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Thinking randomly

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Perhaps I should return to what I used to do: ponder mindlessly on things I have observed. After all, it beats taking up second-hand smoking two packs a day, and it is not too bad on my lungs. I stay away from the breathless typing (<- see what I did there?), and no one's the wiser. Much easier on the mind too: let a thought go un expressed.  It is only fair given that I do let a lot of thoughts go unexpressed.  So here starts an attempt in the New Year (Happy New Year, by the way): 1.  All songs by Chicago sound the same. This does not need an explanation.  Just listen to this song, and then point out a song of theirs that does not sound like it. See?  Told ya! 2. Monarchy appeals to freedom lovers in 'Murika. It was once said that no one could be truly free until the last king was strangled with the last priest's entrails. While vegans may not appreciate the imagery, they should try. Consider  Megxit . Far too many were engrossed in ...
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Thought Experiments and Hypotheticals

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it  ~ Aristotle[1], circa 350 BCE. I like to conduct thought experiments because they are useful to understand how people think. But, almost always, I am disappointed because people get defensive and refuse to engage. Perfectly understandable and often frustrating, but it does not faze me, I'll keep trying. One way to conduct a thought experiment is to use a hypothetical situation. A key requirement for such is that the participant provisionally accepts the premise(s) and then reasons out the rest. Albert Einstein used thought experiments a lot. They were useful to him to explain complex phenomena and to gain insight into them.  His book, Relativity , is filled with such. As an example, they shed light on how the same object falling from a moving train appears to take a different path depending on whether the observer is watching from the stationary platform, or from the t...
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Common Sense

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I only wish it were not so common. That probably disappoints a lot of you, maybe even makes you wonder if I am being satirical. Most assuredly, I am not. Plus, this is my second rodeo on common sense. I am not as certain that people will take it any more seriously, but I do hope that they'll.  It may be written rather flippantly, but I am completely serious. Common sense usually serves as a proxy for obvious solutions to easy problems. Which then prompts people to recommend commonsense solutions to all problems. Consider some that you might have heard: "If only we had some common-sense gun laws, we would not have these mass shootings." "Our healthcare system is far too complicated. What we need is to replace it with some common-sense solutions." "People losing their retirement savings in the financial crisis was sad. If only these investors had exercised some common sense and not bought houses they could not afford!" "You do not ne...
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