We see a lot of debate around AI these days. The reason for many of these debates is the multiple studies of people outsourcing more and more of their thinking to AI and their decline in cognitive skills. Another completely unrelated trending topic these days is the miracle weight loss drug Ozempic, which was originally created for patients with type II diabetes and is exploding in popularity and is being marketed as an easy weight loss drug....
We have all heard of the left and the right wing political ideologies. We have a broad understanding of what is left and what is right. Left wing is generally liberal, emphasizes on equality, social justice and reform. Right wing on the other hand are more inclined towards free market, authority, tradition, duty, hierarchies and individual liberty. More generally, I think it is fair to say that the left wants big reforms in the current system and the right wants to maintain the current system....
If you follow politics, you might have noticed that politics dealing with “us vs them” works very well where the “them” is considered an enemy. The “us” and “them” could be based on religion, caste, language or any other such thing that comes to your mind. Why does it work this well? You might think that if a person belongs to a particular religion, they have deeply internalized their religious beliefs and if they come across any conflicting belief, they react in… not an ideal way, to say the least....
All of us have heard statements like “love marriage is better than arranged marriage”, or “living in Europe is better than living in India”, or “X religion is better than Y religion”, or “science is better than religion” and vice versa. We also know a lot of people who strongly believe these statements. These are blanket statements. These are generalizations that people believe in. I have some thoughts on these....
Imagine this, you are living in a time where slavery is very common, let’s say sometime between 15th to 17th century. You see that a lot of people believe that slaves are a different “species” of sorts and they deserve the treatment they are getting. You see that a lot of people treat slaves inhumanely. What do you think your reaction will be? Will you believe that there is nothing wrong with slavery?...
Judgement is a skill that is very necessary to have in certain situations in life. Our judgements affect a lot of things in our life. There are three levels on which we judge people. As you might have already guessed from the title, they are - action, intent and context. In today’s blog, let’s explore how we use these incorrectly and how we should actually use them to correctly judge people (and ourselves)....
I would never die for my beliefs, because I might be wrong. -Bertrand Russell There are almost no certainties in life. Almost every conclusion we reach, every decision we make, every thought that occurs to us and every word we speak is a leap of faith to some extent. I can’t even say that the table that is in front of me right now exists or not. I may say that if I assume that there is a physical table present in front of me, then through my perception (i....
The phrase “my life, my rules” has been very popular. People just randomly throw this phrase around these days. Let’s dissect this today. When somebody says “my life, my rules”, they usually mean, “I own myself, I can do whatever I want with myself”. This reaction is usually triggered when they are stopped from doing something, their freedom is hampered. For example, if an orthodox father tells his daughter to come back home early and not wear short clothes, this is the reaction the daughter will have....