A little late, but here’s the collection for December.
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December 19 · Issue #3 · View online
A monthly curation for those of us who
• Think critically.
• Teach young minds how to think critically.
• Communicate critically assessed information to interested audiences.
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A little late, but here’s the collection for December.
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Why old people will always complain about young people
“The kids these days” are still sick of old people telling them how they’re not good enough. It’s safe to assume this is an immortal aspect of human society: Young people always exist, and older people will always complain about them. Young people, in turn, always say, “Ugh, old people just don’t get it.”
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5 steps for clean air in India | Arunabha Ghosh
India’s big cities have some of the worst air quality in the world. How can we fix this public health crisis? In an actionable talk, social entrepreneur Arunabha Ghosh lays out a five-step plan to put India on the path to cleaner, safer air – and shows how every citizen can play an active role in getting there.
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The smart move: we learn more by trusting than by not trusting
We all know people who have suffered by trusting too much: scammed customers, jilted lovers, shunned friends. Indeed, most of us have been burned by misplaced trust. These personal and vicarious experiences lead us to believe that people are too trusting, often verging on gullibility.
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Feeling Depressed? Here Are the Top 4 Good News Websites
If you turn on the news or scroll through it on your phone, you’ll be bombarded with fear-inducing and often upsetting headlines. Mainstream news tends to focus on conflict, disaster, scandal, and politics, not subjects commonly thought to make us feel good. If you need help getting a daily dose of good news, we can help. Here are the five best positive news websites.
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For better health care, embrace irrationality
Why do we make poor decisions that we know are bad for our health? In this frank, funny talk, behavioral economist and health policy expert David Asch explains why our behavior is often irrational – in highly predictable ways – and shows how we can harness this irrationality to make better decisions and improve our health care system overall.
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Changing the Way You Listen Will Change Your Life
Are you listening? Maybe not as effectively as you could be.
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Antikondo: Orderliness is not the same as efficiency
Often, if you ask a human to optimize something, they’ll make it orderly: straight lines, simple layouts and clean divisions, but when nature (or evolutionary algorithms) optimizes things, it produces redundancy, gradients, tangles, and complexity – ironically, robots produce systems that look like nature designed them, while humans produce systems that look like robots designed them. [Here’s] a thesis about the value of complexity.
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Use Kurt Vonnegut's Happiness Trick
English has no precise antonym for “complain.” All the closest verbs require an object: you can praise a thing or compliment a thing, but you can complain, full stop. Whatever the opposite would be, Kurt Vonnegut says you should do it. It will make you happier.
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5 mindfulness techniques for letting go of control
Being in constant fight-or-flight mode makes us more anxiety-prone, and getting out of that mindset requires relinquishing our need for control. If there’s anything that’s certain in life, it’s that things will happen that are outside of our control. Sure, we can change our environments to reduce the chances of certain things happening and do our best to prepare for worst-case scenarios, but we can’t predict if (or when) they will happen.
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How to be an Epicurean
A philosophy which values innocent pleasure, human warmth and the rewards of creative endeavour. What’s not to like?
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Doodling can help you pay attention
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How to Use Occam’s Razor Without Getting Cut
Occam’s razor is one of the most useful, (yet misunderstood,) models in your mental toolbox to solve problems more quickly and efficiently. Occam’s razor can be summarized as follows: Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
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Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong
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The long-term benefits of losing, according to science
We’ve heard winning isn’t everything, but new research proves that “losing” might boost your success in the long run.
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A scientific attempt to demystify meditation yielded astounding results
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Why You Shouldn't Use Facebook
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People are terrible judges of talent. Can algorithms do better?
The whole idea is that instead of using a resume, you are looking at people’s cognitive, social, and emotional aptitudes, … It’s also much more future-facing and potential-oriented, rather than backwards-facing and sort of only talking about your past experiences. It’s a much more holistic, hopeful view of someone than, Oh, this is what you’ve done, and this is all you can do.”
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