The Right to Die
On 24 February 2022, the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two Russian warships attacked Snake Island. When the Moskva warship demanded that the crew defending the island surrender…
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Psychology
150 posts
What’s Possessed Us? “The Story Paradox” by Jonathan Gottschall
Many movies feature characters with dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder. But when researchers combed through all the psychiatric records from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for…
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The Bedevilments of Sex: Louise Perry’s “The Case against the Sexual Revolution”
The legacy of the sexual revolution has been scrutinised, even called into question altogether recently. What was traditionally hailed as a liberation, in particular for women and sexual minorities, that…
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The Fame Trap: Gen Z, TikTok and Influencer Culture
Many young people in the west spend most of their lives in the digital world, hooked up to a source of quick-hit dopamine. This phenomenon has been changing brains and…
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Leading by Example: A Quiet but Effective Form of Activism
A colleague once noticed that I never ate animal products. He asked me if I was vegan in a suspicious, almost accusatory way. I told him I was. He seemed…
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Open-Mindedness
What helps us accurately determine whether our beliefs are true or not? Many philosophers who study the nature of human knowledge and belief—epistemology—think open-mindedness is crucial to this (though they…
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Sympathy for the Devil
One unavoidable rite of passage for children growing up in Singapore is a trip to the Haw Par Villa. Built by the brothers who invented Tiger Balm, the main attraction…
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Oversharing Celebrities and the Search for Meaning
Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear almost any “how.”—Viktor Frankl The findings of evolutionary psychology suggest that most people derive meaning from their loyalties to family, tribe…
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Subtractive Epistemology: How to Add Value by Taking Things Away
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.—Bertolt Brecht Pathological hoarding (syllogomania) is a well-known psychological disorder…
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Offending Laughter
Have you ever been to a funeral, or a hospital, and laughed? Ever notice how often people do? Widows will lift their mourning veils to drop a one-liner; patients will…
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Human Nature and the Human Future: Emotional Amoral Egoism, by Nayef R. F. Al-Rodhan
Certain questions have vexed philosophers for millennia: What is human nature? Do we have free will? How can we build healthy societies? Are we motivated more by emotion or by…
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“Can We Cope with the Complexity of Reality?” by Rolf Jucker. Review.
The title of Rolf Jucker’s newest book poses a question worth asking: we face climate change, population increases, religious and political extremism, a faltering faith in democratic institutions, and an…
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From Victimhood to Violence: Online Incel Communities
On 12 August, twenty-two-year-old Plymouth man Jake Davison gunned down five people, including his mother and a three-year-old girl, before shooting himself dead. At first glance, this act of nihilistic…
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Why Slowing Down is the Key to Creativity
In Leisure: The Basis of Culture, philosopher Josef Pieper warns that society is drifting dangerously close to a state of what he calls total work—moving at an increasingly frenetic pace…
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Good News Is No News
How many upbeat articles have you come across since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged? Not many, probably. While the pandemic hasn’t exactly been a cheerful time, consider what should have been…
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The Neuroscience of Intellectual Openness
How is it that some people feel energised by the thought of fierce debate and keen to have their beliefs challenged and their minds potentially changed, while others appear unwilling…
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Distorting Scientific Findings: Death by Press Release
Despite the current zeitgeist, in which many prefer to approach questions of fact through postmodernist analysis, other ways of knowing or lived experience—for many questions, there is no better source…
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When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment and Assault
The topic of David Buss’s new book, When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment and Assault, has scarcely ever been more relevant. It seems that, every…
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