A continually expanding repertory of meanderings evolving over the years, the oldest at bottom, of the Illusory Gobshite, an insignificant and sporadically observational asocial armchair philosopher. At best, there might be something here worthy of contemplation, and at worst, a mere tangle of twisted twaddling by an illusory gobshite.

87 | 86 | 85 | 84 | 83 | 82 | 81 | 80 | 79 | 78 | 77 | 76 | 75 | 74 | 73 | 72 | 71 | 70 | 69 | 68 | 67 | 66 | 65 | 64 | 63 | 62 | 61 | 60 | 59 | 58 | 57 | 56 | 55 | 54 | 53 | 52 | 51 | 50 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 46 | 45 | 44 | 43 | 42 | 41 | 40 | 39 | 38 | 37 | 36 | 35 | 34 | 33 | 32 | 31 | 30 | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Begin

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Round 87

87-40) We become more creative when national discord does not predominate.

87-39) As with everything, calls to action come into play whenever something seems different than our expectation, as with disappointment which is normal and to be expected, and introspection helps us to see how much we are like everyone else, and creates opportunities to better understand ourselves and others.

87-38) Unifications may create closeness in their immediacy, but old clan or personal differences tend to muddy the waters before long.

87-37) To avoid stagnation and corruption, change should be constant, even when it does not seem necessary.

87-36) Utilizing just the right amount of self-censorship is something at which we are not especially adept.

87-35) We seem to readily accept lesser security for the sake of greater convenience.

87-34) If companies did not make so much money, a small change in tax rates would not seem as consequential, even though in reality it is not and loudly complaining about it is.

87-33) Grief and bereavement encompass psychological and physiological distress responses when others retreat from a social relationship that we either possess, feel pressure to possess, or desire; as in the deliberate breaking of a date, or in the involuntary death.

87-32) Being intelligent does not make automatically make you enlightened.

87-31) Being intelligent does not make you immune from being prone to biases and frailties.

87-30) The need to seem different points to the progressive force of evolution, which then enlists and increases support, or, failing that, dies.

87-29) To ignore personal introspection and anecdote is to ignore possibilities.

87-28) Our impressions, intelligent or otherwise, will likely be found wanting over time.

87-27) We always manage to excuse our inaction by blaming something for hindering our progress.

87-26) We vacillate constantly between dog-eat-dog and dog-love-dog, whether in personal, business, or government affairs.

87-25) Industries that tend to get more heavily regulated don’t seem to be among the top contributors to political campaigns of the parties in charge.

87-24) The most honest thing that an economist will say is that the economy can be quite confusing.

87-23) Simply being aware of mistakes made by others does not mean you till not make them as well.

87-22) We are well aware of the volatility that the consolidation of industries has been creating, however we are willing to ignore them and continue on our path because it is bring us great profit.

87-21) To cite tradition as a reason for not changing things is usually the excuse for holding on to power, and to cite reform is the excuse for getting back lost power.

87-20) Better than to focus on senior independence might be to focus on family and group interdependence.

87-19) Though we expect political candidates to have a history of making policy, media reporting does a rather poor job of analyzing it and applying it to the open position.

87-18) We can always tell with certainty why inflation came down, but only manage to guess beforehand what could have prevented it.

87-17) When we disagree, we prefer uncoupling over engagement.

87-16) We tend to see too many rules only when we don’t agree with them.

87-15) We may tire of reminders, yet we often know things that we fail to utilize when the crucial moment to do so arises.

87-14) Laws are often seen as government taking over parental roles, but, anyway, children no longer seem to belong to their parents whose expectations of performance and enticements toward individual independence, often at a very early age, delegate to others who perform the traditional parental roles, such as teaching basics and trades and comportment with groups and other individuals, yet maintaining flawed outlook that they will always perform as the parents expect.

87-13) Moving into the Neolithic era, we abandoned all the personalized characteristics of trust, safety, and support that, to a certain extent, we still employ in small closely knit groups and family settings, in order to capitalize on conveniences that are made possible only through the cooperation that can be attained through large groups.

87-12) An important evolutionary factor in prompting adaptation is that we don’t always know when to stop, or just don’t wish to do so.

87-11) Natural evolution only occurs when the rules are broken.

87-10) Theories of government conspiracy neglect to consider individual players whose actions or inactions, often likely for reputational reasons, may make it seem like everyone in their section is an accomplice, though most probably just follow along with an agenda simply to remain in good stead and keep their positions.

87-9) We may seek the most effective way to do things, however we often choose the most convenient ones.

87-8) The boundaries of self-determination to which we feel entitled or claim to possess are constantly oscillating, since we depend so much on the unknowns within us and the world around us.

87-7) Death should be enough proof that there is no such thing as absolute self-determination.

87-6) It is usually necessary for governments to issue regulations in order to increase the efficiency and productivity of economies.

87-5) Increased efficiency and productivity frequently happens only under the pressures of loss.

87-4) Even the most intelligent often follow their peers like sheep to the slaughter.

87-3) Having gradually moved away from producing our own sustenance, we have come to the point where processed foods and packaged goods are considered essentials, even as their adverse effects become ever more evident in our health, economy, and security.

87-2) We excuse price increases on the importance of not interfering with demand and supply principles, even as essentials producers make record profits and workers find it more difficult to afford those essentials.

87-1) Economists agree that businesses always set prices to maximize profits, but disagree when others call that greed, even when competitors spot a trend and all increase their prices.

Round 86

86-40) Just because one may be the first to publish an idea does not mean that they are the first to have it.

86-39) World War III may well be fought with viruses if communications satellites are disrupted, yet it will still require much human capital from the masses on battlefields.

86-38) You only need to scare the masses to reduce a nation into an economic catastrophe.

86-37) It is mostly those of the disadvantaged middle class who benefit from preferences in the education system.

86-36) Large businesses which claim a dearth of complaints against them do not present a clear, if any, way for consumers to post them.

86-35) When responding to regulations that may negatively impact their profits, large businesses would ignore the harms already caused and cite predictions of future harm instead.

86-34) Economists often pepper their comments with gambling metaphors.

86-33) It is normal for machines to escape human control with their unintended consequences, normalizing relief from culpability.

86-32) We gladly go along, even while entertaining suspicion, and it only takes one thing to make us shift gears and condemn or abandon.

86-31) Inattention and hyperactivity may be the new normal, given concentration and calm are no longer so crucial, as we no longer need to hunt for sustenance and are no longer prey to most species around us.

86-30) Social media is providing new nests for disparate ideals to assemble, increase in size, and do battle for supremacy.

86-29) Neither conservatives nor liberals mind changes after they get to understand them.

86-28) Disrupting patterns of patronage disintegrates legacies.

86-27) Monoculture in farming is akin to inbreeding in mammals, with comparable adverse consequences.

86-26) It is very difficult, if not impossible, to deter harmful production without changing habits and preferences of users.

86-25) Markets only ignore debt danger until they suffer a loss.

86-24) We call for privatization first, and when things go wrong we call for regulation.

86-23) Reports often seem to present generalities from opposing sides without any reconciliations of the differences.

86-22) Our failure to integrate and assimilate populations seems to be getting more prevalent, suggesting that the artificial tools we employ to do so are ineffective, if not regressive.

86-21) Exponential growth in population, consumption, and production seems to ultimately be good for economic growth, but it only primarily benefits a few and the cost borne by the rest.

86-20) Our tendency is to adapt, use, and dispose without turning it back to its former state, often with knowledge of the damage we cause throughout the process.

86-19) Nutrition education campaigns have yet to convince people to make better food choices, because they prefer those of the producers and marketers of processed foods.

86-18) Though nutrition education campaigns have largely failed and we have flocked to supplements for their promise of good health, we have failed to produce standards and to regulate their production and marketing.

86-17) Artificial intelligence may seem impressive, but it is still artificial.

86-16) Much loved traditions like pie eating contests do nothing to help alleviate our desire to gorge in favor of healthy eating habits.

86-15) When we liberalize individual rights we are rarely aware of the unintended consequences.

86-14) A technology that speeds things up has a habit of becoming one to wich we seek shelter to slow things down.

86-13) Evolutionary history suggests that we, like all dominant predators before us, are due for extinction.

86-12) We may try to emulate things other species do better, but we never seem to get it quite right.

86-11) Our changing cultural points of reference suggest that old bigots become tolerant and old tolerants become bigots.

86-10) When education adapts to trends, it neglects basics.

86-9) Endeavors to lose weight may have become more important than to stay healthy, and thin.

86-8) The definition of self-awareness is shaped from without.

86-7) Close scrutiny by experienced government agencies fails often enough to suggest that expecting scrutiny by individuals to work better is absurd.

86-6) Encouraging population growth among the masses is akin to colonialism.

86-5) Our desire for immediate changes to circumstances brought about by years of behavioral training often remains a desire.

86-4) Our legislative branch often defers controversial decisions to the courts, perhaps in fear of how their position would play out in the next election.

86-3) Anyone who has come to understand economics – doesn’t.

86-2) Forgoing change to one’s poor health habits, taking medicinal drugs has become tantamount to fighting disease.

86-1) Freedom is the ability to think what you want, to do what you want when that affects only you, and to otherwise express and explore variations in ways that conform to the groupthink of the social collective, while challenging everything.

Round 85

85-40) Individual freedoms are subject to change in order to conform with the day’s social mores.

85-39) Truths and falsehoods are judged subjectively, and thus prone to interpretation and manipulation.

85-38) Human longevity has increased in higher economies, though not because we are living longer, but because a lot less died in early life.

85-37) Ideally, a government cap on prices of essential goods allows for enough profit to maintain a producer’s output and investments, yet we seem to constantly succumb to producer threats of decreased current and future output.

85-36) We have always found it difficult to detect what is real and what is not, and as we figure some methods that work, we add more new difficulties.

85-35) Government efforts to engage other countries always seem to approach in a colonialist nature.

85-34) Variations exist everywhere and in everything, however we notice mostly those with which we believe to possess similarities, and those which we have been taught to espouse and condemn.

85-33) For some reason, instead of logically searching within our biology we continue searching within our elusive behaviors.

85-32) The trillions of cells in our body are constantly undergoing changes, each providing an opportunity for evolution, sometimes noticeable and sometimes seemingly inconspicuous and, perhaps, only noticeable at a later time or in later generations.

85-31) Behavior is one of the perceptible articulations of biology.

85-30) All technologies seem to start by providing sustenance for individuals, grows to the point where it necessitates groups with sequentially growing numbers, diminishing wages, and diminishing number of beneficiaries.

85-29) We increase our economic output in part by making things affordable to purchase, and in part by making them unaffordable to service.

85-28) One obvious solution to many of today’s ills, that we seem to abhor, involves limiting work that involves human movement from dusk to dawn.

85-27) Results of your convictions may only become evident once you witness them in person.

85-26) Our economic system relies on mass produced essentials that at first require a large and inexpensive labor force, then on reducing the number of producers and on technology to further reduce the labor force and costs.

85-25) The concept of family is often subject to interpretation between those whose genes are conveyed and those whose support is provided.

85-24) Instead of expanding the family group to provide the necessary support, we attach shame to parents from whom their children are separated as our way of discouraging the behavior that brought it on.

85-23) We are at greatest risk when we feel alienated.

85-22) All solutions are intended to resolve problems created through past solutions.

85-21) Loosening entry requirements for skilled workers from outside leaves unskilled workers, with a greater likelihood of increased poverty and inept populist governments.

85-20) Yesterday’s fringe is today’s mainstream.

85-19) Centrists are rarely heard because their emotional appeal can’t match that of the extremists.

85-18) We sacrificed products that used to last a long time but were polluting in use, for products that are less polluting in use but with a very short useful life and polluting upon disposal.

85-17) Despair is an important human element whereby life depends on whether or not interactional support is present.

85-16) Bad posture may be the result of inventions that alter our sitting and standing positions, such as chairs and heeled footwear.

85-15) Religious conflict seems to be most common in the impoverished and poorly educated.

85-14) We may view solutions for the housing crisis as the increase of available homes without consideration for the increase in the number of occupants for each home.

85-13) As smart as we think ourselves to be, we still easily fall prey to marketing.

85-12) So many of our psychological ills seem to find their origins in our biome, yet we persist in disrupting it and in finding new ways to do so.

85-11) Among our biggest excuses for avoiding viable solutions is their immediate cost.

85-10) Without seeking alternate avenues for simplification, solutions are getting ever more expensive and difficult to achieve.

85-9) Choices are not so much something that we consciously make but, since evolution is always happening, a product of normal changes in our biological system that become evident with the passage of time.

85-8) Regimented work brings economic rewards at the cost of freedom.

85-7) It may seem difficult for most of us to realize that a cashier is worth as much as an engineer, as we have been taught to see the world in terms of economic value rather than human value.

85-6) It can be easy to confuse what is healthy and what is normal.

85-5) Mathematics, being a way of measuring things in comparison with others, seems to be one of basic functions of all organisms.

85-4) We like to punish for wrongdoing without expecting the perpetrator to ameliorate it.

85-3) The less educated believe political rhetoric because they don’t know how to analyze or verify the claims, while the more educated tend to look for claims that benefit them, despite what it may take to do so.

85-2) Nostalgic memory is very selective.

85-1) Some moral taboos we uphold just because we never got to experience them or because we were forbidden or shamed from doing so.

Round 84

84-40) Our common fear of missing out makes us follow more so than lead.

84-39) We like to applaud technology for the advantages it provides, especially for some, and to downplay or totally ignore the disadvantages, for most, which are often devastating.

84-38) We view cheaper alternatives that create less harm than current amenities more favorably than the more expensive ones that do not create any harm at all.

84-37) Habits are shaped by regrets, and risks by desire.

84-36) We take advantage until we lose it, and even then we don’t like to give up.

84-35) The welfare of our society always runs secondary to that of the individual.

84-34) If you want to change people’s mindset, frame it to show in the now how change benefits them and how stasis hurts them.

84-33) The word is often interpreted as being more important than the concept.

84-32) Despite the plethora of studious resources which we throw at it, all the knowledge in the world is still inadequate for predicting inflation, and even after the fact its cause is still mostly a matter of conjecture.

84-31) To disguise your subversive context, use a picture.

84-30) It was just a terrible, dreadful error.

84-29) Disagreements occur when negotiating from different contexts.

84-28) Where once the public was unaware that the media scrubbed content unfavorable to dissenting views, awareness now makes it disinformation and pits camps against each other.

84-27) The pendulum always swings back and forth, with ever so slight variations that only become evident over time.

84-26) Swings in state diplomacy seem to be frequently generated by celebrities through the power of public appeal.

84-25) To preserve our place in the world, all inquiries considered suspect because we could never have nothing to hide.

84-24) Updating rights in laws often flies against the fear that it will open the door to losing more rights.

84-23) Reforms often forbit errant behaviors without providing alternatives, or training for them.

84-22) A common mistake we make is expecting history to repeat itself without variation.

84-21) The populism of governments is only skin deep candy.

84-20) There should be no doubt that there are honest people in government, however as we learn of concealed past infractions it is easy to doubt public promises, ability, fairness, and any genuine zeal.

84-19) The belief that the earth’s bounty is for us to use fails to consider balancing our needs with those of all the other organisms.

84-18) As a company’s size increases, it is likely to bring outsourced resources in-house, which increases income in the short term, while increasing the possibility of eventual catastrophic failure.

84-17) Absolute qualities of good and bad only exist in our imagination, as mere judgmental interpretations of our normal human opportunistic behaviors.

84-16) To stand out in the media and politics of any sort, the key is one’s propensity for creativity in communicating that the sky is falling.

84-15) Businesses suffering from increased labor costs suggest that they had likely been taking advantage of less than fair labor practices.

84-14) We think we know our future selves, only to learn later how wrong we were.

84-13 Confidence in our government seems to involve a lot of faith with little judgment.

84-12) The more we learn about our government’s underbelly, the more we doubt its sincerity and ability.

84-11) An increasing population relies for its sustenance the creation or enhancements of technologies, which require investors whose primary motive is profit, not sustainability.

84-10) We seem always willing to pay the price for convenience, albeit grudgingly, and later often regrettably.

84-9) We like to think we are better than others at getting the cat back in the box once it is out, only to later learn how wrong we were.

84-8) Everyone does and thinks things in private that they would never normally do or say in public.

84-7) Studies constantly indicate they get us closer to the answer, though they rarely do.

84-6) Profit frequently gets in the way of humanitarianism.

84-5) Among the problems of regulating software is that, by its complexity, no one really knows its capabilities.

84-4) A problem with healthcare is that it is incumbent on the patient to know when to seek help.

84-3) We habitually supplant, instead of incorporate, those cultures which are not ours.

84-2) We create solutions for past errors with little regard for the new errors that we keep creating.

84-1) A stigma does not disappear just because we may try to legislate it out of existence.

Round 83

83-40) One of the first things we think about, upon learning of incidents involving others, is whether or not they are members of our tribe.

83-39) We continually sacrifice our future for immediate economic benefit.

83-38) If we strongly desire something, we will always find a way to excuse the risks.

83-37) We tend to value the conservation of our rituals over that of the environment that supports our existence.

83-36) When a business is not too big to fail, it will take every opportunity to be injected by capital and to merge, so that it can become too big to fail.

83-35) Breaking taboos is always stymied by our illicit biases.

