Category: The World


  • Saw a probably clickbait title “Mishaps overshadow message at the Republican National Convention.” It got me thinking that this is probably another case of media attention hyperbole. The media fixation story I recall was several years ago about child kidnappings. Every week it made national headlines about a child who disappeared or was taken by…

  • In my naive freshman year I was arriving at campus around 7:30am to get a relatively decent parking spot and only have a ten minute walk to class. I could arrive at 7:45am, but the walk would be closer to fifteen minutes. Plus, I could use the extra 20 minutes to study before my 8:00am…

  • (There seem to be two Black Guns Matter campaigns. One about Blacks owning guns. The other about owning tactical rifles also showing up as #blackriflesmatter.) Several years ago before Orlando, before Charleston, and maybe even before Sandy Hook, I had a conversation with my mother about guns and gun rights and gun control. I made a…

  • Memic Straw Men

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    Well, calling the current political, social, or even game discourses debates is probably too generous. That implies discussion which means an attempt at listening to the other if only to hear their point of view enough to counter it. At this point, much of what I see are the use of memes to perpetuate Straw…

  • Thinking about independence since it is the Fourth of July. Over the centuries it is amusing how close the United States has become with the United Kingdom (descendant of Great Britain). So much so that both the President of the United States and a candidate for the job both travel to the UK and talk about how…

  • I am a fan of Jonathan Haidt. In running across this, I think it helps me understand where social conservatives are coming from. He talks about three dimensions: Solidarity: how close we are to something. Family are close. Strangers are far. Hierarchy: who is above and below. Divinity: closeness to a deity. Disgust originated as a…

  • Unknown Knowns

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    Yesterday’s post mentioned unknown unknowns. When I heard this matrix, it pained me that one of the quadrants was missing. Over the years, I have thought about that missing one and what it might mean. Donald Rumsfeld in 2002 talking about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a year before the invasion: Reports that say…

  • Automation is here. When I was in college, for most of my time there, I thought Industrial-Organizational Psychology was my career path. It was not until my last semester when I started working as a student for IT that it all changed. Little did I know that people efficiency was dying. Automation, aka the efficiency…

  • In reading the 2016 update, I learned that apparently The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies was already on my wishlist / to-read list. The 2016 update was an interesting read and reveals I really do need to read this book this year. Reading The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding…