Books

• Nice!  Camus’ The Fall has been turned into a 5-minute animation.  Note: this will only make sense if you’ve read the book.  Otherwise, you might be lost: 

Culture

• Alcohol does not cause violence, promiscuity, or anti-social behavior.  Rather, it’s your cultural expectation of imbibing alcohol. As the article puts it:
  

  The effects of alcohol on behaviour are determined by cultural rules and norms, not by the chemical actions of ethanol.There is enormous cross-cultural variation in the way people behave when they drink alcohol. There are some societies (such as the UK, the US, Australia and parts of Scandinavia) that anthropologists call “ambivalent” drinking-cultures, where drinking is associated with disinhibition, aggression, promiscuity, violence and anti-social behaviour.

  There are other societies (such as Latin and Mediterranean cultures in particular, but in fact the vast majority of cultures), where drinking is not associated with these undesirable behaviours – cultures where alcohol is just a morally neutral, normal, integral part of ordinary, everyday life – about on a par with, say, coffee or tea. These are known as “integrated” drinking cultures.

• Seriously?  Wow!  Topeka, Kansas decriminalized domestic battery!  Reason: they need to cut budgets.
• Chart of Life Expectancy of the entire world.

Economics

• 10 Essential Fiscal Charts.  Or you can go here to see each individual chart.
• There is a U-shaped relationship between a woman’s education and how much children she will produce: “The women having the least number of children are those that started college but did not finish (1.79 on average). The next lowest group is women who have a college degree (1.93). And among women with education greater than high school, the ones with the most children are those with advanced college degrees (1.98).”  So having more education correlates with having a larger family.  This goes against the conventional idea that the more education a woman has, the less children she will have.  However, the downfall is that the study has made the father’s work hours fixed in order to look closer at women’s work habits.

Gender

• Ha! Ryan Gosling + Feminism = Awesome.  Below is my favorite one:

Global Warming

• Practically arguing about global warming.

Logic

• If someone doesn’t come to the rational conclusion based on argumentation, should you be dick about it?  In other words, how offensive should you be when you argue with someone?  It’s not a simple answer.

Love

• What does it mean to experience love?  You can listen to an interview from philosopher Troy Jollimore which he wrote a book on the topic.

Movies

• It’s been a while since I’ve seen the film The Tree of Life, but this is a nice review claiming that it’s a way to explain troubled faith.

Philosophy

• Oh boy.  I just found out that Schopenhauer is being offered as a class at my university.  I’m excited and to get you excited, here’s an interview with one of the biographers of Schopenhauer.  By the way, the biography is an excellent read.
• Alvin Plantinga has an air conditioning problem: 

Politics

• Looks like someone started a blog about philosophers showing solidarity about occupying Wall Street [H/T to Greg Spendlove].  I’m sure there will be on about the 53 percenters sometime soon, along with the reply to the 53 percenters.
• The USA still leads in Nobel Prizes.
• So what exactly are the Wall Street Protesters so angry about?  These charts should help.

Science

• Amazing.  Scientists have a skin cell gun where it replaces burned skin within days, not weeks or months like the traditional method.    Seriously, this guy doesn’t even look like he got burned.
• If you present a study to a group of people, they won’t be impressed.  If, however, you present the study with neuroscience–even if the neuroscience is irrelevant (!)–then the group of people are wowed by it.
• How to get something from nothing.  Book will come out on the subject as well: 

Sexuality

• New research has shown that birth control beads are 95 percent effective against pregnancy, more effective than the condom.
• “Women who take the Pill tend to choose as partners men who are less attractive and worse in bed but a sounder bet for a long-term relationship.”  The reasoning behind this is that women are looking for stable men in relationships to take care of possible future children while on the Pill.  It offers some advice on whether one should pursue the relationship or not.  At the same time, it may dampen sexual satisfaction, but it strengthens relationships.
• It seems that safe sex is becoming more accepted for teens with their first time experience.
• Another study suggesting that the more porn a society has, rape and violence go down.
• Research shows that casual sex has no increased risk for psychological harm.