83-34) We lament hurdles that big business needs to overcome, conveniently forgetful of the ill effects from a free pass.

83-33) Some things seem inconvenient only because others are more convenient.

83-32) We may like to think that nature needs us to manage it, but, given our poor record in doing so, it is probably best to let nature keep us in line by managing itself.

83-31) Opinion columnists are more capable of asking questions about facts than of stating their opinion as factual.

83-30) Just as trauma spills from one generation to the next, so does bias.

83-29) Every culture has strong tendencies to see itself as superior and others as barbarian.

83-28) It is not consciousness itself, but how we experience it that defines what it means to be human.

83-27) We mostly find true motivation difficult to trace, preferring to speculate, we usually wrongly think we know our own, and it is the basis of everything we do.

83-26) Sustainable solutions are rarely more convenient than many of the technological ones that we use, so we can look forward to the severe inconveniences the certainty of future technology failures.

83-25) We like to think of those with less acumen or intelligence than ourselves as below us, but their effect on our future is just as high.

83-24) We will never stop finding limitations to overcome.

83-23) Moral virtues are not encouraged by free markets, but by wisdom.

83-22) We have lived in an individualist culture for a long time, but it only represents a flicker in evolutionary time, while our rapidly increased population has created more and more individualists with an increasingly disjointed and competitive human path to the future that is affecting all species.

83-21) In our continuing pursuit of standardization, especially regarding economies of scale, we lose track of the superior methodologies that better suit specific persons.

83-20) Defense agencies might well be labeled as agencies of offense.

83-19) Sustained economics progress requires prices to constantly increase.

83-18) Our technological and biological tools are interfering with natural evolutionary process in ways that we may only understand with the passing of time.

83-17) Because we are such in a hurry, anything that our species did not evolve to do tends to create problems.

83-16) First we were participants, then we became customers, and now we are products.

83-15) We like to minimize threats based on solutions we want authorities to develop not through the experts but from our advice.

83-14) Many parts of our body are considered weak, probably because we stress them beyond their evolutionary adaptations.

83-13) Politicians seem to have always held their own interests first at heart, and we expecting them to change.

83-12) The most ardent rarely see beyond their nose.

83-11) While there is no lack of ideas on how to do things more effectively, there are severe gaps between those who can, can’t, would, and won’t implement them.

83-10) By lifting the standard of living we also increase indebtedness, usually without consideration for ability and responsibility.

83-09) A physician’s good bedside manner can do so much more for the patient than drugs alone.

83-08) A common reason for excusing the need for an increased population to solve today’s problems is that there’s still plenty of space, so we will likely wait to deal with the space issue until it runs out.

83-07) All organisms are self-serving, basically practicing in both cooperation and hostility to meet our needs, and we like to morally interpret cooperation as friendliness and to hostility as goodwill even though we are little, or not at all, aware that we easily mask both as their opposite.

83-06) We excuse youthful transgressions based on their mental immaturity, but rarely account for the immaturity of older transgressors.

83-05) We are taught history through the eyes of philosophers, the religious and other moralists, instead of historians.

83-04) Favoring individualism over interdependence tends to magnify societal problems.

83-03) Strategies to tackle the epidemic of loneliness fail to focus on reuniting family and other groups, the distancing from which caused the loneliness.

83-02) The most talented among us might be able to resolve certain problems that we confidently perceive as curable, but that task usually falls on the rest of us.

83-01) It may be unhelpful to feel that only our sense of consciousness guides us, since all our responses are to electrochemical stimuli of which we are hardly or not aware.

Round 82

82-40) That we rely on a growing population to make up for future problems suggests that we will not deal with the problems, finding it easier to just continue relying on population growth.

82-39) We press for population growth as we ignore problems we are still facing as a result of such growth.

82-38) We are constantly in need of an ever increasing population both for continued economic growth and to resolve problems caused by previous growth.

82-37) There may be safety in numbers, but they also increase the chances of mass casualties in one strike.

82-36) There is always a coordinating conjunction.

82-35) I expect others to take seriously many things that I don’t see any reason to take seriously about them.

82-34) The plethora of screaming voices emboldens the loudest and curtails compromise.

82-33) When given the ability to make choices based on our opinions and limited knowledge, out go cooperation and compromises.

82-32) Blasphemy seems well on its way toward becoming a national punishable offense.

82-31) The perception of threat can differ widely from one individual to the next.

82-30) We can easily damage our children through our ignorance due to the lack of a supportive mechanism from which to draw experience.

82-29) Implicit biases are subconscious associations that are imprinted in us from the environment of our early days and, even with the wisdom to recognize them, which impact on our conscious seems impossible to erase.

82-28) When on a winning streak, beggar thoughts that it will eventually plunge.

82-27) Time saving strategies decrease work time to create more leisure time, which eventually becomes work, or requires more work to support leisure activities, or just shifts work elsewhere.

82-26) A reciprocal move is a stylistic refinement for revenge.

82-25) To have been unsuccessful does not sound as harsh as to have failed.

82-24) We do, allow, and promote things not because they are good for us, but because they feel good.

82-23) Each time we succumb to a convenience, we add an inconvenience elsewhere.

82-22) Since we live in a closed system, something new is just an iteration of something old.

82-21) We excuse known risks simply because there may be some encouraging constructive results.

82-20) We are very inept at working out what is authentic and what is fake.

82-19) When a large company calls for regulation of resources that it is using, for whatever reason it presents, it is probably just fearful of competition.

82-18) We have been trained to believe that animals are subservient to us, but our weighty reliance on them puts that belief to a test.

82-17) Population upsurges start with atypical good breeding conditions that increase density, followed by usurpation of resources that, in time, perhaps centuries or millennia if not by catastrophic events, create limitations on growth and eventually a diminution of the population.

82-16) Media’s biggest failing is presenting opinion as fact, and misleading, intentionally or not, to be believed as fact.

82-15) Even though it provides opportunities, every new technology spurs the diminution of the opportunities and labor force provided by the old technology.

82-14) Most digital technology is used for spying; some for opportunities for censorship and others for marketing, with the lines between them often blurred.

82-13) After thousands of years dominated by merchants trading goods for money, the richest now trade only money.

82-12) To the religious faithful everything falls under religious law, so the concept of secularism is not logical.

82-11) Credit brings immediate rewards at a future cost that is often unimagined.

82-10) Politics and business have always been intertwined.

82-9) Whether religion or fad, we will quickly join when we see others doing so.

82-8) Every action is just an exchange for another, so we can assume that tit for tat is logical in conflict, though it may not necessarily resolve it to our liking.

82-7) When there is a potential for gain, profit trumps moral duty.

82-6) We are more likely to find fault with people who don’t look or speak like us.

82-5) Encouraged by the increased prominence of shame as a punishment, it’s no wonder that it has become a tool for extremism in social and political arenas.

82-4) We should not label each other as good or bad because we usually are both, even how we present ourselves, just like all other organisms.

82-3) Many economic disruptions are created by efforts to increase profits.

82-2) There will always be someone who does not respect the terms of use.

82-1) We don’t seem to heed learned lessons that giants on whom we come to rely eventually thunderously fall.

Round 81

81-40) Increasing populations make it harder to guarantee individual freedoms.

81-39) We believe in a representative government that is looking out for our best interests, and we should keep in mind that’s not what politicians do best.

81-38) To blame others is to assert one’s correctness, perhaps suggesting we are on the right path in our evolutionary progress.

81-37) Public grief might also pose opportunities for continued attention to our plight.

81-36) Customer service has changed from serving customers to serving the providers.

81-35) A perverse sense of money often defines our well-being.

81-34) When the going is good, we rarely consider when it will change.

81-33) We can always look back in history to see how we got to today, however we humans are too volatile to rely solely on past events to forecast very far into the future.

81-32) One government failing might be allowing markets to grow unchecked until they become positioned to hold governmnet hostage.

81-31) All states exert economic coercion on others, however we only see it as pejorative when it does not benefit us.

81-30) A growing population means a decreased ability to be self sustaining and an increased dependence on money, credit, and ever larger concerns.

81-29) We have thrashed the haves throughout the ages but have not generally been able, nor willing, to not rely on them.

81-28) Many of our qualities, especially unwanted ones, tend to intensify as we age.

81-27) Anyone who disagrees with you must surely be a jerk.

81-26) If it isn’t forced, diversity tends to continue in a peaceful and productive nature.

81-25) Church shifted from being a moral requisite to a place one frequents when confused.

81-24) The past always seems to repeat itself, though it is not usually the recent past.

81-23) The old blame conditions on the young for making changes and the young blame them on the old for maintaining inertia.

81-22) Every leader longs to be a dictator.

81-21) You will probably remain silent when your side missteps, if only to protect your staunchness.

81-20) The most popular media promotes the false notion that women become emotional through tears and weakness and men through violence and strength.

81-19) Debt continues to make slaves of us.

81-18) It is easy to interpret history out of context.

81-17) Claiming ignorance is one way to avoid facing facts, perhaps even in order to continue advancing one’s own agenda.

81-16) I can’t imagine that any kid with a sister didn’t try on their clothes.

81-15) We will never reach that visionary sense of equality as long as we continue to focus on differences.

81-14) When measuring benefits, we are either largely ignoring their basis or are ignorant of them.

81-13) With every new malady come questions about how anyone could tolerate them, and with the passing of time the questions are forgotten as the malady becomes just a normal part of everyday life.

81-12) It’s one thing to say you’re an old man, and another to realize it.

81-11) Blind followers will blame everyone but whom they follow for their failings.

81-10) A balance between local and national or regional and universal regulations is important in order to achieve a measurable sense of fairness and harmony.

81-9) Offer a pack of dogs a bone and they will all try to jump on it.

81-8) Maintaining the credibility of an institution may utilize methods that, if exposed, may tend to compromise that credibility.

81-7) Egalitarianism often requires setting aside personal differences or identities.

81-6) There are benefits from the slowness of government action that translate to the prevention of many impulsive acts to which we are regularly prone.

81-5) Shame, the fear of ostracism, seems to be one of most powerful human emotions, and suggests the importance we place on family or tribal restraint and the severe trauma that is associated with any unwilling separation from them.

81-4) It might stand to reason that if young people have more accidents and historically died at greater rates, that we become more risk averse as we age, and so might it be with other organisms.

81-3) Many often claim that we are wealthier than ever, as we point out how many are still living check to check or in poverty.

81-2) A tight job market fuels rising wages, companies raise prices to make up for the added expense, inflation worsens and recession risks rise, employees lose jobs, demand decreases, companies lower prices to increase sales, start hiring, and eventually the job market tightens and the cycle starts all over.

81-1) Many believe that conflicts can be controlled through stronger borders, however it never takes long for people to spill over them.

Round 80

80-40) Principles often get in the way of practical and compassionate solutions.

80-39) We give our intelligence much more credit than the reality of our circumstances suggests to be wise.

80-38) Just as a strategy is usually missing for building cases against military leaders instead of foot soldiers, so is a strategy against the police bureaucracy instead of its officers.

80-37) It is our past scorn of environmental, social and governance issues that brought our world to the brink of disaster, and our inaction that may sweep us into it.

80-36) Economists often like to portray higher wage demands by the grunt workers as greed, and the multi-million dollar salaries of the financial sector and corporate heads as economic benefits of capitalism.

80-35) Unless we are discussing the millions pocketed by corporate heads, to solely blame increasing consumer wages for inflation suggests a warped social sense.

80-34) Hanging on is a trait of someone who, for good or ill, does not wish to lose something.

80-33) Opposite of expansion, restriction is a defensive act.

80-32) To be morally pure is to be in extreme isolation.

80-31) Morals that remain static flare against the common grain of evolutionary change.

80-30) Over the centuries our hours working for monetary gain have diminished while our hours working to deal with the consequences have increased.

80-29) Like the notion of perpetual motion, everything desists from moving in its conspicuous way.

80-28) Unprecedented but not unforeseen may well be norm of our societal decisions.

80-27) Children probably started losing importance as family roles changed durings the agricultural revolution, and we have not yet regained much territory, preferring independence, or separateness, over inclusion as we give lip service to illusory family values.

80-26) Most in public leadership positions didn’t get there because of their niceties.

80-25) That a “good old boys” culture runs through everything should not be surprising, given our instinctive tendency to place trust in those who are within the small group of people we know best.

80-24) Our own judgment is paramount, making it easy to ignore guidance that we don’t like and accepting anything which feels good.

80-23) We quickly adopt new conveniences with no thought to their costs.

80-22) Unless you’re a believer, you wouldn’t understand.

80-21) Knowledge is not necessarily wisdom.

80-20) Knowledge is power and often ephemeral.

80-19) Overpowering with loudness is an effective way to avoid hearing others.

80-18) The death knell for our histories begins with our own.

80-17) Lacking a strong social network as you get older, you may feel you have been erased.

80-16) Publicly we preach that everyone must be saved, and privately we prefer that only those who will prove of benefit to us need be saved.

80-15) We condemn our children to disappointment and tragedy when we shield them from the realities of life.

80-14) We are quite willing to limit another’s freedom when it suits us, but never ours.

80-13) We only ever see what we are capable of seeing, which is often limited by our implicit biases.

80-12) Real human progress was probably thwarted long ago, when we adapted from small closely knit groups through the agricultural revolution.

80-11) Most of the progress we have made since the agricultural revolution has been in seeking and utilizing solutions to problems caused by our expansionist gregarian nature.

80-10) There is no doubt that many ignorant people are treated as leaders, simply because of theit perceived power.

80-9) When it comes to our massive and ever increasing defense expenditures, our purse is wide open, perhaps because different ideologies always take a back seat to our perception of what keeps us safe.

80-8) Following the adage that change is constant, having our progeny be like us is not necessarily as attractive to their potential mates and future than if they were less common than anyone.

80-7) It seems to be a natural trait to want to stand out, however we are not always wise in the methods we choose to do so.

80-6) History may show that after every tragedy we declared to have learned some lessons, only to make the same declaration after repeatedly making the same mistakes.

80-5) The ignorant are not necessarily poor, nor are the poor necessarily ignorant.

80-4) The ignorant might best be described as having little or no awareness of any culture other than their own, and perhaps even having little understanding of their own culture.

80-3) Each of us views rationality, responsibility, and independence differently, and the extent of difference places us in camps from ultra liberal to ultra conservative, with realities perceived from good to evil, sane to insane.

80-2) Good and evil represent our expectations, not reality.

80-1) Today’s dinosaurs preserve old values.

Round 79

79-40) As populations increase and become harder to govern, socialism becomes capitalism then turns into semi-democratic autocracies, and eventually into military dictatorships.

79-39) Large populations necessitate a limited number of suppliers for essential goods and a limited number of supply lines, putting consumers at their mercy and making inflation possible.

79-38) Economic elites have always influenced social mores, and likely always will, so it would behoove us to consume only goods and services that enrich elites who are more closely aligned with our views.

79-37) We yearn to prove our fathers wrong about their warnings, even after they turn out to be real.

79-36) The poor and the ignorant have always been fodder for the rest.

79-35) The power of politicians lies in the masses, whose vote can be easily swayed with promises.

79-34) Most of what is recorded and then disseminated of our history are often decided by politicians.

79-33) Rather than increasing the minimum wage or paying a living wage, economists like to say that business holds down wages in order to promote technological innovation which they predict will boost employment, however technology often tends to replace workers or to require expertise for which the educational expense is borne by workers.

79-32) When things go awry, we tend to harass the easiest target least likely to cause us problems and most likely to win us standing from our peers.

79-31) It should not surprise us that economic woes raise doubts about our ability to maintain our possessions and provide for our future, and that we will lash out at those we ignorantly believe to have caused them.

79-30) We like to assume life in linear patterns, though chaos seems a better descriptor of reality.

79-29) Death and destruction often lead to reforms.

79-28) With population increases, more divisions become manifested.

79-27) When national Gross Domestic Product per-capita increases, it always seems to disproportionately benefit the rich and depress the buying power of the rest.

79-26) It seems ludicrous while showing off our bodies to expect only expressions of like or lust from the strangers of our choosing, and to expect everyone else to hide any emotion they might feel, or even to have it.

79-25) Many find it disgusting that someone would pleasure themselves through lusty emotions they experience from viewing our bodies.

79-24) Invasion of our privacy is one thing, but our incursions into that of others is quite different.

79-23) If I don’t do it first, someone else will.

We ha79-22) ve a striking tendency to base life and death decisions on politics.

79-21) We have no problem confusing and misrepresenting issues in order to have things our way.

79-20) We no longer scoff at planned obsolescence, and instead look forward to the new iterations of itself that it produces.

79-19) In our generosity we amputate the diseased limb, and in our stinginess we let them falter without crutches.

79-18) We may want to claim that humans have dominion over all, however, in reality, it is a joint venture.

79-17) In a relatively recent reversal, loose baggy clothing is worn by boys and short tight clothing by girls.

79-16) Believers beg, and expect to receive, forgiveness for their trespasses, however most don’t believe in granting it to their trespassers, and tend to hold rancor long and often without cause.

79-15) Just believing in a higher power provides comfort, which is probably augmented, or even perhaps made possible, by the feeling of inclusion in a very large group that shares a similar belief.

79-14) Perhaps the biggest conflicts that pervade everyday life involve competition between personal gain and moral duty to future persons.

