An Animal or A God

Aristotle says that in order to live alone one must either be an animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking. A man must be both; a philosopher.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Question Time

Noise, generating noise. It’s ambitions are no higher than something like the Jeremy Kyle show. A bottom feeding wind up that polarises the audience instead of informing and holding power to account.
They are no doubt delighted when it kicks off and generates outraged comments. All helps the viewing figures.
It’s a sly, underhand way of providing nominally informed debate regarding issues, irresponsible as it operates under the pretence that it’s audience is deeply interested in politics and will have looked at issues in depth from other sources. Irresponsible as it refuses to acknowledge that it may be the only way some, if not most people engage in politics.
Thus a populist like Farage can spout lies (I remember an audience member calling him out on this on one occasion) and they are given an opportunity to make claims that have no evidence to support them.
It is going to be interesting to see how they provide balance on climate change, something they are focusing on. Will counter arguments be backed by evidence, or just someone pandering to the ignorance of the audience?
u/Farnellagogo

Read It All. Check The Facts.

I see this a lot. Headlines, clickbait, opinion pieces. Poor fact checking. Statistics used to manipulate. This one’s a favourite… Most readers aren’t aware of the manipulative nature of statistical data, and journalists / reporters, who we assume should have an obligation to uphold intellectual integrity, abuse statistics without a second thought through either […]

Not Happy?

Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, and a team of psychologists have found evidence for what they call “prevalence-induced concept change”. What this means is that how we apply concepts changes depending on how many examples of that concept are around. In one experiment, psychologists showed subjects coloured dots on the spectrum of blue […]

Rubbish. They Wouldn’t Do That.

The government hired sex workers to dose “johns” with LSD for research purposes so to speak? Operation Midnight Climax The US Government would relocate over 1,600 Nazi Scientists for it’s own benefit? Operation Paperclip A plan for the CIA to commit terrorist actions against US Civilians across the United States and frame Cuba, […]

The Eagle & The Fish

Transcend Your Story: Zach Bush, MD | Rich Roll Podcast

Preparing to Live vs. Living

I know a lot of people who live in the future. A few in the past. And even fewer in the present. We spend much time thinking about what was and what could have been. And we spend much time projecting into the future and wondering about what may happen. Life unfolds in the present. […]

Comparison

Comparison is the thief of joy.Theodore Roosevelt Be cautious when you’re comparing yourself to others. You’re a singular being, once you’re an adult. You have your own particular, specific problems — financial, intimate, psychological, and otherwise. Those are embedded in the unique broader context of your existence. Your career or job works for you […]

A time for soul searching

I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. You are being programmed

Declinism

There is not more news. The world is not a worse place. There is just a bigger media driven fight for your attention. And a few billion cameras.

Nobody wants to read your shit

I read this book a while ago, it’s called Nobody wants to read your shit by Steven Pressfield and it’s brilliant… Then the other day Dave Trott posted an excerpt and it all came back to me… I love this, Steven says it’s the most important lesson he ever learned, and he learned it when […]

Brexit Pt II

I’m hesitant to post anything about the referendum. I respect all of you for whatever you voted, it’s your democratic right to do so, our forefathers fought to give us that right. Just like the Labour/Tory situation, one side felt morally superior and were more willing to post their views publicly. A majority, albeit a […]

The concept of happiness

I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that – I don’t mind people being happy – but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s […]

Opinions

Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding. Bill Bullard

Recalibrate what success looks like

Everybody thinks they have to build fucking Uber. Recalibrate what success looks like. Vaynerchuk is marmite, sometimes I love him, sometimes I don’t… this however is good. Worth a watch.