Culture & Religion — March 2, 2009

The Cult of Celebrity Poses a Significant Threat to our Deteriorating Societal infrastructure

"The Cult of Celebrity is supported by an aggressive brainwash machine promoting the wrong heroes in the face of our stressed infrastructure. For example, in a film about a brilliant mathematician, we are trained to believe that the actor is the proper icon. Or in the case of a beautiful song about human rights, we are conditioned to venerate the performer. The net result: shortages of great mathematicians, shortages of social activists, but no lack of entertainment celebrities posing as gods."

Catman Cohen

We need to resurrect neglected heroes in our society in order to inspire our youth to pursue vocations (e.g., nursing) now in crisis.

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Neuropsych

25 years since Columbine: We’re closer to decoding mass-shooter psychology

Public mass shooters almost always have worldviews shaped by the "3 Rs": rage, resentment, and revenge.

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Thinking

Everyday Philosophy: “Is there anything wrong with trauma dumping?”

When does "oversharing" become an issue?

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Leadership

Adam Grant on how to identify and develop high-potential leaders

The ability to toggle between abstract and concrete thinking is a key differentiator of high-potential leaders.

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Business

Want true success? Be more philosophical about “good” and “bad” failure.

Bob Dylan gave us the paradoxical gem "there's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all." He had a point.

Starts With A Bang

The idea that matter is mostly empty space is mostly wrong

Practically all of the matter we see and interact with is made of atoms, which are mostly empty space. Then why is reality so... solid?

Up Next

Culture & Religion

Billionaire Philanthropist is an Oxymoron

"The concept of a 'billionaire philanthropist' is an oxymoron. If somebody has amassed a billion dollars, that person likely did so by overcharging for products/services through monopolistic power in the marketplace. It would be much more impressive to see the 'billionaire philanthropist' drastically cut prices for the benefit of mankind rather than merely handing over 10%-20% of personal net worth for purposes of obtaining a tax break."