The Eccentric Realist

It's World Suicide Prevention Day. This morning, a high school student went out with a self-inflicted gunshot, which sent ripples through the city. It's clear that we have to talk about this, but you can't slay your enemy if you don't understand it, so I'm going to help you understand a bit of what it's about. It's still a taboo subject in most places, and it's uncomfortable to talk about because it implies suffering, which we don't like to deal with. That's all right, that's instinct, but you're going to have to forego that instinct for a little while. Let's talk numbers first. I'm going to refer to the statistics on suicide in the United States, but note that this will vary per country. The rate is 13.32 per 100,000 individuals, which gives 123 suicides per day, of which 51% are done with firearms. men die by suicide 3.53 times more than women, with white males being 70% of total suicides, and with the highest rate being t...

Synesthesia is pretty close to a superpower. Think about sense. How we process the world impacts the way life itself can feel. Go to a concert with a blind person, deaf, and normal person, and they'll all give you wildly different accounts of what they went to do. That goes for just about anything. Sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. Our senses can work together to paint a vivid picture of the world, but for most people, this is superficial. Food will taste better if you can smell it. You can predict how some texture will feel by sight alone. If you're in the wild, you'll rely on your sense of hearing because, by the time you actually see a predator, it'll be too late. We have more than those, of course, but today we're focusing on people who have a deep synergy between them. Imagine running your hand over this bad boy This is a tough one to diagnose, mostly because it's not a condition which gets in your way that much, and you could not even reali...

Fallacies exist in every way, shape, or form, including the cognitive, which is the type we're focusing on today. They shouldn't be confused with logical fallacies, which you can either use to fool your opponents or avoid it to be a more legitimate debater, rather, these are tricks that your mind plays on you. The mind is designed to make decisions as quickly as possible with the input that we have available. These mental shortcuts can be handy, especially in dire situations, but sometimes our mind just can't cope with different issues such as some overabundance of input, social pressure, or emotions. It's the same as stereotyping. Your mind needs to act quickly, but this can come at the expense of the best results from time to time.  Here are a few ways your mind can trick you.  5: Confirmation bias If you have some ideology or worldview, it's more than likely that you've fallen for this fallacy before. Facts are facts. Sometimes we can'...

Sometimes it can feel like the universe is against you when the truth is that the universe can be pretty much indifferent. This applies to nature itself, which will function as it has for millions of years without us, and humanity, which hasn't evolved in preparation for high-speed, high-pressure lifestyles and coexisting with many other people, be it millions or even just thousands. Before we were domesticated by the Agricultural Revolution, we had to function as nomads, hunting, and harvesting until whichever spot we inhabited ran out of resources, and so we'd wander around an area in a cycle. This meant that there couldn't be too many people in the same place at the same time unless you wanted to risk running out of resources too quickly. So, imagine one person. Say it's a man, thirty years old, tanned skin, dark hair, average build. You don't need to wonder much about what he does, as he's just a hypothetical man, but what if I asked you to...

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." You've been afraid of the dark before. Your door's open, and you're afraid of looking through the doorframe and find someone, or something, lurking in the hallway. You tuck your feet into your bedsheets so they're not exposed, you bury your face so you don't see those things which look like monsters in the darkness, and you don't turn to look at the window because that's where anything could stalk you, watch you sleep.  Horror is one of the oldest forms of storytelling that humanity shares. The oldest recorded horror story elements come from Homer , one of the more ancient Greek writers. You'll rarely find a culture without some sort of folktale that they either made or borrowed from someone else. Nowadays there are some things you'll find everywhere. The ghostly hitchhiker that kills you if you leave it stranded,...