Why we fear terrorism but not car crashes

Jo Nesbø’s The Thirst is my current eye candy book. If you enjoy fast paced Scandinavian crime fiction, I highly recommend Nesbø’s brilliant but alcoholic protagonist Harry Hole. The Thirst is the 11th book in the series and also provided me with an opportunity to return to cognitive biases, something I have written about in …

Is shopping a basic need?

Yesterday the stores reopened in Austria after a six week lockdown. In a newspaper interview, the managing director of a discount fashion chain with over 180 outlets expressed his joy and relief. Customers could once again pay tribute in his shopping temples fulfilling a “basic human need”. What? When did shopping become a basic human …

Divine redemption or comedy of errors?

A few days ago in a much discussed post I posed the question: What duties do the living have to compensate victims of past injustices? The tenor from comments, and also my opinion, is that at minimum the living have obligations towards the dead regarding their historical memory. It seems that Sperello di Serego Alighieri, …

Leftists of the World Unite!

Last summer I questioned the ability of social media to actually rally people and bring about populist revolution. The storming of the United States Capitol on January 6th, however, is a counterexample which clearly casts doubt on my claim. Social media played a critical role in mobilizing and unifying diverse right-wing groups – QAnon supporters, …

Food waste and dumpster diving

The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered …

What do we owe deceased victims?

Last semester I participated in a proseminar titled the Moral Dimensions of Harm. Two questions we discussed were: What duties do the living have to compensate victims of past injustices?Assuming that the living have a duty, what form should their compensation take? Given the recent global wave of statue removals and historical revisionism, I find …

Diamond vs. Loaf

Based on the incredible popularity of my Pence vs. Quayle post I’ve decided to do another head-to-head face off. Today’s topic, however, is far more important: Neil Diamond or Meat Loaf? Who is the more bombastic performer? Who is cheesier? Who has the best lip curl? Who the most ridiculous lyrics? Who is your favorite? …

Over-diagnosis of ADHD?

Today’s post again comes from a NYT crossword puzzle. Clue 25A: reason to grant extra testing time, for short. Answer: ADHD. As a parent and educator the answer piqued my interest. I had some vague idea of a controversy regarding ADHD over-diagnosis , especially in the United States, but I didn’t really know much about …

Correcting the EU’s failed immigration policy

This is the third in a series of slightly longer posts drawing on some of my academic work. Following up on my last post, here I propose an alternative to current failed EU immigration policies. As Europeans we stand before a caesura. Our unity, our democratic institutions, our belief in the inviolability of human dignity, …

Only focusing on strengths is a recipe for mediocracy

Hi, Astrid here. I haven’t been as active as I would like to be on the Brain Juice blog – something I hope to correct in 2021. This is a revised English version of a German post on our company homepage. My motivation for writing this post is the banality of many business coaches posting …