79-13) When we cite a point in history that gave us a certain right, we often neglect to cite all other times when it does not.

79-12) A breakthrough might be viewed by one as a tool to better humanity and by another as a tool to destroy it.

79-11) The powerful get their day in court post haste, while the rest wither waiting.

79-10) It is natural for many to inundate places where coveted rewards are on offer.

79-9) It is common to misjudge the competency of others, and of oneself.

79-8) It is ridiculous to believe that our presumed advances made within the last century or two, a mere speck in time of the life of our planet, will last.

79-7) We consciously choose not to worry about the possibility of catastrophic events, such as the dangers we open ourselves to, or even cosmic ray bombardments, and to focus on the moment instead.

79-6) One of power’s side effects is the nature of loneliness that emanates from increasing doubt in one’s friends.

79-5) We are most likely to be frank with, accept criticism, and follow advice from someone with whom we share traits.

79-4) Even innocent and well meaning interactions can fail in their intent and create inequities when shared between someone with whom we do not share traits.

79-3) The large number of religions and ever decreasing number of believers, suggests that personal beliefs now overpower traditional ones.

79-2) We often fail to identify which small risks that present themselves as opportunities can quickly loom over everything as calamities.

79-1) It’s harder to discuss what we can control than what we can’t.

Round 78

78-40) Advances may allow us to make the world more controllable, yet history dictates that every control eventually requires more.

78-39) We like to change names and descriptions of objects and actions once they become morally acceptable.

78-38) Perfumes bring to mind the smelly trick that carnivorous plants use to catch their prey.

78-37) We love to play games; games are conflicts; therefore we love conflicts.

78-36) In the moment, the compassion from your longing feels very real; fooled again by the bedside manner.

78-35) We know that once we become comfortable in a situation it is very difficult to do without it, and it is often only through forceful change that we adapt; nevertheless most aspects of our livelihood, except perhaps morals, is governed through gentle persuasion that largely fails in its goals.

78-34) We may hate to admit that there are times when we enjoy being or playing the victim and wallowing in our sorrows.

78-33) To extract power from a secret you have to share it, which increases your chances of being placed in a compromising position.

78-32) Insurance tries to compensate for the lost support that was once common among extended family groups.

78-31) The death of entire organisms mimics cell death, a natural process that stops excessive and damaged ones from accumulating.

78-30) When something strenuous no longer feels enjoyable, encouragement must come from somewhere, or strain will be felt elsewhere.

78-29) As we continue to project our power and ideals through a culture that requires defending by force and intimidation, we neglect, or disregard, the power to subject it to the close scrutiny that would reveal both its strengths and shortcomings.

78-28) By preferring to isolate ourselves within a group, neighborhood, views, or outlook, we are less likely to boost what we have in common with others than we are to boost our differences and all the strife that come with that.

78-27) Attempts to assimilate cultures often reinvigorate separateness.

78-26) We respond to boundaries, both real and artificial.

78-25) Sour times eventually become glorified.

78-24) Blowing things out of proportion is one of the media’s great strengths.

78-23) History is often shaped by idiots.

78-22) It would seem impossible to duplicate ancient chemical reactions that led to life as we know it, in order to assume that elsewhere in the universe there may exist life that we would recognize.

78-21) Power comes in many forms, for rich and poor alike; how and when it is used determines the winners and losers.

78-20) Nationalism seems to increase as past alliances become more distant, forgotten or re-imagined.

78-19) Our human limitations suggest that making things more complex makes them more prone to failure and less prone to exposing their faults.

78-18) The nature of addiction makes it close to impossible to voluntarily rehabilitate oneself.

78-17) Individualism separates us even further by closing doors to learning about each other so that the crucial quality of empathy can be employed to help us live together harmoniously.

78-16) Tragedy unites; prosperity divides.

78-15) Large businesses rely on confidence for their borrowing prowess and growth; small businesses must rely on collateral.

78-14) Government and business operate more through bureaucratic lethargy than competent management.

78-13) America has always been hypocritical regarding human rights.

78-12) We may want a limited government, but each of us has different views on what should be limited about it.

78-11) Success is often inspired merely by passionate cheerleading.

78-10) As manufacturing decreased, service industries increased and the educated benefited, but as such jobs proliferated, those benefits decreased.

78-9) We say things that are good for us always seem to taste bad, probably because of all the years that we have become acclimatized to the food that is not so good for us.

78-8) By waiting for profit potential before advancing improvements and solutions to problems, we make it clear that we value money more than our wellbeing.

78-7) What is objectionable, shameful or pathetic in one era eventually creates martyrs and even plauditory acceptance in another.

78-6) We prefer that labels only reflect what we want them to represent.

78-5) Population growth makes the limited number and scope of meaningful tasks increasingly difficult to share, and create inequities and dependencies.

78-4) Even with so much advanced technology, we still can’t seem to focus monitoring and advancement in what matters most, health and safety.

78-3) Body neutrality, the acceptance of one’s body image, may only be helpful if desire for unhealthy habits can be overcome.

78-2) Memories have become scientific records.

78-1) The monetization of education makes it just another political instrument.

Round 77

77-40) Ideas and the initial work behind technologies may have come about to make life better, but usually wind up as projects for their profit potential.

77-39) In past centuries, leaders of countries and movements were routinely and summarily dispatched, but today they have a chance of surviving if they can afford their lawyers.

77-38) Where the role of oligarchs has changed from being the de-facto government, they evolved to finance those who run it.

77-37) That political science should be considered a philosophy instead, is borne out by its mandate to determine what ought to be rather than what is.

77-36) Judges are frequently seen as political interpreters of expectations from legislation, rather than as objective experts in the letter of the law.

77-35) We may consider ourselves more intelligent than past generations, however that is often not true nor can we prove it.

77-34) We may see the loss of a dialect or tongue as disastrous, even though it represents a signal of better communication among cultures through the use of a common language.

77-33) When something is abundant, we usually don’t focus on saving it.

77-32) Among the most numerous of technological advances are means for killing each other.

77-31) We may think we are anthropomorphizing other organisms, but we are only noticing commonalities that have always existed.

77-30) We are apt to demonize others usually without being cognizant of situations and behaviors over which they have little or no control.

77-29) Nakedness was normal before it became considered shameful because it indicated poverty, evidenced by not owning clothes.

77-28) By using the number of years people are healthy and disability-free to gauge working-life expectancy, we try to insure that most, if not all, of those years are spent toiling, primarily for others, instead of spending them to enjoy life and the fruits of our labors.

77-27) We all want to believe that we are the exception to the rule.

77-26) Boredom and impatience are evolutionary signals to prompt change.

77-25) Instead of making vehicles smaller to use less fuel, we keep making them larger and complain about the expense of fueling them.

77-24) The continuing prevalence and popularity of sugary and processed foods suggests our educational efforts to promote healthy eating and disease prevention are still falling on deaf ears.

77-23) Many rules and laws are created out of fear.

77-22) It seems to primarily be a shared financial interests that induces negotiation in a dispute.

77-21) We save primarily those who have the means and the desire, and demand that others save everyone else.

77-20) We tend to choose enduring solutions for temporary problems, and temporary solutions for enduring problems.

77-19) There is probably a good reason why conglomerates are often called empires.

77-18) So many of us, blinded by our needs to fit within a group, social or imagined, and by phobias about rejection, just can’t admit that we regard sex as transactional.

77-17) Every self-promoter wants to sell you the secret of their success only to reveal anything but.

77-16) Only after a tragedy are we willing to admit that a push for profits caused it, though we still maintain the principle that profits are always good, and especially when they are our profits.

77-15) We view credit as a tool to ameliorate people’s lives, but we fail to grasp the necessity of education and continued availability of opportunities that are crucial to the success of the tool, and we largely ignore the potential for catastrophic effects.

77-14) The strong evolutionary drive to reproduce is evidenced by our lust for power.

77-13) It is in our genes to forget, especially uncomfortable things, relying on our experience over millions of years in avoiding conflict that could harm us.

77-12) Modern medicine has gotten really good at alleviating suffering for those who can afford it, and of prolonging it for those who can’t.

77-11) New technologies tend to favor opportunists who exploit them and who get to be exploited by them.

77-10) Emphasize something in the popular domain and opposing sides will quickly materialize and swell.

77-9) With all our intelligence and technologies we are still unable, or unwilling, to provide salient alternatives to guns for the feeling of physical security and a sense of psychological comfort.

77-8) Shareholders seem to always be more important than customers.

77-7) Denial of even unproven opportunities is viewed as causing harm.

77-6) Government policies are usually reliant on business relations and opportunities.

77-5) Investor panic seems to happen frequently enough to suggest that most use impulse, rather than science, to make financial decisions.

77-4) I wonder how often in the past writings have been banned, leaving no historic record of either the banning or what was in the books.

77-3) Esthetics tend to focus primarily on form, and sometimes function, leaving structure as an afterthought, as if were still in the eras prior to science-based design, and when the focus is primarily on structure, form and function are often afterthoughts.

77-2) Prevention is only too expensive when we fail to consider the future cost of fixing the consequences.

77-1) Not even historians can fully understand the mindset of those living in that past, so we can only view history as approximations of the past through a present lens.

Round 76

76-40) Markets can never be made truly safe for investors simply because of our natural reliance on bets.

76-39) Our tendency is to question the system only when we learn something is not right.

76-38) As people get richer and disparities continue to grow exponentially, banks follow the money and ignore the local economy.

76-37) The rise of social media has allowed single-issue politics to dominate over balanced discourse.

76-36) We use anger to showcase our seriousness, or to feign it in order to win over others’ passions.

76-35) As human environments became turbulent, we used to move elsewhere, and now we anchor ourselves and alter the environment instead.

76-34) We like to frame historic events through our emotions, usually with no idea of what people believed and felt at the time about their experiences, or if they ever happened in the mind of the storyteller.

76-33) If you can’t have your way, it’s usually easier to shut them out than to silence them.

76-32) Criticism that is difficult to fend or viewed as unjust is often remedied by indifference and separation from its source, and also by aggression.

76-31) It’s not so much that we don’t anticipate downturns, it’s that we are unwilling to lose hope that things will remain rosy.

76-30) Too much information begets disregard.

76-29) There is only so much that you can buy without resisting the urge to speculate and thus to create unforeseen circumstances.

76-28) Most who create and enforce rules seem to lack first person experience in breaking them.

76-27) I don’t know anyone who is not guilty of institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia, often especially those who claim otherwise.

76-26) With government mismanagement always on the news, one wonders if there is such a thing as government management.

76-25) I often wonder what makes a supreme court better than any other.

76-24) Every old person fears the inevitable, being erased.

76-23) Not long after things, and peoples, become too homogeneous, diversity starts to set in, until it, too, creates a new uniformity.

76-22) Too much of anything often does not benefit us, and that includes information, food, and general comforts.

76-21) Governments may change, but the plight of poor people mostly remains the same.

76-20) Tellingly, perhaps, of our own myopic obsessions is how news reports and headlines rarely treat tragedies that occur in third world countries with the same weight and conspicuousness they give to even the most mundane of social news in our country.

76-19) Except for providing material riches, I wonder if globalization has really benefited or harmed the common good.

76-18) As we keep gaining new knowledge, there will always be a delay in everyone learning it, and because such gains are constant, and with ever more knowledge available, there will always exist intellectual classes, ignorant classes, and myriad classes in between.

76-17) Rich people may be essential if only to generate enough philanthropists to counter the failures of government.

76-16) In my experience, professionals are rarely so.

76-15) We are much more aware of what we see than of what is missing.

76-14) Distraction probably works well due to our evolutionary survival instinct of turning our immediate attention to what is threatening us at the moment.

76-13) We take the practice of self-preservation to extremes beyond logic.

76-12) We expect politicians to work toward everyone’s mutual benefit, however being politicians that stands in their way.

76-11) Just when you thought a politician really had the public welfare in mind, events and revelations shock you back into reality.

76-10) We have become much better at annoying each other.

76-9) Similar conditions and foreseeable accidents might have existed for a long time, but the alarm only rings when the accident occurs.

76-8) Even with our strong desire and efforts to increase our population and to provide everyone with a meaningful economic role, instead of implementing effective means toward increasing the number and quality of professionals in fields such as healthcare, we keep turning to machines.

76-7) When there are many more job openings than people willing to take them, perhaps it is time for businesses to shrink to accommodate the differential.

76-6) Both conservative and liberal facial images tend to show different expressions to represent emotions of empathy for their own and of antipathy for the opposing views.

76-5) Perhaps we have become so accustomed to people not doing their jobs, that we call them heroes when they do.

76-4) Research continually tells us that people want to do the right thing and that what prevents it is what we identify as our irrepressible urges.

76-3) Once something, or someone, becomes perceived as less useful, it is quickly abandoned for something else.

76-2) When unafraid of consequences, even minor inconveniences are met with dire actions.

76-1) Even while realizing how many problems are created by an increasing population, we insist on the importance of increasing it further in order to feed our hunger for economic wealth.

Round 75

75-40) Forever feeding our desire for profit, governments often use subsidies to persuade companies to act a bit more responsibly, or, at worst, to assist in political ambitions.

75-39) Problems caused by companies are often fixed by payments they receive from government.

75-38) The idea that children should be protected from the world is overrated; they should, instead, be exposed to it with responsible adult guidance.

75-37) We can go to great lengths to make sure we get the opportunity to administer punishment.

75-36) Religion provides us with the comfort we have always felt in common with others.

75-35) Pundits will opine all sorts of reasons why government does not work as intended, except perhaps from the effects of moneyed political influence.

75-34) As scientists and technicians work to lengthen our lives and to make them artificially comfortable, the ecosystem that is crucial to just keep us alive is becoming more damaged and fast disappearing, threatening our very existence.

75-33) We try, and try, and try again, and by the time we get it right it’s too late.

75-32) Peaceful co-existence and growth are predicated on confidence, as are all systems and subsystems.

75-31) I wonder if a baby typically transported in a stroller might be more stressed than one who is carried, and which degree of stress might be telling of what their future holds.

75-30) After a threshold of earnings that satisfies basic necessities, perhaps a second threshold exists that decreases the fear of losing possessions we gained by distracting us with increasing access to a lot more can buy you a fleeting perception of happiness by allowing you to afford removing yourself from reality for longer periods of time and with more access to distractions.

75-29) Blowing things out of proportion, or overdoing things, is as natural for the mind as we know it to be from the body’s ordinary responses to intrusions.

75-28) Many achievements are just changes that some laud and others despise.

75-27) Sometimes, when we desire something or someone and can’t have them, we might even begin to hate them and all who may have it, often without even realizing it.

75-26) Under the guise of providing convenience, companies may reduce their expenses by enticing or forcing their customers to use cheaper technology services that neither may fully understand, exposing both to increased risks for abuse and fraud.

75-25) What we possess is so important to us, that even in despair we are encouraged to live for reasons pertaining to what we stand to lose.

75-24) In attempting to lower progressive tax rates, we entice people’s fear of loss by giving them false hope of steep financial success.

75-23) The pundits section that used to be simply called opinions has been renamed, without apparent merit, as analysis, perspective, and other lofty labels.

75-22) Pure socialism and pure capitalism do not work well in our large societies, nor do authoritarian regimes, and though a balance would probably work best, we, humans, do not seem capable of maintaining it, relying instead on extremism to create clear winners and losers before we attempt to rein things back to some semblance of balance.

75-21) Once deemed expert, one is loth to acknowledge criticism.

75-20) Those on the outside despise cronyism while those on the inside espouse it.

75-19) Most human behaviors are neither as dangerous nor laudable as we make them out to be.

75-18) Human behavior reflects our inherently opportunistic biological systems.

75-17) Change is often a lot easier than we think it will be; it’s just the first step that can be really hard.

75-16) Just as microbe communities and plant beneficial organisms become damaged through intensive agriculture, so do humans become damaged when packed in cities.

75-15) Many scientific studies are relied upon, and publicized, for findings that are flawed or fabricated to support opportunistic ends, and even with that knowledge we still believe them when they acknowledge what we want to hear.

75-14) We approve of a desire for knowledge for good ends, eager to impart it, while dismissing thoughts that it might be used for illicit ends as well, as it often does.

75-13) Many seem to believe that being a spectator of something popular is akin to joining a group without being called upon to perform any labor.

75-12) Punishment is innate to our thinking in dealing with offenses, despite awareness that it is frequently not a deterrent.

75-11) As every old person eventually die, the medical industry gets another opportunity to stop fretting about its past mistakes and omissions.

75-10) Proponents of privatization presuppose the wisdom of a few free-market investors to be greater than of all the governed.

75-9) We believe in free markets, yet governments have always had a hand in picking winners and losers through incentives and disincentives such as customs duties and tax preferences.

75-8) In the sea we find strong evidence of our precursors, and from such lens we might conjecture that its organisms are ripe for evolution into the hostile environment of terrestrial life, just as they did before.

75-7) Political stability exists when citizens believe what their government tells them.

75-6) Workers who live in a strong social system within a surplus population are easily made captive to abuse by employers.

75-5) Only in the presence of a surplus population does demographic transition start to kick in, by which time the ill effects of the surplus will already have taken root.

75-4) Wall Street frequently reports trades as bets and economists report them as science.

75-3) It might seem reasonable to believe that profit motives of the oil and gas industry overshadow any desire to balance production, storage, and supply, despite all the data and resources available.

