ABOUT THOSE FLOWERS AND CANDLES

December 20th, 2012 §

The stubborn power of ancient symbols…

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THOUGHTS ON THE MEANING OF LIFE

December 15th, 2012 §

Meaning is function, meaning is relative, meaning is often inhumane

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SO FAST IT’S INVISIBLE

November 19th, 2012 §

If a UFO is moving too fast for your eyes to notice it, your video camera probably won’t catch it either.

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THE PROBLEM WITH DOCTORS

July 30th, 2012 §

Overtrained, overpaid, and overrated.

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BAD NEWS BOSON?

July 4th, 2012 §

A good day for Peter Higgs — but for the rest of us, maybe not so much.

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THE COGNITIVE SEPARATION – III

May 30th, 2012 §

Reposting this, after a related NYT piece appeared today

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MEDIA WHORES

May 28th, 2012 §

Beware the popularizers of modern cosmology

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DO WE REALLY NEED SUPERSTITIONS?

April 6th, 2012 §

Some delusions we can do without.

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EXOCULTURE SHOCK

March 29th, 2012 §

Do we really want to know what’s out there?

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AUTHORITECH VS. LIBERTECH

March 25th, 2012 §

Smart weapons for civil conflicts

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THE COMFORTS OF OUTRAGE

March 23rd, 2012 §

Why has media-driven offense-taking over minor, off-color remarks  become epidemic?

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CAMERA ARTIFACT-OLOGY?

March 17th, 2012 §

An intriguing new case, from Chile

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THE DEEP LESSON OF THE GOLDMAN SACHS LETTER

March 16th, 2012 §

It’s about much more than Wall Street — it’s about the hazards of cultural evolution.


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HEALTHY SKEPTICISM

March 14th, 2012 §

A paper in PLoS One reports “three unsuccessful attempts to replicate” Daryl Bem’s “Feeling the future” experiment.

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THOUGHTS ON THE NEXT PERSIAN WAR

March 2nd, 2012 §

US policy towards countries such as Iran treats war as a “last resort” — but in so doing makes war almost inevitable

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PART MAN PART MONKEY

February 9th, 2012 §

Our funny little atavisms.


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HOW TO END THE CULTURE WARS

February 8th, 2012 §

Let a thousand cultures bloom.


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THE COGNITIVE SEPARATION (rerun)

January 31st, 2012 §

The MSM is starting to pay attention to the idea of an accelerating cognitive separation in society

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TAXATION WITHOUT COGNIZATION

January 27th, 2012 §

Do you even know your net income tax rate?

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AVERAGE IS OVER?

January 26th, 2012 §

Then why does the New York Times still employ the mediocrity Thomas L. Friedman?

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ROOM WITH A VIRTUAL VIEW

January 10th, 2012 §

Don’t pay up for a view — bring the view to you.

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WHY GET MARRIED?

January 1st, 2012 §

The deep social justifications for marriage no longer exist

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THE COMING NON-PROFIT REVOLUTION

December 31st, 2011 §

What if consumers decide not to buy stuff from corporations that make profits?

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THE DEMISE OF GUYTHINK

December 27th, 2011 §

Empathy, political correctness and the feminization of Western culture — and why we should worry

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SUBLIMINAL SINS

December 20th, 2011 §

The dubious moral packaging of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

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THE SEDUCTRESS WITH A THOUSAND FACES

December 4th, 2011 §

The patient on the couch …

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THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: OUR MOST WATCHABLE REALITY SHOW

December 2nd, 2011 §

What else explains the Herman Cain phenomenon?

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NO SOUP FOR YOU

November 22nd, 2011 §

…if it’s made by a big corporation…

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THE EMU AND THE SUPERCOMMITTEE

November 22nd, 2011 §

Two big failures, one big reason

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ACKROYD’S GHOSTS

October 31st, 2011 §

I’m looking forward to reading Peter Ackroyd’s book ‘The English Ghost

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HOW WE HAVE CHANGED

September 11th, 2011 §

In a secular age, public grief has become more religious.

