We’re presently living in the anthropocene and it’s all our fault. The effects of industrialization will be felt for thousands of years to come and be evident millions of years from now (found in everything from fossil records to chemicals). There is a good chance that humanity will go extinct
Continue readingTag: Mind Space
Things Are Good: Let’s Rethink Punishment
When someone breaks the law or acts out in a transgressive manner we often turn to punishment to correct their behaviour. We do this in families and as a society, but is it right? If take a moment to look at the roots of modern punishment we might conclude that
Continue readingThings Are Good: GDPR Forces NYT to Serve Better Ads
Online media companies were forced to rethink their advertiser policies last year because of the introduction of the GDPR. The New York Times decided to stop using ad services that tracked you across the web; exactly what the GDPR was designed to do. Most people claimed that because marketers can’t
Continue readingThings Are Good: Let’s Admit Intellectual Property is Nonsense
Depending on your worldview Intellectual Property (IP) is either necessary or holds us back in terms of cultural (and economic ) development. IP applies to more than what you may think, it covers cartoons to medicine. What’s more, international trade has meant that the American approach to IP is spreading.
Continue readingThings Are Good: In 2019 Aim for Satisfaction Instead of Happiness
At the start of the year people make new goals for themselves, often those are about improving one’s life. This year instead of focusing on happiness as a goal you should consider thinking longer-term and think about satisfaction. Recent research points out that happiness itself is something that can be
Continue readingThings Are Good: 30 Minutes of FOMO a Day
We’ve heard that spending too much time on social media is detrimental to our mental health, and every year more evidence confirms that. Simply put, too much time Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. makes us feel bad. But how much time is too much time? It seems that 30 minutes is
Continue readingThings Are Good: People Who Trust News Sources More Likely to Identify Fake News
Figure 1 from Cook, Ellerton, and Kinkead 2018. CC BY 3.0 A recent survey to find out who is susceptible to “fake news” found that people who hate the media were more likely to misidentify misleading information. The research studied a few thousand individuals in the USA about their thoughts
Continue readingThings Are Good: “Hustle Porn” Losing its Appeal
The term “hustle porn” covers all those ridiculous Youtube videos about get-rich schemes and stories by so-called hard-workers making tons of money because they “work hard”. In practice these people are selling ideological snake oil and it’s hurting vulnerable individuals. They argue that hustling all the time will automatically lead
Continue readingThings Are Good: Let’s Teach Kids Loneliness Techniques
Despite the fact that we are more connected than ever loneliness is still a problem in our society. Indeed, it’s such a problem that people are self-reporting that they are lonelier today than decades ago. What can we do about it? We can teach people how to better deal with
Continue readingThings Are Good: Our Collective Memory Lasts Thousands of Years
When European explorers made first contact with peoples around the world both cultures changed. Unfortunately for those being contacted they were changed by a lot of diseases and exploitation (sadly the exploitation continues to this day). Europeans also ignored the long history of the peoples they met and devalued their
Continue readingThings Are Good: Create Good Thought Loops for Critical Thinking
How we engage the world around literally shapes how our brains work; therefore changing how we interact with reality can alter how we think. As humans we create pathways in our brains both physically and mentally which gives us our heuristic approach to the world around us. We can alter
Continue readingThings Are Good: Have Problem? Sleep on it
When confronting a problem, or looking for creative inspiration, people get told “to sleep on it”. This turns out to be useful advice not just because it’s based on years of smart people saying that, but also because modern neuroscience research is proving it to be true. We can benefit
Continue readingThings Are Good: Don’t Disregard Kierkegaard’s Advice on Busyness
The popular way of thinking is that your work life needs to always be busy. We all know at least one person who is always busy and looking productive. You might be one of those individuals who pride themselves on always working. Let’s rethink that. A long dead Danish philosopher,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Start School Later so Students can Sleep in
Sleep and teenagers go together better than slicing and bread. Every teenager already knows that school starts early and it’s rather cruel to make them learn before they brains are ready to do so. Yet, former teenagers force teens out of bed and kick them out the door too early.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Less Open Debates for a More Open Democracy
The last few years of this bizarre decade have witnessed the resurgence of hate groups. Some of these hate groups are just nicer sounding Nazis and that’s a really bad thing. Since this site is dedicated to good news let’s take a look at how to deal with these ignoramuses.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Schools Should Teach how to Dissent
The role of schools often gets debated in places where safety and wellbeing are in doubt. Some people argue all schools should do is make kids into workers with little concern towards student’s mental and physical health. On the other hand, many argue schools should be places where kids learn
Continue readingThings Are Good: For Happier Cities get More Cyclists
Cities where people cycle regularly are happier than cities in which cycling is rare. The evidence continues to mount that building good cycling infrastructure will improve the life of everybody in a city – regardless if they ride or not. Urban planners already know that designing cities for pedestrians and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Ways to Better Avoid Fake News
Figure 1 from Cook, Ellerton, and Kinkead 2018. CC BY 3.0 The term fake news may new to the modern discourse but the idea is very old. Before President Trump started making up new phrases we called “fake news” we used words like lies, propaganda, and fiction. Regardless of the
Continue readingThings Are Good: There are Benefits to Long Commutes
Long commutes feel like a slog, but there are benefits to sitting on a train and staring out the window everyday. Londoners have some of the longest commutes in Europe which has led to some neat research into the benefits of these long and regular journeys. On the way to
Continue readingThings Are Good: Want to Impress Your Colleagues? Be Honest With Yourself
Many people want to change how their coworkers or their boss views them in the workplace, and no matter the reason for wanting a change there are tons of suggestions on how to do so. Indeed the self help industry in the USA is worth $10 billion dollars! That’s a
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