The question is about whether anything that we do here in our universe is real and matters....
Read MoreYears ago, I was waiting for a train to the airport wearing a suit. I walked past, and someone asked me about my shoes. I explained them, and she asked, "Why don't you tell everybody about them?" I was fascinated by the question because I don't typically care to discuss anything that doesn't come up in conversation. Little did I know that this...
Read MoreSports are one of the most popular activities for human connection. Millions—or even billions—will watch the most famous games in the world, such as the Super Bowl or World Cup. Yet, when you break it down, people are literally just watching a bunch of people run around a field trying to get a ball across a line or in a net. If there were...
Read MoreMost people focus on the “why” in life as the big questions—mainly because they feel more personal, more subjective, and more unanswerable and so they can be analyzed for a lifetime. But “how” questions are just as interesting, just in a different way and susceptible to the human arc of
Read MoreThere is a long list of questions that people ask that show a genuine misunderstanding of how life exists in the universe—or, if they do understand it, an unwillingness to accept this law of physics. Questions include: The most common manifestation of this in modern times is when people look around, see someone better off than them, and then...
Read MoreThe word “activist” has become pretty popular these days as both a profession and a way to virtue signal to everyone on social media that you are a good person who cares about others. Now, the cynics of the world will point out two things: This post isn’t going to point out specific causes and judge them nor is it going to rail against hypocrisy...
Read MoreOne silly pet peeve of mine is how people start letters to people with, "Dear _____," at the top. Why do they do that? Because that's how they were taught to start letters. To them, it denotes the beginning of a letter where this is the person you are addressing. But, when you know the definition of the word "dear" in English, you know that it is...
Read MoreMost of us know that basic economics states that as supply falls for a good and demand stays high, the price will rise. This is because scarcity is what causes us to need to economize in the first place; if everything was unlimited, then we wouldn’t need to worry about production and consumption because everything would always be available. But...
Read MoreBlaming others is the fastest, easiest way to avoid responsibility. We all know what it is like for someone to wrong us and for that person to be the reason why we are having a problem. And, if possible, we can try to respond, retaliate, or hold the person accountable. But, there's another side to this, which is what you do afterwards and whether...
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