INTELLECTUALISM: “Your Mind is an Excellent Servant, but a Terrible Master” / David Foster Wallace ☮

David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and university professor in the disciplines of English and creative writing. This speech is from his graduation address at Kenyon College in 2005.

The most profound ideas are the most difficult to articulate because they express thoughts that transcend words. Many of us struggle through life because we are stuck in our “default setting”, where we unconsciously see ourselves as the absolute center of the universe. David Foster Wallace presents an alternative way to see the world in this timeless speech.

PSYCHOLOGY – ANALYTICAL: “Carl Jung’s Theory on Introverts, Extraverts, and Ambiverts” / Sprouts ☮

Introversion and extraversion are terms first coined by psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland of the 1920’s. According to Jung, an extravert seeks intensive contact with the outside world. An introvert instead turns the psychic energy inwards. Jung believed that no one is 100% extravert or 100% introvert instead we carry both traits. However most minds tend lean either on one side or the other. If both characteristics are equally present, we can speak of someone who has has an ambivert personality.

HAPPY HITCH DAY! “The Hitch” / Documentary / Christopher Hitchens ☮

WHITE EVANGELICAL CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN CULT: “Is the Trump Presidency a Religious Cult? / Reza Aslan” ☮

Are fundamentalist Christians a dangerous religious cult? Possibly. The controversial author and religious scholar Reza Aslan posits that President Donald Trump has much of his evangelical fan-base believing that he’s somehow been anointed by God to become President. Nevermind the Russian election scandal, his affairs with porn stars and unwarranted sexual acts towards women, or his inability to remember even a single Bible verse when asked. Evangelical Christians are abandoning their core moral beliefs to follow, as Reza suggests, someone who exhibits every trademark of a cult leader.

INTELLECTUALISM: “Why Populism is the Greatest Con in America” / Martin Amis / MUST WATCH ☮

here is no substitute for thinking—although modern-day America may have you believing otherwise. Novelist Martin Amis attributes the recent surge in anti-intellectualism to the populist politics sweeping the United States. “Populism relies on a sentimental and, in fact, very old-fashioned view that the uneducated population knows better in its instincts than the over-refined elite. That leads to anti-intellectualism, which is self-destructive for everyone.” The rejection of rationality and analysis is something politicians can easily capitalize on, and Amis refers to President Trump as a plutocrat in populist’s clothing. “It’s profoundly hypocritical because his policies do not favor the working man… It’s an act, populism. Always an act.” Are the American people being conned, and is a return to elitism the answer? Martin Amis is the author of The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump: Essays and Reportage, 1994-2017.

SCIENCE: “World’s Greatest Scientists are all Atheists! Panel Discussion” / Moderated by Lawrence Krauss ☮

A gathering of great scientists who individually will tell a personal story related to science.

Tracy Day, Brian Green (The Elegant Universe), Ira Flatow (Science Radio Host), Neil deGrasse Tyson (The Cosmos), Richard Dawkins (A Selfish Gene), Bill Nye (The Science Guy), Neal Stephenson (Science Fiction Author)

PSYCHOLOGY – ANALYTICAL: “New Study Reveals Which People Fear Death the Least” / big think ☮

Socrates warned against fearing death. He thought it irrational—the fear of death causes you to believe you’re wiser than you actually are. “No body knows death; no body can tell, but it may be the greatest benefit of mankind; and yet men are afraid of it, as if they knew certainly that it were the greatest of evils,” he concluded. His real aim may have been the religious who expressed faith in an afterlife with utmost certainty, a trend still going strong today. 

No mere mortal knows what occurs after death, yet that hasn’t stopped many from speculating. Though Socrates expressed unkind words toward the religious, turns out those who strongly believe in religion fear death less than the less religiously inclined—until you get to atheism, that is. A new study published in Religion, Brain & Behavior discovered a U-shaped curve toward contemplating death, with the most religious and atheists enjoying the least fear of mortality.

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