(cleaning out some notes I had jotted down. Now I’m putting them here instead) Religion needs to die because people don’t look for solutions when they think they already have one. We need to accept that we are all on a rock together, hurdling through space, and that we are alone save each other. It is this realization,…
Archives for October 2010
The Beverage Approachability Paradox
Anyone who’s tried to learn to enjoy coffee, beer, or wine after not liking their first encounters with them has probably come up against the phrase, “You just have to learn to like it…” We are taught to believe there is a linear scale of difficulty from cheap to expensive, i.e. you have to learn to tolerate the…
Free Market Fanboys
I was reading the blogroll over at Overcoming Bias and, naturally, encountered quite a number of economics-focused blogs. What struck me was how overtly anti-Obama and anti-regulation they were. One after another they kept railing against regulation and government intervention designed to control human greed and stupidity. The answer was always the same: Let the market work! I…
Why America is Falling
My favorite thing to do is determine why complex things happen. Some examples include why over half of American’s deny evolution, why women prefer men that act a certain way, or why Scandinavian countries have such low crime rates and such high suicide rates. One thing I think about a lot is why America is falling. Specifically, I…
Happiness, Struggle, and Options
I think a lot about why people aren’t happy. I’m reading a book now by Bertrand Russell that offers a compelling theory: Modern people are unhappy because we have too many options and we don’t truly have to struggle for anything. To summarize: In the past (when we didn’t live in massive cities and have everything provided to…
Getting Back Into Table Tennis
After being dormant for many years in my favorite participation sport, I found my new Table Tennis club on the peninsula. It’s called the Peninsula Table Tennis Club (simple enough), and it’s located in Burlingame–right on the bay. I went this evening for the first time, and it was a stellar experience. The people were very inviting and…