Why Embarrassing Memories Never Die
You probably have one. Maybe it was something stupid you said in class, a joke that completely failed, a painfully…
Category: Perspectives
New perspectives on life
Is There Really a Map of Human Emotion?
Happiness and sadness seem like obvious opposites. Anger feels very different from sadness. Fear, somehow, can feel much closer to it. That…
Why Reading May Matter More Than Ever in the Age of AI: A Takeaway from PISA 2025
Humanity has never had this much access to information. Almost any question can be answered within seconds. Search engines can find…
Why Do We Fear Different Things?
Put two people in a dark cemetery at midnight and you might get completely different reactions. One might happily walk…
Are Stupid People Easier to Anger?
In a previous article about why some people are so much easier to anger than others, I briefly floated a slightly…
Why Are Some People So Much Easier to Anger Than Others?
Someone cuts you off in traffic. You think: Idiot. Then you keep driving. Someone else experiences the exact same event and immediately begins auditioning…
Is There Such a Thing as Good Capitalism?
There is a strange way to describe the modern economy. Most of us spend our lives doing two things. First, we sell…
Carlo Cipolla and the Strange Economics of Human Stupidity
There is something comforting about selfish people. Not pleasant, obviously. You probably do not want one managing your retirement fund, borrowing…
Why Stupidity Can Be More Dangerous Than Evil, According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Calling someone stupid usually means one of two things. Maybe they failed an exam. Maybe they tried to assemble IKEA…
Zuckerberg’s AI Manifesto: The Decentralization of Superintelligence
For most of the AI era, the loudest questions have been about intelligence. How smart will AI become? Will it surpass…
Why Do We Age? Evolution Never Needed Us to Live Forever
Human beings are remarkably bad at accepting terms and conditions. We click “I agree” on software licenses without reading them,…
The Reputation Afterlife: Why Shameless Confidence Can Outlive Competence
Some people can spend an entire evening replaying a mildly awkward sentence they said seven years ago. They remember the…
Infinite vs. Finite Games: Are You Playing Life to Win or to Keep Playing?
It is a surprisingly common experience. We spend years believing that happiness waits behind the next achievement: a promotion, a…
The Seduction of Certainty: Cognitive Closure
Ask five people why a company is failing, and you may receive five different answers. The CEO is incompetent. The…
The Psychology of Doomscrolling: Why Your Brain Can’t Stop Scrolling
“I’ll just check my phone for a minute.” Thirty minutes later, you’ve somehow learned about a volcanic eruption, a celebrity…
The Psychology of Gacha: Why Humans Love Paying for Random Rewards
“It’s just one more pull.” Those five words have probably emptied more wallets than any luxury brand ever could. Of…
Sony Is Ending Physical Games, but Digital Ownership Is the Real Problem.
Sony has announced that it will stop producing physical discs for new PlayStation games beginning in January 2028. Naturally, the…
Human Extinction Series: Extinction by Exhaustion
There is a strange phenomenon happening around the world. Countries are richer than ever. Medicine is better than ever. We…
Homo Ludens: Life Is a Game with No Tutorial
Human beings have been given many impressive names. Homo sapiens means the wise human, which already feels slightly optimistic considering how…
Why Are So Many Games Doing IP Collaborations? The Business Strategy Behind Video Game Crossovers
At first glance, these collaborations seem like fan service—a fun way to let players dress up as their favorite characters.…