An Open Letter to Our Readers

Fellow Critical Thinkers,
On behalf of Mark T. Market, I wish to apologize for the delay on new posts.  I also regret to announce that the The Critical Thinker will be on hiatus for awhile due to unavoidable circumstances.
As you may know, Tropical storm Ondoy slammed into the Philippines on Sept.26, Saturday morning, and within 24 [...]

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Soros on “Newspeak”

“Newspeak” is a term used by George Orwell in his novel: 1984, referring to a fictional language used by the totalitarian government in that story–a language that reduces meaning into simple dichotomies (i.e. good vs. evil, right vs. wrong) in order to facilitate propaganda by the state.
The the following video, juxtaposed with media-clips criticizing him, [...]

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Nirvana o Upaya

 
Nirvana: after destroying the source of all sorrow within oneself, and having gained the ability to metabolize “light” or a higher frequency of existence to receive it comfortably, bliss is experienced, liberation is attained. A certain lifestyle follows while here on earth, and what gains respect from most of the community is a type of [...]

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4 Types Of People (I Must Be…)

Kim Kiyosaki (wife of Robert of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame) shares an interesting insight about what she calls: 4 kinds of people, grouping them by their mantras:

I must be right — people who love to be validated and proven correct.
I must be comfortable — people who like settling in their comfort zones and not [...]

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Moral Politics

This is an editorial from Philippine journalist, Randy David, commenting on the political scene in the Philippines–which is due to have its next presidential election in 2010. It’s a good critique of moral views in politics–where politicians often use moral arguments to further their platforms, without really addressing the real issues at stake.
Good And Evil [...]

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Randomness Activists

Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb teams up with the authors of Dance With Chance: Spyros Makridakis, Robin Hogarth and Anil Gaba — and discusses with them key concepts common amongst all of them. The four authors are advocating a certain kind of activism to bring the public to awarness of irrational expertise, our overreliance [...]

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Opacity And Risk Taking

A couple of months ago, Nassim Taleb spoke out in Bloomberg about the “reforms” taking place in the financial system under the Obama and Geithner plans. He expressed his disgust and disappointment that not only are governments bailing out failed institutions but the new accounting standards being proposed after the crisis allow for even less [...]

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Too Many Choices

Given the example of patients and doctors and prescriptions, freedom of choice becomes an oxymoron when choices are given to individuals who are not trained or prepared to make an intelligent decision. Whilst Dan Ariely talked about irrational decision making, Barry Schwartz illustrates how having choices end up limiting individuals rather than empowering them.
[...]

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Wireless Electricity

Doing a reprise of Nikola Tesla, MIT engineer Eric Giler demonstrates how electricity can be transmitted wirelessly through magenetic fields. The concept is safe, portable, and commercially viable. The applications for wireless power are immense.

We featured Tesla’s work on Electricity before as well as his flying machine concept.

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Predictably Irrational

Are we truly in control of our decisions? Dan Ariely, a behavioural economist, illustrates how flawed our intuition can become sometimes. Often our decisions are dictated not by our cognition, but by the availability of options given to us. This flaw can lead us into making some surprisingly stupid decisions.

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