Human Stupidity
The Planning Fallacy: Why Everything Takes Longer Than You Think
The Sydney Opera House was supposed to take six years to build and cost seven million dollars. It took fourteen years and cost 102 million dollars. The Sco…
Search Results
Results for "optimism"
8 articles found
Human Stupidity
Human Psychology
Learned Helplessness: When Experience Teaches You to Stop Trying
In the 1960s, Martin Seligman and Steven Maier were conducting experiments with dogs, running standard classical conditioning procedures involving mild ele…
Rise of America
Reagan and the Reinvention of American Conservatism
By 1980, the United States was in a bad mood. Inflation had been running in double digits. The economy was mired in stagflation — the combination of high…
Philosophy
Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer was the pessimistic counterpoint to Hegel’s optimism. He argued that the world is not a rational, progressive unfolding, but the mani…
Human Stupidity
Why Humans Are Terrible at Understanding Risk
People are more afraid of flying than driving, even though driving is dramatically more dangerous per mile traveled. People buy lottery tickets — a tax o…
Philosophy
Leibniz and the Best of All Possible Worlds
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a polymath and optimist, famously argued that we live in the "best of all possible worlds." This claim, later satirized by Volta…
Rise of America
The Roaring Twenties: American Consumer Culture Is Born
The nineteen twenties in America were years of dizzying transformation in the texture of everyday life. The automobile went from novelty to necessity. Radi…
Adventure
One Piece Live Action Season 2: The Grand Adventure Continues
One Piece shattered the "curse" of bad anime adaptations when it premiered in 2023. The live-action series captured the spirit of Eiichiro Oda's beloved ma…