With links for more reading — This is a collection of some of the coolest, most interesting, and weirdest concepts I discovered in 2021. I spent a long time curating and crafting this, I hope you enjoy it. *Note: Almost all of the headlines are clickable links. Be Happy, You’re Smiling According to a study published in Experimental Psychology, researchers…

The true history of the MacArthur “genius grant” — “I figured out how to make the money. You fellows will have to figure out how to spend it.” With every fall comes auburn leaves, overpriced pumpkin lattes, and palpable excitement over an obscure merit-based lottery only a few can ever hope to achieve. That time of year where The…

When researchers tried putting a dollar value on belief — “A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” — Oscar Wilde She wouldn’t drink tea. It had caffeine, and caffeine was evil. And so were tobacco, alcohol, and other sinful unhealthy substances. Even “hot drinks,” apparently would condemn your soul to the forbidden world. The Word…

And I weep for our future — Hi. Here’s a list of activities (or legitimate political discourse?) by QAnon followers in recent years: 2% of all tweets about the 2020 election were from QAnon accounts. They created 8% of all the “#voterfraud” tweets during that period, too. — Source A man blocked the Hoover Dam bridge with…

Exploring disgust and politics — One of my college roommates had a lifelong aversion towards cucumbers. …

“The truth is always in the middle.” — Every week or so I take a bit of time to explore. I like finding the obscure, the weird, the funny, and — on days like this — those who have perfected what I aspire to do. It’s always neat to find out how successful people got their starts. In…

Democracy would survive, for one — Structural norms in society are difficult to change. But valuing something at $0 is one way to break them. Indonesia was one of the later countries to adopt the internet for a variety of reasons, with their connected population only reaching 54% in 2020. According to NapoleanCat, the same year…

Time is relative, and a b*tch — David Dunning is one of the two psychologists behind the Dunning-Kruger effect. He often asks people a question: “Are you vaguely embarrassed by things you did 5 or 10 years ago?” And he follows up with: “If you are, that means good, you’re evolving, you’re improving.” The idea behind this…

Despite what you may hear, abortion was far from illegal in the past — The fundamental human right to an abortion is under egregious attack in America. …

Don’t listen to Zuck, the internet is not a ‘safe place’ for us to be coddled like children. — I’m almost 100% positive you’ve seen it before. Whether on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, we all inevitably come across posts and information we don’t like. Sometimes it’s a political affiliation you don’t agree with, a not-so-subtle attempt by a brand to influence us, or straight-up fake news — unwanted activity…

Thinking back on the craziest presidency of our times — I feel like the level of hate has dropped in our society in recent months. Not much, mind you, but rewind a year ago and try to remember the putrid vile that was our social media feeds. A filthy pile of vomit that was in no small part due to…

Allow me to introduce you to Johnny Boom — Let me tell you a story. Johnny Boom was born in 1960 to incredibly wealthy parents. …

And no, it’s not the COVID vaccine — Not all vaccines are created equal. At least in the eyes of different groups of people, that is. But one of the most widely adopted vaccines in recent years has been for Hepatitis B. It’s is a terrible virus that infects the liver, eventually causing cirrhosis, cancer, and possibly death…

Welcome to the rain wars — I’d be shocked if you haven’t heard of the term ‘fake news,’ but have you come across ‘fake rain’ before? It’s a surprisingly common occurrence. Most know about cloud seeding, the process of sprinkling clouds with small amounts of silver-iodide or salt to induce rainfall. …

A brief history of why the hell we still pay income taxes — “The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” — Will Rogers We all hate paying taxes. Some of us are better at avoiding them, some of us aren’t, even fewer of us feel it is our civilian duty to pay every single penny. …

They’re playing a deadly game of life and death — for all of us — My cat used to sit on a tall stool in our kitchen. He would nod off to sleep, lay his head down, and then inevitably notice it. Mr. Smigglesworth III would chase his tail around and around and around that stool. He was never able to catch up to his…

This is the way the World ends, not with a bang, but an incredibly cute kitty face — There’s a massive labor shortage in the U.S. right now. Some industries are responding by raising their wages. Some are just turning to the age-old adage of accusing workers of being lazy and lacking straps for boots. Republican leaders are blaming the situation on government unemployment benefits. And then there…

This isn’t about religion. Not really. — This weekend you’ve found yourself visiting some neighbors for a relaxing barbecue. You have some close friends there as well as some new stragglers who were invited. One of them is me. I’m 6 feet, 200 lbs, with big old tired blue eyes and usually a smile on my face…

And I don’t think we can leave. — I noticed an interesting building facade the other day. It stood out to me as I’ve looked at that exact building at least 50 times and never noticed the feature before. In the old wild west, they would’ve called it a ‘false front’. It’s where the front of the building…

The current model is clearly broken — I’m a writer, or at least that’s what I pretend to be online. And although I do tend to write about peanut butter tuna sandwiches and the occasional fictional story under a pseudonym, out of sheer embarrassment for my lack of words with a way, I mainly stick to essays. …