CTE brain May 3, 2025
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a brain disease achieved by getting hit on the head a lot, and it's usually found in football players and boxers.  Some of the symptoms include impulsive behavior and aggression. 

It's a real thing, and I don't mean to make light of it.  But there's a pattern of behavior I've noticed in certain public figures in recent years that suggests something similar is happening to otherwise healthy people.  There was the football player Antonio Brown who walked off the field (i.e. quit) mid-game in a pretty dramatic fashion (though that might've actually been CTE).  There was the Dilbert creator Scott Adams who used to post benign little things on his blog and Twitter, but who has since devolved into a racist and an extreme fear-mongerer.  There's also Jordan Peterson, who achieved notoriety with a fairly benign self-help book, but who has since become an aggressively annoying Twitter personality.  Add to this list JK Rowling, who earned a billion dollars as a young adult author, but whose entire public life now consists of degrading transgender people for some reason.  And then there's Elon Musk, who used to be an awkward nerd but has since become a Nazi.  Also, Donald Trump. 

You could claim these people are just doing things for attention.  Or maybe that's how these people have always been, and social media has simply allowed them to be more visible about it.  But I think it's something else.  It might be that, similar to CTE, social media has altered peoples' brain to make them act more impulsive and aggressive.  Or it might be drugs (Elon) or supplements (Adams -- men that old shouldn't have abs).  I don't know what it is, but I don't like it, and I think social media should be abolished and people should have to obtain a license to use the internet. #psychology
Autism spectrum May 3, 2025
This is probably wrong, but if autism truly is a spectrum, it would sort of make sense that everyone is on this spectrum, similar to the spectrum of gender or sexuality.  You can't be on or off the spectrum; you're on it.  If this is the case, most people are on the low end of the spectrum, i.e. not very autistic.  The people we think of as "having autism" are on the high end.  That leaves a whole bunch of people in the middle, which would maybe help explain people with difficulty making eye contact, sensory sensitivities, and things like that.  In other words, I think we're all a little autistic. #psychology
Decision fatigue reduction Jun 17, 2024
Decision fatigue is the concept that having too many options or choices makes it more difficult to decide.  I realized recently that I unintentionally reduce decision fatigue by adopting habits and blindly following them forever.  The benefit of this is that (a) I feel less stressed by having too many decisions to make, and (b) my mental energy can be spent on more important things, like eating cheeseburgers or melting ice cubes.  I've consciously or unconsciously reduced the number of decisions I make on a regular basis with these Ten Simple Tricks (TM) (but I could only think of four for now, so bear with me): 
  1. I wear the same thing everyday.  I have like 24 pairs of exactly the same sock.  My pants are all versions of "khaki".  My shirts are all some sort of blue or some sort of green.  Everything matches.
  2. I use a clothes rotation.  I wear whatever is at the back of the closet or the bottom of the pile, then I put worn/clean clothes at the front/top.  It's literally more effort to not do this.
  3. I eat the same thing or the same concept of thing for pretty much all meals.  Meals are generally meat, vegetables, carbs.  Today's meal is tomorrow's leftover.
  4. I park in the same parking spot at work every single day.  I sit in the same chair in the conference room for every meeting.
I used to think it was weird that I'm such a creature of habit.  But in reality it's more beneficial for me to make a decision one time, then never have to make that decision again. #psychology
Rule enforcement Nov 7, 2023
I often encounter rules that aren't enforced and have no consequences if they're broken.  A rule without enforcement or consequence is a suggestion.  Just because you put it on a sign doesn't make it more serious.  Like, "Employees must properly mark all documents."  Who's checking, and what happens if we don't?  Or, "No bikes on walking path."  Is someone patrolling, and what's the punishment?  It's not that I'm a contrarian, I just don't recognize authority that's absent and impotent, especially when the rule seems trivial and annoying.  And here's the thing:  If the rule is easy, I'll follow it.  If it's convenient and simple, I won't even question it.  But if I have to go out of my way, or it's a hassle or difficult or time-consuming, I'll happily ignore your silly little suggestion and go about my business. #psychology
Public relations vs. propaganda Jul 5, 2023
I work at a place with a pretty active public relations department.  There's a heavy social media presence and plenty of company-wide emails celebrating events in the industry.  Most of it is pretty benign, but I can't help but question the difference between public relations and propaganda.  They both seem to be about branding and messaging and creating a story aimed at getting people to believe something about your organization.  It's not reporting or journalism, because it's not free from bias.  It's specifically biased to convince people to believe what you're telling them, not what they think they already know. 

