Epitomy of Values

Contrast the two clips below, one is a statement of individualism from the movie version of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead. The second is a clip about God complexes from Malice. In essence they are the same, but they are different somehow. What makes one aspirational while the other despicable?
If money is a reward in society, what [...]

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Not A 9-11 Inside Story

Just a dose of morbid humor from the opening sequence from the movie: Postal. Two Islamic terrorists on their way to fulfill their martyrdom suddenly get a dose of empiricism.
Critical thinking gets them in the end.

Thanks to Unreasonable Faith for sharing this.

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Batman and Personality Disorders

For me, the fictional comic-book, cartoon, and movie character Batman and his enemies are not just entertaining fantasy trips for the kid inside all of us, but are practically the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) in comic book form.
I’ve featured the list of personality disorders on the blog before and I thought [...]

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Davos: Banks And Moral Hazards

Nassim Taleb speaks out in Davos, Switzerland, about how crises keep repeating because of the moral hazard of bailing out bad financial practices. Only if a system of punishment is in place (as it is in Switzerland) will future crises be averted.

In the same conference, Taleb records an impromptu video for [...]

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Dr. Doom meets The Black Swan

Nouriel Roubini (Dr. Doom) and our favorite skeptical empiricist Nassim Taleb (The Black Swan) appeared on CNBC to discuss the current financial crisis.

Taleb makes a bold declaration: much of the causes of the crisis are still present: the same people who did not see the crisis coming are still in office. [...]

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Car Commercials That Made Me Stop For A Moment

Cars are sometimes known as the “toys for the big boys”. My passion for cars goes back to my youth when I played with toy cars from Matchbox and extends to today.
Here are several car commercials that made me stop for a moment, playing to two of my poisons: automobiles and critical thinking. Each commercial [...]

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Francis Bacon – Critical Thinker

For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to [...]

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Buddhism and Critical Thinking

I am reposting this from my other blog. 
The blog entry is Reason, Gut Feel, Or Faith. 
This is to add to a previous blog entry in this website: If Critical Thinking Were A Religion.
A lot of religions are faith based. I got surprised when I found out that one was not. Buddhism claims to be logical. Buddha [...]

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How Much Are Banks Worth Nowadays?

Got this image from a Bloomberg email. It shows the market capitalization of Citigroup last January 2009 (green circle) compared to its value last 2007 (big blue circle). This shows how much the bank’s value has fallen in just one year.
How many of us would have thought back then that great banks like Citigroup would [...]

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Americans Are Starting to Save

Americans are starting to save, so what happens to the idea that its citizens should spend more to stimulate the economy? Peter Schiff advocates saving and let failing companies go bankrupt. Some people advocate spending so that there will be more jobs. Which is right?
See what the speaker says at 5:07
I [...]

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