Education and the Blank Slate: Setting Realistic Expectations

Excellent article from a surprising source: Helicopter Parenting Has Given Birth To A Generation of Entitled Victims Another similar patient I saw was a 14-year old female presenting with depression and anxiety. Though she was of moderate intelligence, she and her highly-educated parents insisted on her taking the toughest classes in pursuit of her primary… Continue reading Education and the Blank Slate: Setting Realistic Expectations

The Facade of Democracy

And for some good news, maybe we’re closer to the ‘dark enlightenment’ than commonly believed, with democracy being mostly a facade. From Taki: Aborting the Working Class Martin Gilens is a political-science professor at Princeton. Over the course of the past decade, he has authored and coauthored several books and papers in which he argues… Continue reading The Facade of Democracy

Intellectualism Signaling

In earlier posts here and here I discuss signaling, but I want expound on this further, specifically ‘intellectualism signaling’. Signaling is actions and mannerisms that are intended to boost one’s social status among like-minded peers. Such mannerisms can include actions (writing, activism, etc.) and aesthetics (physical appearance, materialism, etc.). I define two types of signaling:… Continue reading Intellectualism Signaling

Social Taxonomy

This taxonomy aims to unify these blog posts, as well as certain aspects of society and economics under a hierarchical framework. The idea is that I can classify an article or a blog post somewhere in this taxonomy. Define: wealth = A intellectualism = B individualism (Randianism/Objectivism) and or authenticity = C Taxonomy: Primary: ‘smartist… Continue reading Social Taxonomy

Millennials and Intellectualism Culture, Part 2

Part 1 Continuing on the article… No. 1: read a fucking book… No. 2: learn something… No. 3: stop buying so much shit…. Everything he’s listing that he wishes were happening is already happening, at least as I can perceive based on my own observations in the field. As further evidence of how America is… Continue reading Millennials and Intellectualism Culture, Part 2

RE: How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization

From Medium: How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization he show ended in 2004. The same year that Facebook began, the year that George W. Bush was re-elected to a second term, the year that reality television became a dominant force in pop culture, with American Idol starting an eight-year reign of… Continue reading RE: How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization

The Wealth Inequality Obsession

There have been more articles than usual about social science issues such as wealth inequality, ‘the 1%’, student loans, offshoring wealth, and so on. I counted ten such articles on Hacker News in the past week alone, all of them viral: Wealth doesn’t trickle down – it just floods offshore, research reveals (2012) The 1%… Continue reading The Wealth Inequality Obsession