One source says, "Propaganda is a deliberate attempt to persuade people to think and then behave in a manner desired by the source; public relations ... is a related process intended to enhance the relationship between an organization and the public."  The ellipsis actually says public relations is "a branch of propaganda," which I think sums it up nicely.  Another source says, "In the 1920's, propaganda renamed itself 'public relations' and is now an important function of every large business."  So I guess there you have it.  They're essentially the same thing, but the propaganda about public relations made us think they were different. #psychology
Why keep blogging Jun 27, 2023
Every few weeks or months, I think I've reached the end of "the things I want to write on the internet."  And then I come up with something else.  This part of me just doesn't seem to want to die. 

And I think I keep coming back to it -- and have kept at it for so long -- because it benefits me.  It helps me clear up mental clutter.  I like to think of it like this:  My brain is like a messy office; papers strewn about, post-it notes stuck on the walls, doodles on the whiteboard.  Blogging is like taking all that random, disordered stuff and putting it in nice neat stacks and filing it away.  Is it all gold?  No.  Does organizing actually accomplish anything?  Maybe, maybe not.  But going through the process feels like cleaning my brain.  I'm able to consolidate some disparate ideas, put together a coherent thing (sometimes), and free up space for more random brain activity.  I'm gonna keep doing it. #psychology
Active mind wandering Jun 22, 2022
I've been doing a lot of hiking recently, and one thing I like to do is let my mind wander.  Usually when I'm walking or hiking or doing some activity that doesn't require brain power, I listen to music or podcasts, or I think about what I need to get done, or how to solve a problem I've been working on.  But lately I've been going out, leaving my electronics at home or in the car, and just letting my brain do what it wants.  It's kind of a cool sensation, almost like observing my brain in third person.  I can see an idea appear, and I just let my squishy computer go with it.  There's no objective or end state or anything I need to remember or write down.  It's just low-level mental processing, turning the gears and cranks, for no other reason than it's enjoyable. #psychology
Do not engage Jun 7, 2021
My new favorite thing to do (or not do) is to not engage with people when they bring up something political.  I guess I sort of got to the point where I realized everyone is probably a little wrong about everything, and no amount of information, discussion, persuasion, or argument will change anything.  So instead of stating a counterfactual when somebody brings up an obvious non-fact, I just don't say anything.  I let the fart hang in the air, as it were. #psychology
Future feelings Jan 11, 2021
Some people have a tendency to think about how people will feel in the future about current events, and I think it's a little far-reaching to believe that you can control how future people will think of anything.  Let future people decide for themselves.  Live now. #psychology
False inquisitiveness Jan 6, 2021
I don't like when people give the appearance of open-mindedness while in fact having no intention of changing their mind.  A simple example is when people ask something like, "Who created the universe?"  Right from the get-go, that question is making at least two assumptions:  (1) The universe was created, and (2) someone created it.  When a conversation starts with a question like that, it has the appearance of inquisitiveness, but really the outcomes are decided already.  Confirmation bias essentially ensures that the questioner will find the answer they were looking for. 

I find that these types of questions show up on social media a lot, and I've learned from past experience to just not engage.  People aren't "just asking questions" (side note:  if you ask questions, be prepared to accept the answer).  They're looking for a fight, or an argument, or a chance to criticize the other side.  No good will come from engaging with these people, as much as they believe things like "we need to learn to come together and discuss things".  No we don't.  The compromise between a crazy idea and a sane one isn't somewhere in the middle. #psychology