Education and Language-Learning
When I was in high school, all students were required to take at least two years of a foreign language. There were three options on offer: Spanish, French, and Japanese…
Courtesy of Boris D. Ogñenovich
Living on Autopilot: Internet Use and Depersonalization-derealization Syndrome
"You know how you sometimes feel like you're on autopilot?" "Sure. If I'm really sleep-deprived anyway." "I feel like that a lot." Recently, my 28-year-old friend, whom I will call…
Spare Thoughts on “Joker:” Identity, Sanity, and Evil
[Spoilers] My first reaction to Joker was to its qualities as a story -- specifically as a Greek tragedy. This, I think, is the primary and best face of the…
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate
Ellie Goulding's new hit "Hate Me" touches on an interesting subject related to hatred in the context of romantic relationships. It is a topic I didn't address in my book In…
Poetry and Philosophy
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. - Oscar Wilde I started writing with the…
How Wealth Aggregates: Wealth Inequality and Psycho-Political Addictions
No one likes inequality. Even defenders of inequality (like myself) don't so much advocate it as an ideal, but simply explain its universality and inevitability. Ardent libertarians often defend their…
Why is Sex Associated with Death?
It isn't just the French la petite mort -- the "little death" -- that binds the mysteriously opposed forces of sex and death together. Death has long been associated with…
(L) Scott Helverston, Navy SEAL among Navy SEALs; (R) Hafthor Bjornsson, world's strongest man
Comparative Physiques
Trends seem to cycle with the body as much as with clothes. The 70's sported a slim, hippy frame. The 80's and early 90's brought back the macho physique of…
All Spirituality is Forgetfulness
The souls that throng the flood Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow'd: In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste, Of future life secure, forgetful of the…
Hatred Isn’t Fear
I am a few chapters into a book called Hatred: The Psychological Descent Into Violence, and I may end up doing a full-length review of it in the future, after I…