75-2) We may elect someone whose views are outside the box only to later figure out they are a politician.

75-1) In this age of the Internet, we are probably more ignorant than ever, learning only what attracts our attention and ignoring all else.

Round 74

74-40) New technology frees up more time to fix what is wrong with it.

74-39) The industrial revolution effectively consolidated systems for the benefit of the few, created a new class of poorer peasants, and altered ecological systems.

74-38) Mass production puts smaller producers out of business, creates greater risks for supply chains and product defects, hazards, and disposal, and increases dependence; but on the other hand, it makes products cheaper and more readily available.

74-37) Those who tell it like it is are no match for those who tell it like what the audience wants to hear.

74-36) A safe risk is a misnomer.

74-35) Though we like to think that technology makes things easier, it seems to make them harder.

74-34) We are rarely short on excuses to mask our bigotry.

74-33) Probably the most accurate way to gauge reasons, or changes, in our condition is through evolutionary biology.

74-32) It was the vast increases in population that created both the Neolithic Revolution which settled us, and the Industrial Revolution that dislocated us.

74-31) The higher standards of living created through industrialization brought us more opportunities toward power and property that have become necessities as a result of first having dislocated us from the communal support that we previously enjoyed.

74-30) Prosecuting whistleblowers is akin to a protection racket for those in power.

74-29) An accident is not an event, only a moral judgment of one.

74-28) Neither knowledge nor logic are as compelling as emotion.

74-27) Stress becomes a necessity when we fall into stasis.

74-26) Aging is the most common cause of death.

74-25) The prevalence of birth, growth, disease and death in our evolution suggests that our tinkering with them is likely to have adverse effects that will only be recognized in the future.

74-24) There being nothing as constant as change, boredom, representing a lack of motivation, needs constant challenges with the present state.

74-23) Simplicity in rules works well with a relatively small group of people, probably because there is always someone who can be relied upon to interpret exceptions.

74-22) Decisions we make to produce in ever increasing quantities eventually removes us from the minutiae and, given our innate ability to only deal with a relatively small subset, necessarily blinds us to the details and effects of what is being produced.

74-21) We have a greater preference for creating clear winners and losers than for compromising, which means we lose more often than not.

74-20) Sometimes we only reflect on our past when we can’t see a clear future.

74-19) What we like to call progress may be better described as progression.

74-18) The frustrated youths who believe their economic progress has been held back by a gerontocratic society inherently fuel even more separatism, and thereby increase setbacks in the generation of economic progress for all.

74-17) There is no lack of people who tell us we can live longer, but a dearth of those to help us do so.

74-16) Lower taxes always seem to mostly benefit the rich.

74-15) Science makes probable what fiction makes us consider possible.

74-14) We know full well that marketers play to the ignorance of consumers to sell their wares and services, we do little to educate consumers proactively of such matters, and we treat regulations to limit those business activities as hindrances to economic growth, while failing to consider the greater economic costs that become apparent over time.

74-13) Urban centers invite a substandard infrastructure and suffer substantial casualties as a result of catastrophic events.

74-12) Profitable new technologies are not usually affordable by those who need them most.

74-11) Attitudes may change, however maintaining them for long takes hard work.

74-10) We love conflict, as evidenced by our huge investments in the military industry, our media favorites, and everything that they engender.

74-9) In many ways, it can be much more soothing to attribute our calamities to spiritual sources, rather than to human incompetence.

74-8) In anticipation of the immortality of the high esteem we hold of individuals and the ideologies they professed, we erect monuments, yet most will suffer neglect and abandonment not long after.

74-7) A bias is merely a preference that we hold subconsciously.

74-6) We tend to only approve of certain assimilations of peoples.

74-5) The answer to better race relations might well be faster assimilation through mixed race progeny.

74-4) There are more factors than our current opportunities and potential that determine our health and success in life.

74-3) Evolution dictates that the results of influences on the health and welfare of our forebears carry on in our cellular makeup and in those of our descendants, and may not simply be altered through changes a single generation.

74-2) In overpopulated and underhoused areas, instead of promoting communal living, which is conducive to the social support that experts indicate has been seriously waning, we promote more and smaller units to house more people alone in smaller places.

74-1) Upon reaching a point when consecutive legislatures represent a single ideological approach and stymie progressive changes to reinstate regressive ones, or advance progressivism without consideration for conservativism, a revolution may not be far off.

Round 73

73-40) We love to play games; games are conflicts; therefore we love conflicts.

73-39) We are so eager to identify with a group that we will freely advertise brands on our clothing and on our bodies.

73-38) When it comes to seeking satisfaction, the anticipation of profit, or other possessions, overrides more realistic ways to reach their goal.

73-37) A cynic philosopher still needs physical nutrition.

73-36) If we continue altering our language through our colloquialisms and new words, at some point in the future only scholars will be able to read today’s formal English.

73-35) The notion that ideologies are static is false, yet we are disposed to condemn one for those they fleetingly held.

73-34) Social media might have made it easier for everyone to have a free voice, however it also made it easier to attack and curtail everyone’s freedoms.

73-33) Living longer is of little use if the extra years are spent in bed, or spent trying to live longer.

73-32) Politicians seems to lose all common sense once they don the crown.

73-31) Patriotism in business seems to always be tied to profits.

73-30) Counting on the integrity of tycoons is not intuitive.

73-29) Ban something in demand and a shadow trade will surely flourish.

73-28) Doubt is useful as a transient tool and not as a permanent frame of mind.

73-27) Donkeys may be stubborn, but not stupid, and we can probably say the same about children.

73-26) Change is constant, yet we only notice it when its rate markedly increases or decreases.

73-25) Even when we finally realize it is past their time, it is quite difficult to give up on the fantasies that kept us plodding through life from one ordeal to the next

73-24) Sometimes we may feel such resentment about someone that we would prefer them gone, then sob deep sorrow when they are.

73-23) Good ideas often die as new ones get introduced.

73-22) Cities are a poor excuse for social support inclusion and a great place for hiding in solitude.

73-21) For an intelligent and egalitarian candidate to win office, the opposition must have royally screwed their supporters.

73-20) Sometimes it seems as if tech companies hire armies of tecchies just in order to develop the software to replace themselves.

73-19) Duty to the company or its investors often takes priority over any duty to human welfare.

73-18) Policies to charge higher prices for advancing in queues for government services are akin to bribes that only the wealthier can afford.

73-17) When there is something to be gained, it is no holds barred.

73-16) We accept concepts as factual when they correspond to our present understanding, except that our understanding is, by its very nature, flawed, therefore facts are fluid, indubitably bound to change over time.

73-15) Whether religious or not, we find it difficult to justify scientific explanations if they do not correspond with the faith we place in our beliefs.

73-14) We do more to encourage the treatment than to eliminate the cause.

73-13) Whatever we are advised to do that keeps us healthier eventually stops working.

73-12) We make huge distinctions between killings for which we feel justified and for those we find abhorrent, though the end result is the same.

73-11) We still pound our chests to communicate our perceived superiority to others, whether by expending expensive ordinance in military exercises or by bullying or by publicizing our professional or personal wins.

73-10) We like to make up reasons for things we do not understand, as if believing makes them immutable.

73-9) Perhaps we are so close to our pets because we have become more detached from family ties.

73-8) Seeing things from other perspectives need consider those of everything that is not just other humans, but also those not human.

73-7) There’s a drug for that!

73-6) Fearing how we will be affected by change, progress is easy to resist.

73-5) Perhaps fearing what will happen without them, the promise from drugs often far exceeds our fear of their side effects.

73-4) The more levels we build upon something, the likelier the unforeseen glitch.

73-3) By adding living space and people in urban environments, reliance is increased on outside sources for sustenance.

73-2) We expect that what is obvious to us should be obvious to everybody.

73-1) Among famous last words: “They’re far too sensible to do that”.

Round 72

72-40) The desire to help others is eventually overshadowed by the desire to help oneself.

72-39) When something benefits us, we will overlook or excuse the disadvantage it creates for others, or dream up an advantage that they should enjoy from it.

72-38) Predictions are what we rely upon every moment of our lives.

72-37) It would seem unwise to place our sustenance in the hands of investors, since their primary goal is to generate profits.

72-36) If we think we can get away with something, we will probably give it a try.

72-35) Our world could never have survived without its plethora of unsung heroes.

72-34) When we think of government expenditures, we rarely consider that the structure of some tax rates does not substantially differ from spending.

72-33) We always find a way to repeatedly bail out debt ridden governments that wasted their resources.

72-32) As populations continue to rise, we find ourselves ever more distant from those who rule, and, as a result, ever less trusting.

72-31) Technical hurdles always seem to remain outstanding when new technologies that promise hope are announced.

72-30) We place so much importance on our money and emotions that we, in effect, force our politicians to focus on placating our proclivities before any other consideration in return for our financial and electoral support.

72-29) An empire, or society, will last for as long as its people are able to maintain a shared identity.

72-28) Humans use mathematical models to view and describe a measurable phenomenon prior to taking action, so it would stand to reason to expect that all organisms use math in some form or other.

72-27) A positive aspect of the widening generation gap might be in the decrease of biases being passed on.

72-26) Our attempts at asserting equal justice for all are largely doomed, or at least highly suspect, due to the slow nature of evolution, whereby we are still attuned to the trust and support that comes from participation in small family groups, that treat outsiders, those who do not look or act like us, suspect and due less compassion and harsher punishment.

72-25) If we consider the impermanence of paper and electronics, the future might only find evidence of us from through our plastic trash and our stone monuments.

72-24) It is much easier to press something controversial that affect others than one which affects you directly.

72-23) We usually seem to find the most recent problems as the most pressing to solve, leaving their unresolved causes to present different problems.

72-22) Progress is often misperceived as making things better.

72-21) Many who can afford to forego a handout see their action as a sacrifice.

72-20) Ignorance fuels competence based on perception, and feels threatened by education.

72-19) Many who claim education is the fuel for their competence are often limited by their physical experience.

72-18) We tend to choose our leadership based on how we feel about them, and not necessarily by their qualifications for leading.

72-17) We think human logic is powered by evidentiary information, but it seems mostly powered by hope instead.

72-16) By ignoring the need for public services in rural areas, job and opportunity seekers leave for cities, leaving control of our sustenance to large corporations, whose primary interest is profit, not service.

72-15) As children, we hear what our parents say and witness their actions much more and much longer before we are exposed to others, suggesting that we are prone to adopt and prolong their biases.

72-14) It seems evident that no one knows all their own biases, and that most are not aware how they affect their daily behavior.

72-13) We have a penchant for subsidizing corporations to create jobs that kill us.

72-12) What some call advising others call meddling.

72-11) Just because a majority supports a plan does not make it a good one.

72-10) Pundits seem to come out of the woodwork when they are trying to sell a book, or themselves.

72-9) One of the problems in trying to rein in big tech abuses is that the secretive aspect of the software that drives them is unknown to all but them, allowing us to see only a small part of their effects on consumers.

72-8) The most popular occupation, and, arguably, the most profitable, though not necessarily to most rewarding, might well be prognostication in the field of finance.

72-7) Every new way is a corruption of an older way.

72-6) Teaching sex education separately to each gender seems counterproductive.

72-5) Telling someone what to do usually has much less effect than modeling

72-4) Not for lack of trying, humans continue to resist cooperating in very large groups, suggesting that we have not yet graduated from our evolutionary preference for small groups.

72-3) We may view prolonging life as an opportunity for the elderly to keep working, but they seem to prefer retiring earlier instead.

72-2) Some time after we do something that we feel makes life easier, we learn how that action creates the unforeseen complications that make life harder in a different way.

72-1) Independence is no replacement for interdependence.

Round 71

71-40) Take care whom you choose as a scapegoat, and for what reasons, for you may become theirs over time.

71-39) Military artifacts seem to predominate at every age, suggesting the importance we tend to place on domination.

71-38) Maintaining a state of happiness requires frequent adaptation, or change.

71-37) Religions are particularly adept at making promises that, in most cases it seems, will be fulfilled at some time in the future, perhaps after the believer’s death.

71-36) We like to celebrate when the pace of things that have been getting worse has slowed.

71-35) At some point during each passing generation a strong feeling that the situation in our world cannot get any worse, and yet we continue, however there is probably a point when that will turn out to be true.

71-34) We long for the attention of others, but only from those we approve.

71-33) When we malign our opponents we have less chances of reconciling with them, or of winning them over to our side.

71-32) Technological advances are often like nitrogen, which is used to both kill and nourish.

71-31) We are so eager to consider the benefits of online connections that we fail to realize that only a few of them are actually meaningful, and we fail to consider how damaging being plugged in has been to our health, our relationships, and even our environment.

71-30) We may want to believe that we own our own attention, but it’s more like ownership belongs to our sympathetic biological system.

71-29) Rather than presenting a uniform approach toward providing better education, we seem to rely more and more on corporations to provide a competitive environment for who can do it better.

71-28) To get our way we seem to be using attacks more often than other acts of intimidation where everyone can walk away unscathed.

71-27) We are adept at expecting others to do things without much reflection on how it will affect them.

71-26) We like offering solutions to others’ problems when when don’t have to involve ourselves in making them work.

71-25) Even though one might find great satisfaction in doing something differently, the expectation of reward continues to lie with habit.

71-24) Perhaps the commonly venerated fertility goddess of ancient history, no longer felt as being necessary with an already large and steadily increasing population as the agricultural revolution took hold, was supplanted in religious rite, and the act of sex with it.

71-23) We usually prefer to proceed with caution only after our fears overcome our abandon, or after it is too late to avert catastrophe.

71-22) We don’t generally like rules that prevent us from making money.

71-21) Though we may expect the old to act in a particular way, we don’t expect we will ever act in the same way when we reach their age.

71-20) We have been increasing, at a rather rapid pace, tools and ways to avoid facing reality.

71-19) We always manage to justify things we do that we don’t want others doing.

71-18) Things we don’t like are often described as being abnormal, no matter how normal they may be.

71-17) It does not seem very democratic when party leaders grapple for power, instead of finding ways to share it.

71-16) Perhaps we have come to see medically assisted euthanasia by using a legal act to help remove the shame that has been made the norm around the act, especially for the survivors.

71-15) Large populations breed large corporations which are usually able to hire many people, and from which many, if not all, will lose their jobs on a downturn of the company’s economic might.

71-14) Why can’t we admit that inflation is caused by greed, taking advantage of increased demand to increase prices.

71-13) One might argue that outsourcing to nations where wages and other costs are cheaper will benefit their citizens with more jobs and ours with cheaper goods, however those jobs quickly disappear when labor and other costs become cheaper elsewhere.

71-12) Preferring the less expensive eventually becomes very expensive.

71-11) One wonders how much difference exists between gambling in a casino and investing in the stock market.

71-10) We keep thinking bigger is better and keep building bigger even though we keep getting hammered constantly and consistently by big things falling.

71-9) Innovative solutions to save our species often wind up killing us.

71-8) We focus on innovation to a much greater extent than on maintenance to fix what is not working.

71-7) The penchant is great for crediting what we dream desirable as the only traits to longevity.

71-6) We used to believe, and many still do, that only the human species is sentient, and we keep finding more and more species have it, suggesting that sentience may be common to all life, and perhaps to all natural things.

71-5) We know that young children who do not get proper nutrition wind up with learning disabilities, but we keep allowing big business to market and feed them junk food.

71-4) We know that young children who do not get a proper education wind up earning less and committing more crimes in adulthood, but we keep tolerating funding shortages and disallowing meaningful reforms to our educational system.

71-3) It’s one thing to make any promise, and another to actually keep it.

71-2) When perceiving a threat, we become protective of what we consider as our group before we even consider anyone else.

71-1) Without realizing it, we tend to present how we would like, or fear, things could be, than what we really think they are.

Round 70

70-40) Greed begets greed.

70-39) Economics drives life, which is measured by levels of income now that self sustenance is no longer possible due to the decreased availability of natural resources for our ever increasing population.

70-38) Western countries, hungry for more profit, found a ready source of plentiful cheap labor in Asia to replace the ever more expensive labor, safety regulations, taxes, and other responsibilities to which they are subject at home.

70-37) In all places where capitalism has taken hold, the urban center seems to lure people in pursuit of greater gain, then makes them dependent on what it produces.

70-36) According to the National Cancer Institute, just under half of us will be diagnosed with cancer during our lifetimes, almost three-quarters will survive more than five years, and, if I understand correctly, we have been spending billions annually to find a cure, yet the rates of diagnoses and survival have changed a mere 0.05% over the last fifty years, and we don’t even know if that is due to treatment or better education and governance regarding carcinogenic environmental factors and vaccinations.

70-35) We are impatient, favoring quick fixes over well reasoned ones that take longer.

70-34) Once a lie feels has been believed, it gets much easier telling more.

70-33) Whether you are investing or spending time or money, you are gambling it, learning only later if it was invested or spent well.

70-32) Wages are not usually increased simply because the largesse of the business owners to make the living circumstances of their employees more sustainable, or even comfortable, but because of competitive pressures.

70-31) Helping to comfort and relieve the symptomatic pain and suffering of the slow decrepitude of our bodies toward death has been shifted from the family and close social group to the pharmaceuticals of large corporations and to the quack medicinals of anyone who could sneak in influence.

70-30) We like to preserve traditions when we don’t find enough value in current practices.