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HOW TO FIND A CASTAWAY

August 26th, 2011 §

Never be lost again.

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AGAINST STEVE JOBS

August 24th, 2011 §

Steve Jobs goes.  The reality distortion field stays.


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WHY A POLTERGEIST WON’T HURT YOU

July 28th, 2011 §

a ‘network hypothesis’ for psi phenomena

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TRICKSTER SCHMICKSTER

July 22nd, 2011 §

Why the ‘trickster’ concept is of little or no use in understanding the paranormal

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GOODBYE TO POLITICS (AS WE KNOW IT)

June 18th, 2011 §

If politicians these days seem unusually venal or narcissistic, is it because politics as public service is now an impossible task?

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HO HUM?

June 12th, 2011 §

Do places with “mystery hums” have greater seismic risk?

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GOODBYE TO COLLEGE

June 11th, 2011 §

The mismatch between modern undergraduate education and the needs of the modern economy is now untenable.

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ROBOPOCALYPSE NOW

June 3rd, 2011 §

People sometimes worry about the displacement of workers by rapid advances in technology, but seldom have numbers or charts to back up their worries.

Well, here’s a fairly grim chart.  It depicts labor’s share of US income (broadly, the % of GDP that goes to pay workers), which goes down as companies’ rely less on human workers, more on technology (an extreme example being Facebook, with an estimated market value of $85 billion, and only 2,000 employees).  Look at how steep the collapse is since 2001 — and maybe it’s just getting started.  See also my previous posts on this looming sociocultural problem (here and here).

CELEBRITIES: A MODEST PROPOSAL

June 1st, 2011 §

A Modest Proposal for curbing the cult of Celebrity, and for making better social use of existing Celebrities.

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STUMBLING ON PSI

May 29th, 2011 §

A psi experiment that doesn’t look like one.

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BAD DRONES

May 16th, 2011 §

What happens when terrorists realize that they can use drones too?


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THE RETURN OF THE KING?

May 15th, 2011 §

Is the extreme egotism of some powerful people a mental disorder or a behavioral atavism?

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THE UNTOPPABLE STUNT

May 13th, 2011 §

A problem that action-movie directors and terror-maestros have in common.

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THE FREQUENCY OF GLOBAL EVENTS

May 12th, 2011 §

How often can we expect mega events like the Bin Laden assassination or the Tohoku quake/tsunami?  About every seven weeks, give or take.

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REMOTE EMOTION

May 4th, 2011 §

Many people find this White House Situation Room photo intensely affecting, but can’t explain why.  I think I can.

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AN INSIDIOUS INFLUENCE

April 29th, 2011 §

What explains the bizarre epidemic of worker suicides at France Telecom?


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CULTURE-DOUBT

April 24th, 2011 §

There’s now a word for that end-is-nigh feeling.

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MAX-QUAKE MAX?

March 12th, 2011 §

Of the fifteen strongest earthquakes recorded since 1900, five have occurred in the past seven years. That’s 33% of the total concentrated within about 6% of the time span.

Is it because recording methods have become more sensitive recently?  Probably not, since even old-tech seismographs should easily pick up these 8.0+ quakes.

Is it merely a statistical fluke?  Hard to say.  Others (including the USGS) have suggested that for smaller major earthquakes there is no meaningful pattern.

However, for the 15 “max-quakes” listed here by the USGS, the timing definitely is clumpy, as if the factors that give rise to them do become more intense, for some reason, every so often. Four of the top fifteen occurred during 1957-65 — and if we extend the list to 16, then 5 of these 16 occurred in that period. So purely from these data, it appears (though it is impossible to prove) that a previous “max-quake max” period occurred about fifty years ago, and we are in another such period now, but perhaps near its end — or grand finale.

MY SWEAT FOR YOUR SINS (rerun)

February 21st, 2011 §

What ancient logic lies behind our modern endurance-for-charity events?


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