Welcome to Issue #74 of ThinkSpace Thursday
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📚 Light Reading
There's a problem with our desires
The majority of our time and energy is consumed by small-minded social competition, and we really hate to admit this. Our need to cover it up is perhaps the greatest source of human bullshit.
Is workism making you miserable?
For the college-educated elite, work has morphed into a religious identity—promising transcendence and community but failing to deliver.
How philosophy can reduce your confirmation bias
Our assumptions run deep, and it often takes more than just basic critical thinking to spot them. It takes a full, honest analysis of all sides of the argument—something that philosophers have been doing for a couple thousand years now, some better than others.
🔎 Study of the Week
New psychology research reveals the “bullshit blind spot”.
A series of two studies recently found that people who were the worst at detecting bullshit not only grossly overestimated their detection ability, but also overestimated their ability compared to other people. In other words, they not only believe that they are better at detecting BS than they actually are, they also believe that they are better at it than the average person.
📺 Video of the Week
What truly makes a genius? And what separates ordinary geniuses — those who have accomplished remarkable feats and are often compared to their peers, like Stephen Hawking — from peerless geniuses, who are considered alone in the significance of their achievements, such as Albert Einstein? (8 mins.)
🎙 Podcast Episode
89% of young people in their twenties think life has no purpose other than happiness. Is the notion of an end or purpose to life, be it happiness or anything else, a fundamental mistake? Aaron Bastani, behavioural scientist Paul Dolan, and multi-award-winning author Joanna Kavenna debate the role of happiness in life.
🗣 Quote of the Week
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
👀 Perception Watch
This picture was taken from a high vantage point with a very long telephoto lens. Everything in the image is relatively close to each other compared to the distance to the camera, which makes the whole scene appear flat or compressed. This makes it seem like the boats are above the land where a crowd of people have gathered.
😲 WTF
There is a man alive today whose grandfather was born in 1790. Seriously! President John Tyler still has one living grandchild . Read how this is possible.
😁 In the Memetime
📖 Book Club
There’s a lot yet to be figured out about the relationship between nutrition and health. This book clearly depicts the extent of this complexity and conveys our lack of knowledge about what exactly vitamins do in our bodies and the difficulty in understanding the "synergy" between substances found in natural foods and imitating this synergy in synthetic pills and supplements.
🤔 Contemplation Corner
Sounds like every away day I ever went to. Why do we do it?
🎧 The Song of the Week
Lee Fields and The Expressions - Make The World
Listen to the ThinkSpace Thursday playlist on Spotify.
🧠 Go Deeper with ThinkSpace
Join a vibrant community of curious minds who share a passion for bridging timeless philosophy with modern life. Every month, we explore a different philosopher’s ideas and deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world. Click here to learn more.
Next Masterclass:
👍 Thanks for Reading
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Live well, and I’ll see you next week.
John