70-29) Every generation thinks itself to be modern, which every generation considers old-fashioned.

70-28) When lauding the benefits of an increased population, we are forgetting to consider the current situation that was caused by similar thinking in the past.

70-27) Immigrants do what every species seems to have done once it became mobile, and even matter that we consider immobile eventually moves, for it seems to be the most opportunistic way to evolve.

70-26) We may be led to believe that government sponsored programs are only made possible through economic growth, when it is actually the re-distribution of income and other resources, since some always have more of them than others.

70-25) We should not expect economic equality, but we should all expect to afford basic food sustenance, shelter, and health care.

70-24) From the poorest to the richest, we all want something that someone else possesses.

70-23) At the cost of cheaper foods and increased profits, pesticides and other practices of large-scale industrial agriculture have harmed our environment as well and created resistant pests and strains that threaten the very future of the sustenance they aim to provide.

70-22) When faced with an alluring offer, we tend not to look for strings attached, not wanting to find possible unwanted consequences.

70-21) Having lost our core group of mutual support that seems to have been the norm for hundreds of thousands of years, we turn to hoarding possessions for support, in fear that we can lose our resources without notice.

70-20) Jails have replaced compensation, and have proven to be very poor substitutes for punishment by introducing revenge, and indeed deplorable for their dehumanization of, and for the abuse meted to, those judged, rightly or not, with guilt.

70-19) I like to say that there is nothing as constant as change, however upon close inspection so many things don’t seem to fundamentally change much, if at all, over time, yet how we interpret them seems to change constantly, making it feel as if they are constantly changing.

70-18) Many scientists seem to contradict themselves when they suggest that they can be expert objective observers and still believe in religious and other superstitious dogma.

70-17) That the poor and less educated tend to find their answers in religion, it would stand to reason that the well off and educated would seek them elsewhere, perhaps through practical science.

70-16) Religion seems most useful to those who depend on the kindness of strangers.

70-15) Religion provides us with a sense of comfort which we relate to events and traditions familiar from childhood, family members, and older generations.

70-14) Religions are generally quite adept at using feelings of guilt to keep their observants in line.

70-13) When all else fails us, we seek comfort in speculative notions.

70-12) All the self-help advice in the world will not help those who fear it.

70-11) Governments prefer to spend money on increasing the wealth of those who already have it than on those who don’t.

70-10) We probably don’t like to point the finger when others use demand-and-supply principals to profit from us, because we don’t want others to complain when we use them for our own benefit.

70-9) One begs to wonder if there ever was a time when we did not have expectations that we could surely cure depression, end poverty, and stop wars.

70-8) As time passes after an incident, the alertness wanes and complacency sets in with ease, creating similar situations of risk.

70-7) It seems comical that investors and gamblers have rulebooks, as they deviate so often and work so sporadically as to be confusing and probably unscrupulous at best.

70-6) Ask a philosopher and they will explain inflation, ask an economist and they will explain who is to blame for it.

70-5) We often don’t recognize the basic human fear of missing out as a motivating factor in our decision making.

70-4) In nations with millions of people, it only takes the actions of one to create a panic.

70-3) The deepest pockets always seem to win the day.

70-2) Expecting corporations to protect our constitutional rights is like expecting the fox to protect the chicken coop.

70-1) It is only after the tragedy that we give audience to the doomsayers whose warnings went unheeded.

Round 69

69-40) Early forms of government might have been created to protect a large combination of groups as the population grew to the point when they required moderation that could not be handled by each group separately, and eventually lost this purpose in favor of doing whatever it takes to provide the rulers with their power.

69-39) No matter how much one possesses, those without adequate social support will always increase hoarding for fear of running out of resources.

69-38) Thinking is a job in itself, and like all others it can be hard work and we will not likely stick with it for long when it becomes taxing.

69-37) We want to believe that our mindset will not change when our circumstances do, but it doesn’t work that way, because we just naturally adapt.

69-36) If you can’t win at one thing to increase your popularity, you can surely find another.

69-35) Instead of being presented with a wide variety of views, we are increasingly prompted to be presented only with what we think interests us.

69-34) Suppression of free speech does not only happen when we are silenced, but when views in which we are not interested are silenced before we can explore them.

69-33) Instead of censoring extremists, it is better to provide a forum of discussion with their oppositionists and with neutral forces.

69-32) Military campaigns and political unrest always seem to be presented more prominently when they are happening to people who look and act like us.

69-31) We much prefer to insist that others change habits before we even consider it for ourselves.

69-30) When we talk about things that need to be done, be prepared to wait for a while before anything actually happens.

69-29) Deterrents never work for very long.

69-28) Ample evidence continues to suggest that one institution that struggles to embrace change is the criminal-justice system.

69-27) Drastic change can often be considered as an experiment with hard work to maintain it that loses its attraction before long and encourages reversion.

69-26) Changes are frequent at the top, but for most people, life just goes on.

69-25) If there could be a universal motto for humans, it would likely be “do as I say and not as I do”.

69-24) A successful politician is able to suppress issues they deem unfavorable and to sidestep the ones that make it through.

69-23) Observers might easily detect if the reasons for holding on to power are admirable and despicable, but it’s not so easy for one in power.

69-22) Ignoring taxing situations is very effective at reducing stress, albeit temporarily.

69-21) Governments spend millions on space and defense projects while their citizens starve and their infrastructure stagnates.

69-20) Our choices are shaped by whether we consider nebulous future benefits to ourselves or focus on the their current value.

69-19) Change occurs as a result of comparisons between what exists and what could exist.

69-18) We very often say that it is simple to fix things, but either we don’t follow through or we find out that it was never really simple.

69-17) Religions generally eschew gambling, however there is hardly any objection when it is viewed as investing.

69-16) Subsidies to the poor in effect support the providers of products and services that the poor need to buy.

69-15) Our nature of constant change battles with notions of feeling imprisoned, held back, and otherwise isolated in a static environment.

69-14) Even as our religiosity declines, we find other reasons to hold on to the identities we felt within those groups.

69-13) The visibility of your work usually only needs to showcase what others want to see, until something goes wrong.

69-12) Our perspective on housing has evolved from a place to live to an investment.

69-11) Once we became unable to make our own things and grow our own food, we signed away our fate.

69-10) Most people know little about science, so we follow what we are told by people we trust.

69-9) When we lose trust in the authorities, we follow those who seem more similar to us.

69-8) We want to believe that our government upholds universal values of human rights, but the evidence is not there, just the illusion, proffered by those who enjoy them and those who yearn for them, and denied them by their circumstances.

69-7) What we fail to understand about universal values of human rights, is that they are not automatic, nor readily available from governments, but goals towards which we strive.

69-6) The beginnings of opportunities for corruption, as well as for greater social equality, probably began when we moved away from hand-to-mouth and toward amassing possessions, and it seems like corruption was always steps ahead of equality.

69-5) We used to have only storefront fortune tellers, and now we also have penthouse office super-forecasting firms, each thumbing their nose at the other.

69-4) Workers fight for a living wage to afford inflationary prices while business and government fight to decrease payroll in order to tame price increases.

69-3) New technology brings new comfort at the same time that it brings new dangers.

69-2) You may have been the revolutionary who overthrew and took over a government that you deemed despotic, and you will likely disbelieve that your version of governance will succumb to the same fate.

69-1) In some industries we see the answer in small and in others big.

Round 68

68-40) Many manipulators are well educated who know that to get ahead they must adopt predatory policies to win over the populace, then, having lost track of the nature of their arguments, become convinced by their success of their version of truth.

68-39) As long as the government leaves you alone, you probably will not participate in it.

68-38) One of the most interesting things I find about physics is how it is able to contribute logic to the most far fetched arguments.

68-37) For the greatest effect, strangers use fear and loved ones use guilt.

68-36) Blaming others for stoking anxiety and fear is a great way for politicians to gain support.

68-35) We have become so self centered that we don’t want to accept that we will die, and we will do anything just to stay alive, no matter the physical and mental costs.

68-34) Amoral opportunism is just another descriptive term for a predator.

68-33) We ignore many threats from our risky behaviors because they are not visible to us, likely only to only manifest themselves later, when it’s too late.

68-32) To maintain any behavior, change its methodology before boredom begins to set in.

68-31) Though we prefer stasis, existence is geared toward constant change.

68-30) Depending on the context with which we frame it, predation can be either harmful or beneficial.

68-39) History gives us no reason to believe that humans, and perhaps all things, have ever been anything other than predators.

68-38) The placebo effect might have been an important factor in the success and growth of religion.

68-37) One important thing we keep forgetting and re-learning is the danger of risking all our eggs in one basket.

68-36) We praise the new and disparage the old.

68-35) No matter how much we possess, it never seems to be enough.

68-34) Transparency is only uncomfortable when you lack it.

68-33) At some point we become too old and unable to fix problems that weren’t ours when we were younger, and the young won’t fix it because they don’t see it as their problem, probably just like you at their age.

68-32) Lacking someone to help us reinforce changes in our habits, we usually fall right back to the familiar.

68-31) Everything happens for a reason, though we have many misperceived ideas about reasoning and do not possess the knowledge to understand them.

68-30) Granting resources that a corrupt country desires in order to better itself is not necessarily unlike giving in to a child having a tantrum because they can’t have candy.

68-29) It’s easier to figure out what we don’t like about others than what others don’t like about us.

68-28) We hold people in high esteem not for who they really are, but for what we want to believe they represent to us.

68-27) We like to believe that our complex thought processes are unique to humans, even as evidence continues to pile up that they are not.

68-26) Many believe their one vote doesn’t count, however, since one at a time they increase the chances that those who feel otherwise will get to have their say, they will, one at a time, help all other disbelievers to lose theirs.

68-25) We do not possess the ability to see ourselves from the outside, only to believe or deduce from what others tell us.

68-24) As we have been concentrating on learning how to live longer, our environment has been adapting to take advantage of our disregarded flaws to kill us.

68-23) Legislatures usually put laws into effect without insuring that supporting mechanisms, for enforcement, adjudication, aftermath effects, are either in place or adequately funded.

68-22) Far from being objective, politicians only listen to individuals whom they deem capable of either helping or hurting them.

68-21) Psychotherapy is a way to cajole our system when, and because, we don’t understand how our biology works.

68-20) Anonymity is only necessary in the presence of mistrust.

68-19) Displeased with results from education through school system, we feebly attempt re-education through our prison system.

68-18) We live in a closed loop system, so it is very important to keep in mind that in change, which is constant, there are only trade-offs.

68-17) Mathematics is a natural expression of the patterns that are incorporated in everything, with implications of what we like to call mathematical processing.

68-16) We will bet on our faith if we think there might be even the smallest of chances that something we desire will happen.

68-15) To desire the same toy as another is common, as it is to tire of it from the burdens of care, though not necessarily easy to disregard or discard.

68-14) Helpful advice becomes hurtful criticism when not given in a mutually inferred context.

68-13) Conflict is natural, and though equality is not, it is the natural consequence of needs for mutual survival.

68-12) It is more expedient to treat the consequence than the cause.

68-11) So little of what shapes our lives is perceptible.

68-10) The more we hunger for globalism, the more we reach for individualism.

68-9) We complain at high prices, and then complain about our jobs lost in order to lower prices, though you’ll stay quiet if it wasn’t your job that was lost.

68-8) The lockpicker always trails right behind the next key to better security.

68-7) In lieu of principled leaders, we keep electing party hacks.

68-6) Democratic governments only seem to be by the people and for the people, but seem closer to illusions of meaningful participation, largely manipulated by the rich and powerful as ways to increase their wealth and power and minimize conflicts against them and their property.

68-5) The power that politicians gain from the emotional effects they have on voters masks their inabilities and personal agenda.

68-4) To feel that one needs to be right all the time is to suggest that either perfection actually exists or we have a corrupted, or imperfect, sense of the concept.

68-3) Instead of focusing on not generating food waste, we seek solutions on how to eat more of it or what to do with the waste.

68-2) Financial papers are rife with advice on gambling, though we prefer to call it by the lofty term investing.

68-1) Just when we think everything is going well…

Round 67

67-40) That will never happen to me.

67-39) Ideology does not separate us as much as the lack of connections between us.

67-38) We don’t agree both on what the facts are nor on what a fact is.

67-37) Many who spread misinformation are not even aware that’s what it is.

67-36) We dismiss theories that population growth will outpace food as we fail to consider all the people around the world who are dying of hunger, malnutrition, and disease, due to all the elements that drive wedges between producers and consumers, such as pollution from production, distances, wars, and prices.

67-35) Inequities that are offset by other inequities do nothing to keep them from happening in the first place, and may even encourage them.

67-34) We usually give our interpretations more weight than anything others may have to say, no matter their expertise, or lack thereof.

67-33) From one generation to the next, the enticing day we dream of always seems to elude us and be discreetly replaced by a new future day.

67-32) Many things we just ignore over time, like the unabated throw-away culture of manufacturing that we have been complaining about for many years.

67-31) When we sew ourselves together by our pocketbooks we always seem to forget to mend the pockets of the poor.

67-30) The loss of jobs is sure to follow the pushing down of costs for consumers.

67-29) Low-cost labor may drive down inflation but it also increases poverty.

67-28) Increasing independence tends to be followed by a diminishing system of social support.

67-27) Expecting social support from outside your circle is always a gamble.

67-26) Personalities always beat qualifications in elections.

67-25) Wealth and political power become dangerous when concentrated in fewer hands.

67-24) Once we become a bit comfortable we lose our concern for economic inequalities and no longer fight for it, and when discomfort rises again, we find we have lost the ability to sway political will.

67-23) When you’re in need, you’re a socialist who despises capitalists, and when you’re comfortably set, you’re a capitalist who despises socialists.

67-22) Providers always complain of losing profits when prices start edging downwards after a surge.

67-21) When alone in times of crisis many like to adopt pets, only to no longer want to care for them once the crisis is over, not unlike what many people unwittingly do with children.

67-20) It doesn’t matter what someone whom we trust tells us when we want to believe otherwise.

67-19) Logic easily hides among the patterns before us that we perceive as reality.

67-18) Our trust and hope in electronic solutions for our dreams of convenience remains undeterred, despite the inconveniences, and dangers, that we regularly experience through the frequent breaches of privacy and security.

67-17) Artificially slowing disease progression often means prolonging the symptoms, which are what tend to cause most of the suffering.

67-16) If we listen attentively enough, we can discern so much nonsense in what people say.

67-15) Whenever you hear an if, be skeptical.

67-14) News reports often highlight individual acts that might erroneously be perceived as movements, or portrayed for political ends to be interpreted as such.

67-13) Ephemeral quality of life demands often trump need.

67-12) We have more possessions than ever before, though often shorter lived and still distributed as unevenly as ever.

67-11) We will try something different that seems better, but ultimately we will probably return to what is familiar.

67-10) We think highly of our species, perhaps because it is a quality necessary for self preservation, and it is inherent in all organisms, and expressed in not very dissimilar ways.

67-9) Perhaps due to the proliferation of humans, the primary focus of preservation, having moved from our species to our individual selves, has created a short-sighted situation that does not bode well for the species.

67-8) It is probably very important to keep in mind that we only exist through the cooperation of organisms that manage to maintain a relatively level balance of power that allows for co-existence, and that our burgeoning attention on individualism is an existential threat.

67-7) Though we exist within a very short timeframe in the big picture, we expect, invasive and destructive as we are, that we are as close to the optimal echelon as a species can get, that we will continue in this state, and that, therefore, similar species, in a similar situation, must exist elsewhere in the universe.

67-6) We interpret everything subjectively, therefore objectivity must inherently be a flawed concept.

67-5) Legislation often seems to have been designed more to assist politicians than to address issues to solve or avert real problems.

67-4) True empathy does not arise from momentary immersion.

67-3) Profiteering off the poor is a normal state of affairs, as the strong will always control the weak, and we only take notice when a complaint becomes loud enough to attract our attention.

67-2) Philosophies relating to material production are useful in justifying population increases, and seem largely for the purpose of keeping people busy re-fashioning things for a flawed temporary sense of possession and a short usefulness with little or no regard to the resources used and then left behind in their altered states.

67-1) Evolution kept human numbers in check, but in the past couple hundred years we have sidestepped natural trends to lengthen our lifespan and, as a result, to become the ultimate predator and wreak havoc on our environment.

Round 66

66-40) We may think that providing support to another human is the difficult act of making necessary services readily available, when it often only means simply assisting them in finding purpose.

66-39) It is far easier to associate things with unpleasant experiences, than with sensible ones.

66-38) No matter how faulty our memory, or that we know better, we will readily support something that has pleasant experiential memories.

66-37) The role of central banks to encourage avarice seems just as important as their role to control it.

66-36) When we think of investing, we rarely see it as gambling or avarice.

66-35) Our dependence on future income based on investing rarely considers that we are relying on the uncertainties of betting.

66-34) Opportunists feed into, and encourage you to validate, your guarded feelings.

66-33) Just as we evolved from a single celled organism over billions of years, today’s simple organisms would likely similarly transform in a few billion more years.

66-32) Even though the best we can often do is conjecture, the wise approach is usually conservatism, while radicalism, with its inherent fatal risks, may work better in seeking advances.

66-31) With so much, and so different, information available from so many reputedly trusted sources, it is difficult to choose wisely.

