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Otto says “Don’t call me stupid”

One of the best comedy movies of all time makes light of the fact that we all want to be seen as smart by our peers. Sure we want them to think we’re good-looking too, but intelligence is more permanent and has a special prestige to it. When we are dumb we feel...

Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist

With so much negativity in the media, Matt Ridley presents a very solid case for optimism. Playing on many of the same themes as Robert Wright in Non-Zero, Matt Ridley shows us Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” at work in the market forces of trade and...

Green Eggs and Ham

In Quanology I talk about how every bit of information in the world is trying to improve the rate of proliferation of the genes of its purveyor. Everything is taking sides. Even the innocuous book Green Eggs and Ham. Information helps people, it helps groups, but it...

Personality Characterizations

Personality is your essence. In Psych 101, I remember being surprised by this, thinking personality was psychology. But no, you have a personality and then you develop (developmental psychology), you learn things (behaviorism), you socialize (social psychology), you...