Pandemics happen often in the animal world, and not even little insects can avoid them. Researchers have discovered that one of the greatest creatures on the Earth, the humble bumble bee, practices social distancing during a pandemic. By keeping far apart it reduces the likelihood of other members of the
Continue readingTag: Social
Things Are Good: Want to be Successful? Spend Time with Your Friends
Are you worried you aren’t successful? Don’t be! The greatest success one can have is found in their social network, and size doesn’t matter. According to a 75-year long study done by Harvard the path to success is spending time with friends. Take a moment out of your day today
Continue readingThings Are Good: Wikipedia Founder’s New Social Project Starts Strong
If you’re like everyone else then you still have a Facebook profile that you barely check, yet still need. Yes it’s handy to be in touch with people using one network, but let’s face it: Facebook is garbage. The amount of lies spread and the lack of effective content moderation
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: Men: Drink With Your Friends to Stay Healthy
Now there’s the perfect excuse to go watch the game with your friends or just chillax in a bar! It turns out that males really benefit when they engage in face to face activities with their friends twice a week regardless of what they actually do. So go out tonight
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Conservatives: Only The Rich Can Benefit From Nonprofits
Conservatives believe Justin Trudeau is wrong to take money from nonprofit organizations because to them that’s the job of rich investors on Bay Street. According to this current government and its recent announcements on social impact bonds the only people who should be making money from nonprofit organizations are financiers,
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Conservatives: Only The Rich Can Benefit From Nonprofits
Conservatives believe Justin Trudeau was wrong to take money from nonprofit organizations because to this government that’s the job for rich investors on Bay Street. According to the Conservatives in power in Ottawa and their recent proposal for social…
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Conservatives: Only The Rich Can Benefit From Nonprofits
Conservatives believe Justin Trudeau was wrong to take money from nonprofit organizations because to this government that’s the job for rich investors on Bay Street. According to the Conservatives in power in Ottawa and their recent proposal for social impact bonds the only people who should be making money from
Continue readingThings Are Good: Consumers Care About Social Responsibility
I recall early in the last decade that companies didn’t respond to calls for corporate social responsibility because consumers didn’t care. That seems to have changed, which is a very good thing. Since then, corporations have had to accommodate the growing concerns of people and have even gone so far
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Idle No More Will Fail Unless Votes Follow
Idle No More will fail, not because aboriginals don’t matter, but because they don’t vote. Elections Canada has tracked federal voter turnout on First Nations Reserves since the 2004 general election, and over that time period aboriginal turnout was on average 28% less than that of all Canadians. Accounting for
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 readingThe Scott Ross: Preventing Bullying of Amanda Todd Just As Important As Preventing Her Suicide
Amanda Todd’s death has put the focus on bullying but in only attempting to solve half of the problem, we’re barely solving any of it. Bullying has plagued every generation, social media, however, in fostering a detached schoolyard mentality, has only made things worse. Current programs to combat bullying are
Continue readingThings Are Good: Seniors Who Are Social Are Healthier
Seniors who lead active lives like playing cards and generally hanging out with friends feel healthier and are healthier than there less social peers. Friends make things fun and keep you fit! Dr. Nicole Anderson is a clinical neuropsychologist at Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto, where she’s leading a research
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Conservatives Can’t Avoid Social Responsibility
There is no stronger conservative principle than personal responsibility, however this Conservative government has shown that when people are only responsible to themselves, social well-being suffers, eventually including the well-being of Conservatives. This apparent contradiction is obvious in that though Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, they also claim the largest
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Climate Denial Hits Brazil
ricardo augusto felico.jpg Last year, I wrote about how journalists in developing nations were doing a better job of covering climate change, largely because denial hadn’t really taken root in many of these countries. In particular, I singled out Brazil for praise: According to a study by James Painter of
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Rio-Inspired Optimism (If Not Optimism About Rio)
Rio de janeiro.jpg If the goal was to get the world focused on sustainable development, then this definitely counts as terrible timing. With global leaders pressured by the unending European debt saga—which most recently has engulfed Spain, the euro zone’s fourth largest economy—it’s not surprising that environmental concerns aren’t exactly at
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Arguments For Free Post-Secondary Education
1. Free post-secondary education is a student loan that the country takes out and gets more money back than it ever put in. The government will receive more money from income taxes on the resulting increased salaries and wages of graduates than it spent on the initial investment for free
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: How Do We Explain Scientifically Literate But Anti-Science Conservatives? Paging Drs. Dunning and Kruger
dunning_kruger_percieved_actual_graph.gif As regular readers of this blog know, I have spent a lot of time discussing what we call the “smart idiot” effect: Political conservatives who know more about science—or, have a higher level of education—tend to be more in denial of science or facts in contested areas, like global
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: The Polarizing Poles: Yet Another Study Shows That More Knowledgeable Conservatives Are *Worse* on Global Warming
Figure1b.png Bloggers and commentators have been talking a lot lately about a recent study, by Dan Kahan and colleagues in Nature Climate Change, capturing what I call the “smart idiot” effect: Conservatives who are more educated, or have a higher degree of scientific literacy, are more strongly in denial (or
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Canada’s #1 Social Problem: There Aren’t Any More Social Problems
What’s worse than being a fat, polluting, racist, ignorant jerk? That’s easy, not knowing you are one. And what’s worse than even that? Being in a society full of people just like you, where no one is aware of immoral conduct, of greed, of sexism, and of the ignorance that
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