66-30) The more complex we make our systems, the greater their rate of failure and unintended consequences.

66-29) Instead of searching for solutions to correct solutions, it might help to search for solutions to correct the original problems instead.

66-28) Our modern fortune tellers may no longer involve the interpretation of bones, cards, or tea leaves, but still govern our lives by interpreting intentions.

66-27) On our perpetual road to more knowledge, there will always be many who make use of what they learn to abuse others.

66-26) Your good intentions will not protect others from your biases.

66-25) When thrills are the desired outcomes from our travels, we do a great disservice to both ourselves and our environment.

66-24) All fields of science make assumptions which are regarded as factual and used to guide our lives, to be later supplanted by updated beliefs, with the process recurring over and over.

66-23) We do many more amazing things under the influence of religious belief than of pure conviction.

66-22) Altruism is a side effect of self serving behavior.

66-21) Amity and compromise go hand in hand with equality.

66-20) If we consider how poorly we train our children, we have some justification in believing that our species is destined for cataclysm, if not extinction.

66-19) As children we try to emulate adults, but it has been thousands of years since we received that training from the extended family group who cares enough about us, as it seems likely we did for millions of years before.

66-18) We travel just to linger at our destination only long enough to wonder, then return to lives we deem mundane, quickly forgetting all the lessons we thought we learned on our trip.

66-17) We eventually forget that we do not believe we could become accustomed to some things.

66-16) It seems many believe that only those unconnected with someone who sustains a life have the right to terminate it.

66-15) We our constantly striving to find others who are less able, because we feel the need to bask in our laurels.

66-14) Wise old sayings may not seem so perhaps because, lacking a proper teacher, their connection to our life remains abstract.

66-13) Faraway wonders seem a much more attractive draw than the wonders in front of us, which we overlook, or to which we are blind.

66-12) We are usually willing to forego potential pitfalls when it comes to having greater convenience.

66-11) For most, comfort, not conviction, dictates behavior.

66-10) Tools offered by others to protect your privacy are, more realistically, just tools that may dip into your pocket only to limit your exposure.

66-9) Fines for wrongdoings only usually adversely affect those who can’t afford to pay them.

66-8) It doesn’t matter if we believe that we are only a collection of cells when we are in need of a sympathetic touch.

66-7) I find it difficult to equate capitalism with responsibility when it comes to equality.

66-6) Healing the sick, in many cases, is for the mollification of the caregivers.

66-5) Predators abound in humans as they do in all of nature, and have all developed tools to ward off ones that are not discerned as beneficial, while overlooking, accepting, and even encouraging ones that provide us some benefit, with both tools and predators evolving to meet challenges as well as acceptance.

66-4) We may not like to admit that we are indulgent to some predators, such as marketers of goods and services that we value.

66-3) As we become better acquainted with our physiology, less of our actions are prompted simply by our emotions.

66-2) One cannot usually expect abrupt change in habits except by some sort of force.

66-1) Once we stop believing in our dream we become a different person.

Round 65

65-40) You can always find someone who shares your views.

65-39) To gain respect, often all you have to do is to exude confidence.

65-38) The more we learn, the more it is evident that everything is a product of coincidence.

65-37) The why becomes a salient mystery to us after we have lost contact with the who and where and what and how.

65-36) Humans are not much unlike cataclysmic natural events that linger wherever they visit with lasting change.

65-35) Once ensconced in law, a religious belief often becomes a moral one that joins all the others in our legal code.

65-34) We are often not aware of symbiotic relationships until we have lost them.

65-33) We tend to readily oppose anything that might benefit us if it will cost us more.

65-32) We fear our death all our lives and expect to bear well under suffering, until we begin to suffer, when the fear changes to longing.

65-31) It is easier to give someone pills to help offset unhealthy habits than to help them change.

65-30) We are willing to put up with side effects when our main symptoms are resolved.

65-29) It often seems to me that the main argument from economists is that more is better.

65-28) Science is often treated like a common investment.

65-27) It often bears repeating that to make money from investing might work best by selling ideas to others on how to make money from investing.

65-26) Even with the vast knowledge available to us, our views are still largely shaped by our most recent myopic interactions with others.

65-25) Feeding our hunger for the substantive benefits of increased supply and lower price, we come to rely on the economy of scale through fewer providers, eventually losing any recourse to their control over both price and supply.

65-24) If it means we can monetize innovation, we will do everything in our power to prevent any stifling, no matter its side effects.

65-23) Memory loss only seems sad because we no longer have the type of social support which would be commonly found in a closely knit group that would make such a loss meaningless.

65-22) The one deemed accountable in politics is but a sacrificial lamb to quell the public’s thirst for blame and throw them off the scent.

65-21) Success is often based on how well you can mimic a symbol of admiration.

65-20) Elites will always rule because they are best equipped to figure out how to swing the pendulum, and the most the rest can do is to disrupt that swing.

65-19) Those with the loudest voices are the ones with the strongest opinions.

65-18) I wonder if the consumer is ever in charge.

65-17) Celebrating individuals for their accomplishments creates false hopes that we can achieve greatness without the assistance of others.

65-16) The bigger picture doesn’t matter as long as we get our little piece of it.

65-15) If there were fewer people with a lot of time on their hands, there would be more harmony.

65-14) We will never stop believing that our answer is the right one.

65-13) Individuals frequently claim fame for discoveries that are only made in collaboration with the unsung many.

65-12) Cushioning the blow of soaring costs from inflation with consumer subsidies uses the consumer as a middleman in conveying those funds to the providers who increased the prices.

65-11) While greedy consumers may demand more for less, greedy corporations may use market dominance to charge more for higher profits to make them less vulnerable so they can continue to provide more.

65-10) There is always someone ready to profit from another’s misery.

65-9) If you look behind every decision made, you will likely find influencing biases.

65-8) It only takes one person, one bullet, to break the truce.

65-7) We may be able to do things better than many natural evolutionary practices, but, among other things, we lack the consistency that is so important in maintaining a tempo that we have come to rely upon for our survival.

65-6) As the population grows, it has been shown that both resources and waste become more abundant, and both more innovations and threats are produced by increased human ingenuity.

65-5) The caveats that we never seem to achieve have always accompanied arguments in favor of population growth.

65-4) We are smart enough to know that outward appearances do not necessarily accurately reflect the way things really are, nevertheless we continue to believe in the penis and vagina as true symbols of maleness and femaleness.

65-3) Electronics might be the newest way to rule the world, but it still takes violence and personal persuasion to master it.

65-2) With artificial intelligence so embedded in the electronic world that we have come to rely upon, it would seem the robots have already taken over.

65-1) We are a free not only because of the brave fighters at our founding, but even more so because of all the brave who used means other than violence.

Round 64

64-40) Even the most beautiful thing that you’ve ever done, or known, will reach a time when it no longer is.

64-39) There is little satisfaction living in an engineered safe zone when struck by an awareness of the free zone engineered by the natural evolutionary disorder, however unsafe, that exists outside.

64-38) Evolution is akin to a constant prompt to revolt.

64-37) Evolution is unruly, and thus so are we.

64-36) We crave the unsettling distress of the chicken-little syndrome, and the media and everyone else who figures that out, whether they realize it or not, gladly feeds it.

64-35) Democracy is not dying; it was never born.

64-34) Rather than providing tools to those who need them most, to help solve problems after they are detected, we often only provide tools to detect them.

64-33) Though metamorphosis happens within and all around us constantly, we only notice it through the sporadic triumphs and tragedies.

64-32) I don’t know that rigid rules exist in nature, just kinetic ones.

64-31) In human nature, waste has become a normal side effect of plenty.

64-30) While the general animal population still focuses abundance on adding to their numbers, the human population, being beyond any urgent need to increase, has normalized waste as the by-product of plenty.

64-29) No one feels your joy and pain quite like you.

64-28) It is increasingly more often well beyond our ability to wisely choose whom to believe.

64-27) Those who bore aversions to the societal changes popularized by the zealous counterculturalists of the 1960’s and 1970’s, after biding their time, have again gained enough strength to reverse course.

64-26) Nations, mimicking human behavior, regularly mortgage their people’s future and eagerly spend all they have for immediate reward, then beg for handouts when rainy days turn up.

64-25) When common man gets a taste of democracy he will hunger for more, and those who held power before will quickly learn how to starve him once again.

64-24) All students are hungry to learn, but not necessarily what and how we want to teach to them.

64-23) With each new generation we have demanded, and received, more immediate rewards while ignoring the subtleties that make them more costly and divisive.

64-22) In order to be successful you must already be successful.

64-21) We are such an ignorant species that we don’t care to explore the details or another side of an argument that might challenge our beliefs.

64-20) In our desire for cheaper goods and services we allow small companies to merge or be replaced by larger ones for increased efficiencies without considering that, although consumers may initially benefit, such concentrations result in their control of the market and its pricing, and the potential that their failure will severely impact the availability of what they produce.

64-19) You need only think you are receiving it for attention to feel gratifying.

64-18) We use intangibles such as religion to enrich ourselves spiritually, or mentally, and intangibles such as corporations to enrich ourselves physically.

64-17) Though logic suggests someone is usually profiteering from high prices, our addictions allows us to suffer them and prevents us from questioning the producers and others in the supply chain for fear of losing access to them.

64-16) Religious toleration is different from religious governance.

64-15) Balance, however desirable, is only ever temporary.

64-14) It is easy to mount a sneak attack then hide in plain sight among others who look, think, and act like you.

64-13) Everyone does things that we should not, when we think we can get away without being found out or punished.

64-12) Your self-awareness takes a back seat when enough people praise you.

64-11) When your gas tank is near empty, you will drive more carefully to save fuel, but you won’t stop driving if you can still get to a gas station and if you can still eke it out of your budget when there is no other more convenient option to get around.

64-10) We are aware of, and ignore, environmental harms caused by airplane fuel emissions and social harms caused by our travels, as we continue to increase booking flights and using more private jets.

64-9) Problems are never due to one cause alone, and solving them necessarily involves a multitude of disciplines.

64-8) I have yet to find a statement about the cause of inflation, or the remedy, for which a contrary one does not exist, but hope springs eternal as we continue to devote to them resources and expertise in vast, and ever increasing, quantities.

64-7) Evolution teaches us that everything becomes stagnant and eventually disappears without change.

64-6) Different types of organisms sense things happening at different rates of time, so where to us the world may look orderly, were we to see things in a much faster or slower motion we might find them to be chaotic instead.

64-5) You feel the same way when you are persecuted, no matter your station in life.

64-4) We seek more or less government regulation depending on whether we feel their mandates are benefiting or hurting us by comparison to others.

64-3) Our educational approaches have already failed by the time we see market pricing as the only option to discourage or encourage certain habits.

64-2) Our sense of time is the enemy.

64-1) Most of us are locked out of riches probably because we lack the ability to create meaningful personal relationships with the haves, and are thus relinquished to trades whereby the rules are made by the parties that have more of what the others want, or think they want.

Round 63

63-40) Our large population numbers and the distances between us make reciprocity difficult in any egalitarian manner.

63-39) We identify and live with problems, until they impact us in ways that we can no longer tolerate.

63-38) The perceptions initially created by misinformation are difficult, if not impossible, to budge with corrections.

63-37) We love our big cars and trucks, even though it is difficult to justify their need over smaller ones, their waste of energy and natural resources, their added pollution, their greater wear and tear on our roads and bridges, their deadliness for pedestrians and people in smaller vehicles, their inflated cost, their negative impact on traffic and public transit, and more.

63-36) Even though planning may predate many acts, the most damaging unanticipated ones are more likely to immediately follow a surge of surprise from an abrupt upwelling of helplessness and frustration.

63-35) The price consumers pay for essentials are affected in great part by the gambles of the rich in the commodities market.

63-34) We are forever willing to give bombastic opinions an audience in order to gain attention to ourselves, despite knowing in advance their potential for harm.

63-33) Promise people they will benefit and they will accept anything.

63-32) The more we learn about the human body and mind, the more medical specialists we need to interpret and treat the growing number of issues unearthed, leading to an increasingly a more mechanistic and less personal relational approach to each patient.

63-31) We romanticize so much that reality becomes unreal.

63-30) When there are too many voices, we listen to the most familiar ones.

63-29) In some disciplines, first come the theories and then we seek evidence to prove them, and in others it is only acceptable to create theories through evidence.

63-28) We undeniably possess so much more knowledge than ever before, but its proliferation and coordination, in order to benefit from it, are still severely limited, and may just be beyond our faculty.

63-27) In order to prevent problems that we cause through our technological advances, nature-based projects should not be seen as short-term fixes, but as long-term solutions.

63-26) Some parts of us can adapt to different environments, but most adapt according to natural evolutionary forces, only some of which changes are evident to us.

63-25) What we know about cellular senescence, for example, might act as a good reminder of nature’s built-in mechanisms for constant renewal through alterations, that might to us seem drastic, in various degrees over time and circumstance, suggesting that, even though we might be able to interject some temporary effects for good or ill, humans, the earth, the universe, will change radically.

63-24) A dominant leadership style might make an organization successful at the onset, but eventually it needs to be replaced with cooperation to remain strong.

63-23) Knowing how much natural selection has affected evolution, it is still desirable to provide opportunities for unusual instances that we might not expect to succeed.

63-22) We can rid our planet of many, if not most, chemicals that harm us and the environment, but we will not likely do so as long as we are benefiting from their continued use, either through convenience or profit.

63-21) Immigrants face the least resistance and opposition in our expression of silence to their plight when we realize what conveniences and economic benefits we might lose from speaking out or change our current practices.

63-20) We prefer to create servile job opportunities for unskilled workers than to train them in skills, suggesting that such jobs do not necessarily change the quintessence of slavery.

63-19) Feelings of an emergency need for attention can manifest themselves as a child’s tantrum or a teen’s gun attack, and we usually prefer reactive to proactive solutions.

63-18) Unlike most of the timeless words in our dictionaries, which can be shared and understood over centuries, new and adapted words feel like portraits that define a brief time period that will soon be lost to history.

63-17) Micro news cycles are regularly practiced by members of the very media that publicly denounce them.

63-16) As long as a country remains economically attractive to others, its oppressive practices will barely suffer their criticism, or be ignored.

63-15) In order to afford food and shelter we make and trade materials and services that undermine the growth of food and the places where we can shelter.

63-14) Sometimes inflation is considered scientific, and sometimes a gambit.

63-13) These days it seems easier to become rich by gambling with money than by using it to make things.

63-12) As we approach old age’s largely inevitable onslaught of unwanted changes, it can become ever more difficult to believe that there will be things left undone, and even more so when we try and hurry to do more things.

63-11) The best, and probably the only, way for our environment to recover is to take away humans.

63-10) Unlike other animals, perhaps, we don’t easily give up particular harmful behaviors, as with each failure we just find other ways that will allow us to continue them.

63-9) The shortcuts we have created for evolutionary behaviors don’t have a very good record of working out well for us, always with unwanted, unforeseen circumstances around the results.

63-8) When we think of religion, what is probably in the back of our minds is the ritual aspect, that familiar repetitive behavior that we recognize as holding in common, and that, by its shared nature, makes us feel connected.

63-7) A bucket list comes in handy as an escape route, distracting us from the inevitable, half expecting that the experiences will keep us interminably alive.

63-6) We dissociate from people who might shatter our perceptions of the abilities and intellect that we possess.

63-5) We use our few common religious beliefs to frame our more common politics and, it follows, to make it easier to get our way.

63-4) Though we affect globally, we govern as if we are still a series of small groups separated by challenging distances.

63-3) When feeling marginalized, it doesn’t matter what bandwagon you join, as long as you feel accepted there.

63-2) You can admire someone and still not like them because something about them unnerves you.

63-1) When we regulate social media platforms to censor certain speech in a limited manner, we are neglecting the harm they cause by technology that, by design, gives power to certain users to spread their influence and prevents others from doing so.

Round 62

62-40) It takes more to correct problems than bringing them to light.

62-39) The use of physical force is ingrained in us, empowering individuals and enriching industries who take advantage of it with power, while oppressing individuals and groups to make them subservient and prevent peaceful solutions from taking hold for long.

62-38) It may seem rather strange, with so many serious and consequential occurrences happening around us, that our public media focuses on placating us with emotions rather than on keeping us informed, perhaps because we prefer it that way, not wishing to deal with reality, or because our genes have bred us to act more out of emotional instincts.

62-37) Investments usually seem directed toward emotional schemes in which values constantly shift.

62-36) One might argue that organisms like viruses are crucial to the health of the planet because they help keep down the number of humans.

62-35) There is a drive to live that goes beyond the fear of dying.

62-34) After reaching a goal, it is quite common to find disappointment as the excitement of the pursuit comes to an end.

62-33) Though we know that infrastructure always becomes a problem if not maintained, we turn a blind eye because we are loth to spend, preferring to leave that to some future generation, even as we are called to spend much larger amounts than maintenance would have required, to replace infrastructure to which our forebears turned a blind eye.

62-32) We are given to understand inflation as a phenomenon that only the government controls, rarely, if ever, pointing the finger at the actual sources.

62-31) When we say that a policy stokes inflation, we mean that it opens opportunities for those who will take advantage of the policy for their own enrichment.

62-30) We can try to explain, and use as excuses, factors that go into our decisions, but the cause for inflation still comes down to the potential that the supply chain anticipates for profit.

