#TwoCentsOnTuesday

Tank-less water heaters are like Keurigs for people.

Contrary to popular misconception, we are not naturally divided into genetically identifiable racial groups. Biologically, there is one human race. Race applied to human beings is a political division: it is a system of governing people that classifies them into a social hierarchy based on invented biological demarcations.

That what is self-evident to one person can be seen as silly by another should give us pause about the reliability of common sense as a basis for understanding the world. How can we be confident that what we believe is right when someone else feels equally strongly that it’s wrong—especially when we can’t articulate why we think we’re right in the first place?

We need to make our decisions based on “what is,” not on “what if.”

There are two kinds of geniuses, the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what they have done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians.

We are incredibly well informed, yet we know incredibly little. Why? Because two centuries ago, we invented a toxic form of knowledge called “news.” News is to the mind what sugar is to the body: appetizing, easy to digest—and highly destructive in the long run.

Don’t try to convince people that they are wrong or that they hurt you with their scornful remarks. It is not worth the effort. Use this very same effort to ignore them. Every insult only has power over you if you give power to it by believing it, or raging against it.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Helping is doing something for someone that he is not capable of doing himself. Enabling is doing for someone what he could and should be doing for himself.

Even really smart people see a pattern and insist on putting an explanation to it, even when they don’t have enough information to reach such a conclusion. They can’t help it.

This is the thing about being human. We seek explanation for the events that happen around us. If something defies logic, we try to find a reason why it might make sense. If something doesn’t add up, we make it up.