When I was younger, I prided myself on being independent, not needing others' help. That's why, when I sliced my thumb open in a Safeway, I just wrapped it in a few napkins, pretended it wasn't a problem, and continued to bleed on the Caltrain all the way home. After…
.content img { width: 480px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; border: none; } Originally posted as four pics in a tweet. Links to the authors' books: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell Moral Politics by George Lakoff…
The next time you're tempted to praise an idea, a movement, or yet another photo-sharing app as "revolutionary"... remember how actual revolutions usually turn out. Like everyone else, I was really optimistic at the beginning of the Arab Spring. Now, Syria's a bloodbath. Egypt's torturing activists. Libya's descended…
Forty-nine people at a queer nightclub, then a Member of Parliament in Britain, then 300+ Muslims during Ramadan, then two black men, then five police officers, then 84 beachgoers, then 250+ Turks, then three more police officers. It's been a long month. This is probably not a healthy coping mechanism,…
For my first collaboration with PBS Frontline, I've been reading lots of research on the psychology of genocide, massacres, and terrorism. Been doing this for a bit over a month now. Fun. Anyway, as it turns out, psychologists have come to a shocking consensus about the minds of these kinds…
We're doing it wrong. Doing what wrong? The way we, activists and storytellers, seem to go about trying to change peoples' minds: by more or less just telling them “you're doing it wrong”. And to be fair, I used to do this style of "activism" all the time.…