Many wisdom traditions encourage a path or process orientation rather than a destination or product orientation to living well. Happiness makes for a poor goal. It’s not particularly well-defined. What is happiness? How much happiness is enough to be happy with – to not eventually be let down by? The
Continue readingAuthor: Ron Brown
Death By Trolley: The Grad School Gospels – Part 2: Passion, Fear and Indifference
In The Grad School Gospels: On Professional Baseball, Academia, and My Shared Experience with Dirk Hayhurst, I juxtaposed Hayhurst‘s pro baseball journey – which he recounts in his first book, The Bullpen Gospels – with my journey through academic psychology. Several factors conspired to make our situations alike. We both
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: The Grad School Gospels: On Professional Baseball, Academia, and My Shared Experience with Dirk Hayhurst
In The Bullpen Gospels, author and former professional baseball player, Dirk Hayhurst, takes readers through his lived experience in the cut-throat world of professional baseball. As I read Hayhurst’s story, I find myself impressed by his talent as a writer, sympathetic to his hardships as professional baseball player, and connected
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Should Toronto Blue Jays trade d’Arnaud & Syndergaard for Dickey?
Heavily rumoured all weekend has been an impending trade between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Mets. In their most recent permutations, rumours have the deal going as follows: To the Blue Jays: RA Dickey (2012 NL Cy Young Award winner, 3 consecutive strong seasons, 38 years of
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: A transcendent secular solution to the mind-body problem
What is the relationship between mind and matter? Materialism holds that the mental is a product of the physical – the mind is what the brain does. By contrast, dualist accounts are consistent with our common sense notion that the mental is fundamentally different from the physical. How much does
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: What issue do you wish you cared more about?
There are a lot of important moral/political/pragmatic issues. Far too many for one person to even be aware of, let alone be informed on and/or personally active in addressing. I believe that you cannot choose your interests or your passions. You can decide to try to get into something -e.g.,
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Massive Republican Revival On Horizon?
Please indulge a bit of educated speculation. Throughout President Obama’s first term many economists have predicted another major economic crisis as big or bigger than 2008 in the not-too-distant future. Proposed contributing factors include the massive debt held be several European countries and toothless financial reform in America. Regarding the
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: About Death By Trolley
Well hello, there! Have you been waiting long? No? Good. Please, do come inside. (Pro-Tip: Given that this is the blog of a Canadian, social etiquette dictates that you remove your shoes upon entering.) Welcome to Death By Trolley! You’ve entered an oddly though explicably named corner of the Internet
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: The Etymology of “Death By Trolley”: Explaining The Name
Death By Trolley gets its name from The Trolley Problem, a philosophical thought experiment within the domain of morality and ethics. There are multiple formulations of The Trolley Problem. One of the most well-known versions invites the hearer to imagine that a trolley is on its way to running over
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: I Support Occupy Wall Street Because…..
I don’t want wealthy, well-connected individuals, corporations and lobbies buying politicians; A large and secure middle class is vital to a democracy; vast wealth inequality creates vast political inequality and exploitation; By reducing the role of corrupting private influences in politics (e.g., big banks, insurance, pharmaceuticals, defense, private prisons), America could possibly lower its taxes while also improving […]
Death By Trolley: Support Occupy Wall Street Through Blog-Bombing
What is Blog-Bombing? The term is inspired by the concept of Tweet-Bombing, in which many Tweeters engage en masse in tweeting a particular message in order to fill the Tweetosphere with the message. In the case of Blog-Bombing, the idea is for bloggers to make regular (e.g., daily, every few days) quick blog posts in […]
Death By Trolley: Moneyball Versus Short Hops
I recently had the privilege of reading the book and watching the movie, Moneyball. As a stat-headed baseball nerd, I thoroughly enjoyed both. For those unfamiliar with Moneyball, it is a book-turned-movie which also energized a new approach to baseball analytics under the same name. This new approach is presented in the book and movie […]
Death By Trolley: Buddhism for Skeptics of Religion
A non-Buddhist skeptical atheist with background in psychology, scientific research, healthcare and mindfulness meditation shows how many of the central tenets and practices of Buddhism can appeal to other skeptics. 
Death By Trolley: Kicking Addictions: Commentary on What It Takes and What Helps
Work on getting past addictions by setting effective, personally-valued goals, exercising discipline but tolerating lapses, accessing support, finding substitutions, distractions and adaptive strategies, and cultivating mindfulness and insight into emotions and thought. 
Death By Trolley: Atheists are Differently Religious – and No, Atheism is not the/a Religion
A main focus of this blog is to consider and compare different political and ethical philosophies so as to promote better understanding of one’s own worldview and those of others. I frequently focus on progressivism/liberalism and libertarian conservativism, arguing that these incompletely overlapping moral/political philosophies each have their own internal logic and validity, but that […]
Death By Trolley: Mental Health Risks For Political Activists
Are social/political activists at elevated risk for certain mental health conditions and social problems? 
Death By Trolley: New Rule: Only People With PhDs May Give Opinions.
This appears to be the premise of an unduly dismissive commenter. For your enjoyment, here is what he/she had to say: Hi Ron, I hope you will forgive me for sounding a tad harsh here, but a trade school certificate from a tenth rate university does not qualify you to speak about scientific research, pro […]
Death By Trolley: Where do Observant Jews and Conservative Christians get their Morals, Theologically Speaking?
Theologically speaking, where do Jews and Conservative Christians get their values?
Death By Trolley: Homeopathy Under Fire in the US, UK, Italy, Israel and Australia
Skeptic North, a well-written Canadian team blog advocating for science, skepticism and rationalism, has been a great source of information on the ongoing scientific, intellectual and moral train-wreck that is homeopathy. I have a bit of a warm spot for this blog, as it was formed in part by concurrent and later-coming members of Canadian […]
Death By Trolley: The Obama Cult Apparently Still Has Some Members…
Over the past few weeks I have posted several articles critical of Barack Obama and his clear-cut progressive fakery. For a brief run-through of some of the things that Obama has done to earn the title of fauxprogressive, click here. I even went so far as to enter the first definition for fauxgressive on the […]