62-29) We may not have the ability to change our biological sex drive, but we do have the ability to change the overbalance of our population.

62-28) The power of trust is the basis in governing small groups, and at some point, as population increases and groups become larger, it changes to the power of persuasion.

62-27) Autonomy is much easier to practice without competitors.

62-26) It might seem that with population increases there would be more people in the service sector, but instead we have more mindless computers.

62-25) Computers were promised to reduce waste and increase productivity, but they have been increasingly used to generate waste and more computers.

62-24) We should question what material and technological advances have been contributing, and if they are really worth the new problems they created that are leading to catastrophic results for our planet and existential threats to primates, which problems the people most able to resolve won’t because they control and benefit from the advances.

62-23) When benefiting from something, it’s very difficult to spot its flaws, probably because we are not very interested in looking for what may prevent us from receiving its benefits.

62-22) When there was only a small number of humans, there was likely competition among the males, with the healthiest passing on their genes, and with so many reproducing today, the future of humans no longer seems as dependent on the healthiest genes, but perhaps more on instinctive behaviors.

62-21) So many of us have become more prone to conveniences that result in disease, suggesting nature might be thinning out our population in ways we did not plan.

62-20) History has always been marred by the powers that controlled the writers and that written.

62-19) No matter foreseen consequences, we don’t like changing course once we have found comfort in the course we are on.

62-18) What happens was probably once thought unthinkable.

62-17) Children are difficult to justify in cultures where they are not needed to support the family, and often represent a needless burden, so the act of having children has become more of a rite of passage, an excuse for belonging, a measure of status.

62-16) Probably said in so many ways already: the only thing we can be sure of is that we can’t be sure of anything.

62-15) To enrich oneself at another’s expense is unjust, feeding greed to need.

62-14) It is difficult to consider change, and so easy to resist it, when so entrenched in past reasoning that we eventually adopted to bring previous discomfort about change to comfortable levels; averse to focusing energies that we no longer possess, or no longer think we do, into understanding and adopting new changes.

62-13) As long as money controls elections and lobbying, government seems likely to continue playing a bigger, slanted role in free enterprise.

62-12) Overreliance on machines and computers decreases the chances that our innate abilities will find anomalies that occur over time in all systems and which often lead to fatal flaws.

62-11) Expand a right and its abuse is automatically expanded as well.

62-10) Humans are only one of the many opportunistic organisms on our planet, each vying to dominate by any means possible simply in order to reproduce, and creating unanticipated opportunities for others in the process.

62-9) Marketing is a form of coercion, providing limited information that is formulated primarily to influence the intended recipient on its power of appeal.

62-8) We may view the concentration of power as a danger to political freedom, but we’re willing to live with it when it strengthens our ends.

62-7) Our largely conservative view of scientists demonstrates a cultural bias that suggests trust, often surprising us with the reality of the politics and incompetence that permeates their fields.

62-6) Contrary to criteria we use in punishing people to diminish unwanted behavior, when it comes to monetary investments we don’t mind diminishing unwanted impacts by excusing unhelpful behaviors while encouraging positive approaches that we hope will diminish the impact of the unwanted ones.

62-5) In order to prevent a relative handful of ordinary citizens from helping to enrich the mob through numbers bets, governments spent millions to get millions of ordinary citizens addicted to gambling through their own lotteries.

62-4) We lambast people for decisions they make based on their pre-conceived ideas of others without considering that we all do it.

62-3) There are so many scientists, and many different findings among them which are crucial to the future of mankind, but there is not a particular method for highlighting and spreading that which is truly important.

62-2) It often feels as if objective writers do not exist in the news media.

62-1) The news is not so much about what happened as about how much we can impact the emotions of the audience with how people reacted to what happened.

Round 61

61-40) Competition between humans and microbes only exists in our minds, since microbes always win.

61-39) We find it easier to have sympathy for those who are, or look like they are, suffering physically, than for those who are, or look like they are, suffering mentally. Perhaps because we trust our eyes more than believe what others are trying to convey to us through our other senses.

61-38) The traditional family structure continues to be placed into disarray by our emphasis on individual economic success, blinding a world on edge to the obvious social solutions of a problem that we shortsightedly intend to solve by vast numbers of people and huge sums of money to provide humane care for the elderly with dementia.

61-37) Our definition of poverty tends to focus on income rather than on wellbeing.

61-36) Lifting billions of people out of poverty through trade liberalization has meant making billions more people dependent on borrowing on their future from unfamiliar, and often undependable, sources.

61-35) Trade liberalization always favors those who have something to trade.

61-34) Watching animal behavior is a good way to learn about our own past behavior before we settled in groups as farmers, before the pressure to reproduce diminished substantially, and before we started keeping records of our activities.

61-33) When deemed harmful, we prefer hiding over eliminating anything that might give us an advantage.

61-32) Rigid rules may work well for machines, but are usually detrimental for humans.

61-31) We like to describe losses of any kind as suffering, be they death, livelihood, and gambling alike.

61-30) What keeps us going is thinking that our future is bright, which tends to color all our thinking against warning signs of upcoming bleakness.

61-29) We started making cars uniformly smaller to mitigate the effects of fuel shortages, but have since lost our way in favor of convenience and power.

61-28) We are not likely to voluntarily cut back on most conveniences that we enjoy, even though many contribute to injustices, we will need forceful action by governments to remove them, and will suffer as they are taken away.

61-27) Once enough people have become aware of your sentiments, any who adopt them become the catalyst, lack of scrutiny notwithstanding, for the increasing importance you give weight to yourself and your sentiments.

61-26) To seem more credible, you rarely need to do more than mimic authoritative, patriotic, official, or even religious titles in your name.

61-25) Whatever special interest groups spend on lobbying those responsible for change should always be recognized as a mere fraction of what they stand to gain.

61-24) It might be wise to separate existential needs from desires, and to recognize the costs we are willing to bear to satisfy each.

61-23) Observations of retiring partisans who may no longer have anything to lose can be more readily trusted.

61-22) Solutions always manage to remain in the future.

61-21) The forces of profit will always continue to hold the winning hand on our fight against obesity.

61-20) Emerging drug treatments are rarely cures, but their announcement is often enough to sway the public into thinking that it is easier to take a prescription than a more effective but arduous approach.

61-19) These days you need a therapist to prepare for a therapist.

61-18) Fear always wins over gentle persuasion.

61-17) People will gravitate toward anyone they believe will benefit them.

61-16) If you want people to flock toward you, use the power of their ignorance to convince them they are in harm’s way and that you are the only one who knows how to protect them.

61-15) To be a politician is to be a master of avoiding direct answers by reframing the issue to take advantage of public opinion.

61-14) News reporters have the knack of never seeming to learn how to avoid asking questions that are subject to spin.

61-13) News reporters seem to subject themselves to spin simply to keep interviewees from avoiding them, consequently providing a platform for misleading information.

61-12) Trade deficits are hardly noticed by rich and poor alike when cheap prices help us increase our possessions, and seem to stir disquiet only when their effect is felt personally and deeply in the pocketbook.

61-11) Trade imbalances are largely made possible by inequities.

61-10) We complain and suffer when we are no longer able to enjoy the satieties afforded to us, especially in conjunction with the disparity we notice between us and those who are still able to afford them.

61-9) The ignorant do not know they are.

61-8) We may think we’re a step ahead of evolution, but it will surely catch up to us, and not in the way we might expect.

61-7) The bigger the failure, the bigger the solution, and the bigger each subsequent failure.

61-6) The trouble with culture is that we tend to hold on to it because we believe it defines our identity and is key to our self worth, rather than to use it for the benefits it can offers to other cultures.

61-5) Increasingly, religion is used to veil the transparency of corporations and their supporters.

61-4) We have not stopped colonizing the world, in part by continuing to impose our western flawed solutions on everyone else.

61-3) Airlines attempt to minimize ticket prices and maximize their profits by overbooking flights and shrinking legroom for maximum occupancy, and do away with services, all in order to profit from the masses, so, thinking they will otherwise lose out to other transports, it is not likely they will consider just increasing ticket prices to still maintain a profit without creating inconveniences.

61-2) Mitochondrial cells only replicate through females, perhaps suggesting that Adam came from Eve, and not the other way around.

61-1) Those who believe that aliens exist with qualities common to humans neglect to account for all the minute alterations that had to happen during the billions of years before we even started taking shape.

Round 60

60-19) Probably every new technology and work-saving device ever invented has eventually led to unintended deleterious consequences.

60-18) We respond to market forces instead of real costs, often leading to inequities for both producers and consumers, who become subject to unexpected windfalls and deprivations otherwise avoidable.

60-17) We are probably gullible because we have not yet evolved from the small-group mentality that was likely the norm in our species for millions of years.

60-16) We don’t want to believe that we are gullible, nor want others to think that we are, and that makes us more prone as prey to schemes that play to our pride.

60-15) Democracies often look more like marketing schemes than true popular representation.

60-14) Giants on whom we fall prey to provide and produce our basic needs, fall very hard when their fortunes change, and so do we.

60-13) Scientific proofs are theories used to confirm the reasoning on other theories.

60-12) Nature only seems destructive because we believe that the changes that we make are improvements and should thus be permanent.

60-11) We are no longer persons; now we are all customers.

60-10) To doctors we stop being persons when we become patients.

60-9) At first you notice that you sometimes forget, and then you notice that you are forgetting more often, but as forgetfulness becomes regular it stands out in memory less and less, until you stop realizing altogether that you are forgetting.

60-8) Although we lack a lot of information on what is happening elsewhere in the world, we actually don’t have much information within our own culture, either, perhaps because we are constantly finding new ways to hide it and are better able to keep it hidden longer.

60-7) The high number of comments on online articles suggests that we are more interested in voicing our opinions than in discussing them.

60-6) “Balanced” news does not exist; a more accurate term might be be “popular” news.

60-5) We like to call the time before the internet as the dark age, but as time passes we may come to see it as the true death of the age of enlightenment.

60-4) Even though we have become very comfortable in our environment with expectations of a stable future, the tectonic plates that formed us are not done with us.

60-3) Perhaps all too often, when we want someone to be held accountable, we mean revenge, through their purse.

60-2) Providing relief to consumers increases demand, and though intended for essential necessities, it is not specifically directed toward food, healthcare, and housing, and so increases demand in unnecessary but desirable products and services, falling prey to the greed of the suppliers.

60-1) Unrealistically, many believe that inflation can be controlled by policy, but since greed controls pricing, policy can only try to influence it by making the behavior easier or more difficult to practice.

Round 59

59-40) It should not be difficult to track a price increase step by step back in the supply chain to identify its source and justification, but we prefer to generalize with an educated guess instead, and only push with blame when we have something to lose, or with accolades when we stand to gain.

59-39) Economists extol free trade, but don’t mind exceptions (such as tariffs and subsidies) when that freedom creates competition and losses for those who control the markets.

59-38) The economists’ excuse always points to potential benefits and pitfalls for consumers, insisting that consumers will only benefit when those at the top of the food chain do.

59-37) The sciences are a series in the art of making things fit.

59-36) We don’t like very much to plan, but we do like to forecast and then to analyze post mortem.

59-35) We focus a lot on income, expecting that more for the poor means better outcomes, however it does not mean that the outcomes contribute to a happier, healthier population and environment, but usually just to the select few who control the economies, most of whom are distant from those populations.

59-34) We have been making it cheaper for people on public assistance to access the internet, and, after they have been exploited, we will teach them how not to succumb to such entreaties.

59-33) We manage to find all kinds of ways to discriminate against those who are different from us, even as we keep piling on regulations specifically identifying newly prohibited behaviors, so it would seem the solutions lie elsewhere.

59-32) Exploration is a fundamental human trait, and so is our extravagant focus on what was and what could be, instead of what is.

59-31) Instead of using education to regulate business, we use business to regulate education, and we have thus reduced education to the role of a business.

59-30) When we give parents school choice to overcome poor results from schools we are admitting that we have failed to provide a system of education that is equitable.

59-29) We are more likely to practice illicit behaviors when we think we have a greater chance of not getting caught.

59-28) The real effects of end result often doesn’t matter as long as you get your way.

59-27) Space exploration feels important in part to allay our fears of existential threats from over-population, and instead of spending trillions in measures to control our population – for example through education for the masses – we invest in those who can already afford education to further their income and self-esteem.

59-26) We know a lot more how to solve crimes than how to prevent them from happening, perhaps because of how much harder we need to work toward prevention.

59-25) We frequently hear that there’s still quite a lot that economists don’t understand, and wonder if they really understand anything at all.

59-24) Predicting human behavior is often marred by the unknown factors that often surface when we think we know them all.

59-23) Challenges to our integrity are often seen as attacks to be repelled, perhaps because we suspect that it is not as forthright as we think it should be.

59-22) The challenges in preventing government bureaucracies from becoming inefficient include keeping them small and refreshing the network frequently with experts instead of with politicians and their appointees.

59-21) Avoiding the temptation to make things efficient by increasing their size eventually bear undesirable results or backfire.

59-20) Even though money has always needed to flow to make things happen, the challenge has moved from encouraging research for the sake of the common good to encouraging it for the sake of profit hoping it will foster the common good.

59-19) We think we evolved from bacteria, but perhaps bacteria has evolved to form us as their tools.

59-18) Threats to our present state are always more important to us than planning against future threats, so the latter is more likely to happen only through coercion by threatening our present state.

59-17) Revenue clearly flows in much greater proportions to the investors and executives than to the rank-and-file workers.

59-16) It should be no wonder that we find ourselves in one predicament after another, since our model of governance is to first let business forge ahead freely, and then, perhaps, let science follow.

59-15) Beware when someone declares that there is only one way to alter something predicted to happen in the future.

59-14) You can blow the whistle as loud as you want, but know that those who should hear it are deaf.

59-13) Unbroken eye contact is frightfully threatening when not between close friends.

59-12) We all think of ourselves as being important, and the last thing we want is to put that conviction to the test.

59-11) From observational evidence, to evolve would seem to be the purpose of life.

59-10) If the purpose of life is to evolve, the failed ones would seem to be the longer lived species, with quite a bit of evidence to support the likelihood of their impending doom, and examples of the extinct.

59-8) Fear and misunderstanding may cause us to deplore many things we cannot or choose not to do, until we do them.

59-7) I am much better at dreaming and planning than at executing.

59-6) Everyone recommends that you consult with mental health professionals, but, unless you’re rich, good luck finding one, or in the least finding one who is adept in their field or successful in the results attained for their clients.

59-5) We get the sense of who is a distant enemy from whoever plays loudest to our fears.

59-4) Babies used to come with full instructions when multiple generations lived together in a household.

59-3) Whereas the old style politicians are the party hacks, the new politicians are the public relations professionals.

59-2) The power of our struggle for survival is so strong that logical choices are often subjugated by it, often leading to circumstances that threaten our survival.

59-1) Advances in science often result from resources that appear through defensive and offensive military investments.

Round 58

58-40) We prefer to turn a blind eye to conflict and risk while the going is good, and all too often it takes a tragedy to make us change.

58-39) Past shifts toward democracy have yielded strongmen with the ability to use newly available tools to influence the public in order to gain power and shift back to tyranny.

58-38) We focus on making commercial products and services available to everyone, while disregarding the part we play, both overtly and inadvertently, in thwarting access to basic human rights.

58-37) Knowledge is not always helpful, especially if it is limited to the increased ability of simply viewing comparisons, which tends to lead to misunderstanding, jealousy, and discord.

58-36) We are well aware of the drawbacks of dealing with large companies, however we can’t resist the opportunities they afford, for fear of missing out on something of which others are taking advantage, disregarding lessons previously learned about both their fleeting nature and the disquieting consequences that tend to follow.

58-35) Vulgar and offensive do not always go hand in hand.

58-34) We can expect that no instrument will ever be big enough or strong enough or have enough sensitivity, to make us understand.

58-33) It should be a warning, indeed, when a politician promises integrity.

58-32) It is only when our ends have been served that we see no reason for accountability.

58-31) It is helpful to keep in mind that evidence used in theories is usually based on theories.

58-30) Evidence often does not proof make.

58-29) When it comes to accepting blame, every one of many players will always point to themselves as bit players and to others as being more relevant to the failures, though each will gladly take credit for group successes.

58-28) Our dreams of the future become less likely or realistic as the future becomes the present.

58-27) Through tariff rates, our government encourages the types of imports that are usually generated by unskilled low income workers, displacing those jobs here in favor of jobs for skilled high income workers.

58-26) Government efforts to cut costs for consumers often means subsidizing the supply side.

58-25) After a scandal, politicians rush to recover the illusory trust lost.

58-24) Conspiracies seem to happen within relatively small groups, and what we often consider a conspiracy might only be a natural informal confluence of similar thinking or goals and not a formal alliance.

58-23) Scientists say they have evidence that dark matter exists, but as it is still an undetectable unknown, that suggests that they simply have evidence that they don’t have evidence.

58-22) Climate change suggests that non-living organisms also participate in competition.

58-21) Our understanding of what is living and what is not seems largely based on our perception of movement.

58-20) We are unable to readily detect or perceive the results or effects of most things that we do or experience.

58-19) We are constantly having to place our trust in people we don’t know us and who have little incentive to mind our individual interests.

58-18) Objectivity is difficult to realize because it is based on subjective judgment of what is considered objective.

