Aesthetics

• Terminally ill patients went to Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as their dying wish.

Climate

• Global warming may result in a 50% increase of lightening strikes in the US in upcoming years.

Culture

• If you googled “how much does a _____ cost?” what are the highest results per state?  

Ethics

• What does it mean to promise sex to someone?  Can it be done?

Gender

• Why is kicking a man in the testicles taboo, even when you’re trying to win in a fight?  Could the answer be that it emasculates the man?  The article is interesting, but I think the author is missing something.  After all, losing a fight emasculates the man, yet the fighting is still allowed.
• What does it mean to be a badass?  It means trying to be as masculine as possible.

Health

• Elementary-school kids ate 54% more fruits and vegetables when they had recess before lunch instead of after. (via Useful Science)
• Facebook could decrease self-reported well-being. (via Useful Science)
• Being lonely can take a toll on your health.  What happens when carpenter ants are lonely?  They literally die.

Math

• Check out this video explaining Hilbert’s Hotel with infinite rooms: 

Performance

• People who are poor at doing x often overestimate their ability to do x.

Relationships

• We’re the only species that has romantic love, and we bond with a partner for a long time.  However, we typically do not bond for life.  We are, for the most part, serial monogamists.  Biologically, it seems that humans are hardwired to fall in love.  Moreover, we may also be hardwired to end a relationship, which has been called “human mate ejection.”  Currently, the evolutionary, cognitive, neurobiological, and genetic underpinnings of human mate ejection have yet to be fully elucidated.  This journal article tries to investigate the possibility of our hardwired ability to “eject” a human mate in our lives.

Religion

• 7.5 million people have left religion since 2012.  There are three graphs too.

Sexuality

• Feminist pornographer delves into the question: “Can porn empower women?”  It’s actually philosophical.
• Study about pornography: any objectification of women is depicted as instrumentality.  Any objectification of men is depicted as dehumanization.  Amateur porn had more gender inequality than professional porn.  Violence and nonconsensual sex was very rare.
• Gary Gutting calls for the Catholic Church to reconsider its stance on homosexuality.
• Sexual consent is like offering tea:

You say: “Hey, would you like a cup of tea?”
If they say, “Yes, I would love a cup of tea! Thank you!” then you know they want a cup of tea.

If you say “Hey, would you like a cup of tea?” and they hem and haw and say, “I’m not really sure,” then you can make them a cup of tea or not, but be aware that they might not drink it.

If they don’t drink it—and this is the important bit—then don’t make them drink it.

You can’t blame them for the fact that you went to the effort of making tea, on the off-chance they wanted it. You just have to deal with them not drinking it; you making tea doesn’t mean that you are entitled to watch them drink it.

And if they say, “No thank you,” then don’t make them tea. At all. Don’t make them tea; don’t make them drink tea; don’t get annoyed at them for not wanting tea. They just don’t want tea, ok?

 And if they say, “No thank you,” then don’t make them tea. They might say, “Yes please, that’s kind of you.” And then when the tea arrives, they might not want the tea at all. Sure, that’s annoying, as you’ve already made the tea, but they remain under no obligation to drink the tea. They did want tea, now they don’t. Sometimes people change their mind in the time it takes to boil that kettle, brew the tea and add the milk. And it’s ok for people to change their mind. You are still not entitled to watch them drink it.

If they are unconscious, don’t make them tea. Unconscious people don’t want tea and can’t answer the question, “Do you want tea?” because they are unconscious.

They may have been conscious when you asked them if they wanted tea, and they said yes. But in the time it took you to boil that kettle, brew the tea and add the milk, they are now unconscious. You should just put the tea down, make sure the unconscious person is safe, and—this is the important bit—don’t make them drink the tea. They said yes then, sure, but unconscious people don’t want tea.

If someone said yes to tea, started drinking it, and then passed out before finishing it, don’t keep pouring it down their throat. Take the tea away and make sure they are safe.  Because unconscious people don’t want tea. Trust me on this.

 That doesn’t mean that they want you to make them tea all the time. If someone said “yes” to tea around your house last Saturday, that doesn’t mean that they want you to make them tea all the time. They don’t want you to come around unexpectedly to their place and make them tea and force them to drink it, while you say “But you wanted tea last week!” They don’t want to wake up to find you pouring tea down their throat, saying “But you wanted tea last night!”

Violence

• Video game violence is associated with a decline in youth violence rates.

War

• The Art of War in Venn diagrams.