58-17) We think we are smarter than other animals, but our strategies are destroying us both, while their strategies tend to have mutually beneficial effects.

58-16) As we continue placing more responsibility on machines for our future, we are falling prey to becoming ever more reliant on external factors that can easily and unexpectedly fail or vanish.

58-15) Instead of replacing current habits which practices rely on manufactured energy, we continue to feed them, in part by promises to hide harmful bi-products, such as sequestering carbon dioxide and burying nuclear waste underground, with little regard for the potential harms that their concealed future might bring us.

58-14) With every generation that dies off, so do the lessons learned from the struggles it endured.

58-13) While part of the government attempts to foster healthy foods and behaviors, another, more dominating, part fosters practices to counter them.

58-12) Giant companies have a large, uneven impact on employment, usually causing sudden changes in the economic landscape of a community, but although their exit is often disastrous, we prefer to focus only on their entry; thus not on what we we will eventually lose, but on what we might immediately gain.

58-11) For natural beings it seems rather ludicrous to artificially emulate our own nature.

58-10) If genes were the sole determinants of success, we would only have dynasties.

58-9) Passions bring people close, and once they begin to fade it does not take long for cracks to appear in the relationships.

58-8) When it comes to doing something that taxes us, for the sake of the common good, we are eager to believe that we don’t make a bit of difference as one individual, however we will waste no time to complain when we stand to benefit that others not think that they don’t matter.

58-7) Though we prefer to think of one as charity and the other as selfishness, altruism and ambition go hand in hand.

58-6) One of the most common company claims is to be constantly working to improve the user experience, which suggests that they will never get it right.

58-5) We may only know our capacities and limitations through them, which means that we might discern others if we had them.

58-4) Politeness is not just a form of behavior, but a skill in communication.

58-3) Many seem to view communication as an art, when it should, in effect, be a crucial skill.

58-2) Headlines belie the promise and claim of the press to inform.

58-1) Everyone wants to be the arbiter under their interpretation of the rules.

Round 57

57-40) Everything being in constant motion, my curiosity begs for the reasoning that underlies our persistent reach for calm.

57-39) Technologies may always be getting better, but they still have a long way to go, and that is probably what we will continue saying far into the future.

57-38) Everyone knows how things should be done but there is no one who is actually willing to do it.

57-37) Policy makers only feel they are taken by surprise when, having been long before warned, their need to act has passed.

57-36) You only think you can’t until you do.

57-35) We are told not to talk about things we don’t know, but that’s not our nature, so as information is withheld, or hidden, from us that would otherwise help us understand, we are left to speculate and, consequently, believe our assumptions.

57-34) Desire regularly create models that are not sustainable.

57-33) There is only a limited amount of time you can remain at the top of the ladder, then either you come down on your own, or someone else will either help or force you to do it.

57-32) The opportunists will rarely admit they expect the big to fall, as they always do.

57-31) The best ways to skirt a question are by changing the subject and by making an accusation.

57-30) In solving problems we usually create new ones.

57-29) Logic does not supplant knowledge nor experience, and vice versa, so they should always be utilized in unison.

57-28) The gerrymander solution to the problem of misrepresentation does not resolve the underlying issues that it tries to address.

57-27) That we welcome immigrants is just something we tell ourselves to demonstrate our generosity, even as we keep them segregated and abuse them if they don’t look or talk like us.

57-26) Current problems will always take a back seat to exciting new projects.

57-25) We do not do what is best for our future until its adverse effects are upon us and we feel the pain, in part because we don’t trust those who raise the alarm.

57-24) To be best at something is a highly overrated, and often deleterious, endeavor.

57-23) Studies into the mundane that affects us every day is not as glamorous, not does it pay as well, as studies into the trendy and the new.

57-22) Instead of taxing the rich then equitably redistributing to the needy, we leave it to the rich to pick and choose who gets to be the lucky few to benefit from what we term as philanthropy.

57-21) When we changed from a nation of rural farmers to urban industrialists we expanded opportunities to fulfill our desires at the cost of an increased dependence on big business and loss of the resources that would allow us to backtrack to the point of self reliance.

57-20) Most of us still view farming in its idyllic form from old movies, so far removed from today’s reality.

57-19) Everything new that we begin to adopt is revolutionary, until we crack its surface.

57-18) With century upon century, or millennia, claiming that our latest innovations have made things better, we should have been perfect long ago.

57-17) Technology is constantly trying to keep up with fixes for problems that it has caused.

57-16) Stories about simply denying guilt or charges are normally featured as news, when they should be considered opinions instead.

57-15) Unlike insects, which have adapted to live in closely knit large colonies over thousands, if not millions, of years, humans have only been trying it, and rather poorly at that, over the last century.

57-14) Condemnation of a part is often perceived as condemnation of the whole.

57-13) It should go without saying that advertising is only intended to benefit you to the extent that it will benefit those who place and those who display the ads.

57-12) Perhaps human females have been sidelined, in the last few (or dozen) centuries as mother nature’s way of slowing down our population growth.

57-11) There might not be a gene that turns on for homosexuality, but perhaps a gene simply turns off for the need to procreate, allowing for the possibility of other types of relationships, as demonstrated by the proliferation and growing acceptance of non-procreating gender groups.

57-10) We might consider so many new innovations, such as social media and artificial intelligence, as great steps forward to benefit all of mankind, however it is still important to remember that they are under control of a select few.

57-9) When attempting to alter behavior, simply redirecting it will probably work much better than either rewards or penalties.

57-8) Even though there are over seven billion of us, I often act as if I am an only human; until I want attention and expect all seven billion to tend my needs.

57-7) We know that organisms that do not diversify are doomed to extinction.

57-6) The need for diversification not only applies to genetics as a result of procreation, but also to how we live, which factors into how we reshape our genes, alone and together, to maximize their success.

57-5) Denial makes for a helpful response to stressful situations of all sorts, real or imagined, and when we have trouble regaining rationality we may need to be faced with a tragedy to shock us into it.

57-4) Revenge often trumps everything else.

57-3) We accept our own untoward behavior but will not tolerate it in others.

57-2) Biology does not play a separate role from social science, but is what forms it.

57-1) We view males as opportunistic, perhaps because it is actually females who create and insure our genetic future.

Round 56

56-40) On one hand, we deserve openness from our government, while on the other hand, we rely too much on making things happen behind the scenes for true openness to ever be realized.

56-39) Discrimination creates closely tied groups both defending and offending, and as they are dissolved many in those groups lose their ties to others and create new ones, not necessarily beneficial to all.

56-38) Those accustomed to brute force in resolving conflicts take a lot of convincing that there are benefits in resolving arguments amicably, and in learning how to do so.

56-37) It’s difficult to feel there is any benefit to conforming when there is no urge to do so.

56-36) Actors play characters, but their viewers don’t usually make that distinction.

56-35) We prefer to be governed by emotion over common sense.

56-34) It is clear to all that money is effectively used to influence and alter perception, and that those who are benefiting from it are the only ones who can – but won’t – even out the playing field.

56-33) Assessments are only as good, if at all, as the assessors.

56-22) Everything we do is a form of speculation.

56-21) Satisfaction and happiness in life come not from making lots of money but from how you affect other people, who create the lasting relationships that will, in turn, support you; you are most likely to achieve these goals with a career in the fields of education and social work.

56-20) Films, TV shows, ads tend to show minute details that cost a bundle to create and that most people will not even notice.

56-19) We start off working to make the world a better place and wind up working to rise one step ahead of the rest.

56-18) We now know that there is no such thing as a maternal instinct, but that doesn’t stop our longing to parent and help allay the pressures we feel by blaming the instinct.

56-17) We find religion useful as a tool for social adhesion, for allaying our confusion about things we don’t understand, and for excusing behaviors.

56-16) If more people become offended by more topics, it won’t be long before every story on the news will be preceded by a warning.

56-15) Prosecutors and defenders use hearsay evidence when it suits their ends, and the courts accept it, so it’s no wonder that the common man takes their lead to legitimize one’s own convictions.

56-14) If the classroom had the same personnel as many school sports teams, it would have a teacher, a primary assistant, and several special subject aides.

56-13) You want to be talked out of it, but your pride just won’t let you change your mind.

56-12) I have never known anyone who does not hold a prejudice of some sort, and anyone who claims they don’t is only deluding themselves.

56-11) There doesn’t seem to be any way to forego creating new money for the necessary exchange of property as the population continues to grow.

56-10) We have evidence from hundreds and thousands of years ago of scientific knowledge that seems to have superseded what we know today, yet we don’t believe we could learn more without severely taxing our natural resources.

56-9) Voters are more likely to choose a candidate who campaigns on satisfying their urges.

56-8) One can think rationally yet find it difficult, if not impossible, to act it.

56-7) Companies can make unproven claims about their products and services without qualms, as long as they include any necessary disclaimers, no matter that no one will bother with that litany in small print that is largely illegible or, in the least, too general to make much sense, and albeit too late to undo the first, and lasting, impression of the unproven claims.

56-6) Blind to the inspiring wonders that exist all around us, we seek thrills elsewhere and ravage natural resources and habitats in the process.

56-5) A platform may believe, and state, that everyone has a right to privacy, but that does not mean they will let you have it.

56-4) As more factories use robots, we may complain about lost jobs, but we will revel in the decreased prices.

56-3) Prejudices allow us the temporary comfort of stasis in monocultures.

56-2) Monocultures may seem easier to manage and regenerate than polycultures, but only in the short term, as they are more easily prone to disease and devastation.

56-1) When we consider the comforts of being in a monoculture, we fail to consider that our existence is only possible as a result of complex systems, most of which we are not even conscious of, nor familiar with.

Round 55

55-40) We like to say the economy is global when we contemplate the benefits that we can generate from it, however we insist the problems that it engenders remain local.

55-39) Supplements, not healthy foods, seem to be the physicians’ order of the day.

55-38) We have no qualms about grabbing at straws when it comes to reinforcing our beliefs and acts.

55-37 Invisible matter explains everything, as long as you believe that what you see doesn’t matter as much as what you perceive.

55-36) Although the clergy is supposedly separate from the state, it strongly affects legislation because the state is replete with zealous legislators who have difficulties keeping the two separate.

55-35) We have difficulties putting off rewards, so we will take advantage of the immediate profits created by increasing prices as demand increases, even though it is likely to decrease demand in the long term, or create new suppliers whose competition will decrease prices and profit margins, so it is no wonder that the cure for high prices is high prices.

55-34) Lawmakers like to investigate suspects instead of the government agencies that are responsible for their investigation.

55-33) When we discuss our history, it only includes the minute number of its parts that we know.

55-32) A charity that can afford ads in major publications is worthy of investigation.

55-31) When companies increase prices that government subsidizes in part, we look to the government to increase their outlays instead of to companies to hold their prices to reasonable levels.

55-30) The quality of being evil indicates intentions that suggest a type of mental illness that finds no interest in rational discussion.

55-29 We prefer to see evil as a tangible quality and not as a mere adjective that encompasses quite a diverse number of definitions.

55-28) We tend to learn our lessons when we are already too old to make use of them, and often too jealous or ashamed to share them, or, when we do share them, too patronizing to make them useful to others.

55-27) To be the most civilized suggests the most evolved, but in no way guarantees survival over the lesser civilized.

55-26) We often rely on novel solutions, by their nature often inadequately tested, then we have the gall to act surprised by the new problems those solutions have created.

55-25) We like the idea that prices decrease when companies start buying up competitors, but dislike it when prices go up because those companies have no competitors left.

55-24) When prices go up, we are advised to act responsibly by reconsidering how we spend our money, and when prices go down, we are advised to throw caution to the wind and spend, spend, spend to maximize the value of our money.

55-23) Greeting cards tend to lose their meaning when a machine becomes the sender.

55-22) Economists have a strange way of defining durable when it comes to manufactured goods.

55-21) An investor is a gambler.

55-20) Electrical energy may be beautiful energy, however the means to store it and the ways we use it are not so beautiful.

55-19) The distinguishing qualities between normal mental health and mental health problems change over time.

55-18) Legislators rarely explore adverse effects of, and try to protect the public from, new technologies unless they affect morals whose believers would re-elect them.

55-17) Public trust is raised when people are helped to feel the sense of belonging, and diminishes when the focus is on being right and wrong.

55-16) We all start out poor and ignorant, and as we start gathering possessions we also start becoming stupid.

55-15) We are patriotic not because we think the system is fair, but because of the entitlements we receive from it.

55-14) It might help to replace the bankers, who try to manage inflation, with psychologists.

55-13) Freedom is a relative state of mind.

55-12) Consciousness, like God, is what we believe in when we choose not to accept what we experience through our senses.

55-11) Consciousness is an excuse for the abuse we mete out in order to feel a sense of purposeful superiority.

55-10) We continue to increase the number and scope of distractions, at the cost of the valuable lessons we could be learning from our family group about our past and future.

55-9) Young people have an easy time letting go of the old ways because they never experienced them.

55-8) We misunderstand death so much, and are so fearful of it, that we willingly torture ourselves and encourage others to torture us so that we may try to remain alive.

55-7) It seems we are not meant to notice subtle changes very easily, perhaps in order to succumb naturally to the big ones without noticing how we came to them.

55-6) Lacking both reliable information and the education to understand it, we follow the polls.

55-5) It does not seem to have taken very long for ownership to be valued from thousands of dollars to millions to billions, and it follows that the trend toward trillions is clear, leaving more of those who own in the noughts behind.

55-4) If we were truly intelligent, we would not be swayed by all the money in the world that is spent on political and other marketing campaigns.

55-3) In the courts, the rich drag out a case through endless appeals then settle, and the poor accept a plea bargain and go to jail.

55-2) Logic, science, empathy all fly out the window in the presence of morals.

55-1) The meek will only inherit the earth before the arrogant when it recycles them sooner.

Round 54

54-40) Conscientiousness is a perfect quality that we unrealistically expect an imperfect being to master.

54-39) It is easier to focus on a specific problem without looking at the big picture, as it feels easier to fix, even though a simple fix might be counterproductive to solving a bigger problem.

54-38) The market tends to motivate government more than its constituents.

54-37) We think humans have a higher capacity for agency, for example, than other animals, however we only base that, and all other comparisons, on what we can observe through our limited, and constantly changing, ability.

54-36) We are encouraged to strike out on our own, yet advised to be with others as being crucial to our health.

54-35) With every new convenience comes the stress and other costs of required maintenance.

54-34) We label humans superior for things that we can do that animals cannot, and we refrain from labeling us inferior when other animals display superior performance.

54-33) Anxiety may have become a disorder because we are living longer in well-being and have not yet evolved to deal with the diminished quantity of stressors needed to ready our body and mind to fight or take flight.

54-32) To fight bias, focus the attention on what you have in common.

54-31) When we encourage individualism we feed separatism and make it more difficult to keep people united; when we encourage unity we feed separatism through the strongest voices.

54-30) We probably started sending our young out into the world when local resources became meager from rapid population growth, creating changes to which we have failed to adapt with today’s unequally distributed bounty.

54-29) It may take smallness to invent and bigness to innovate, and it may take destroying one bigness and inventing another smallness to innovate further.

54-28) As student debt continues to grow, we don’t seem very interested in better guiding students by exposing and evaluating the merits of the high prices that many universities charge.

54-27) When we talk about investments, we generally use delusive qualities like “safest” instead of more realistic qualities like “least risky”.

54-26) It is much easier for conservative movements, rather than progressive, to take hold, as we seem to rely more on the comfort we find in our memories, albeit faulty, than on the discomfort of unfamiliar solutions.

54-25) We probably prefer to listen to pundits because we feel closer to the way they think and speak, than to scientists, whom we have a more difficult time understanding.

54-24) We have a tendency to support the military infrastructure over any other, attesting that we are a combative species.

54-23) We can make all the claims we want about the past as long as we remember that they will be fraught with inaccuracies that memory, available history, and scant evidence present.

54-22) Our bodies rely on ordinary elements to generate electricity, but we still need exotic ones for our appliances.

54-21) Shaming others subconsciously makes us feel better about ourselves; that we are better than them.

54-20) When we feel good about ourselves, it is always by comparison to how we feel about others.

54-19) Time is an artificial measure of change, probably the most common measure that we share as humans.

54-18) Marriage, an institution founded perhaps as recently as the agricultural revolution to make up for the disbanding of groups and diminishing social supports, has lost the forces that were its driver, religion and legislation, relinquishing it to traditional comfort.

54-17) One thing that points to gentrification is when the price of owning a home changes from cost of re-construction to market value.

54-16) We are not only really good at making complaints, but also at being distracted from them.

54-15) Incidents of similar kind tend to increase after being publicized, probably because we are such natural copycats.

54-14) Over time, monuments lauding unity can become symbols of separation.

54-13) Boredom is a normal part of natural life, as everything stops working the same way after a time.

54-12) Public education falls prey to bureaucratic problems, and private education to business interests.

54-11) I have yet to hear of a rich person being released after many years in prison because of judicial misjudgment due to bad policing.

54-10) Those who think our country is socialist because of government programs for the poor might fail to notice that most government programs actually benefit the rich.

54-9) If only our creativity for ways to benefit each other and our environment was matched by the breadth of ways that make us money and help us skirt rules.

54-8) Properly incentivized, we are more disposed to consider extenuating circumstances and soften the punishment we mete for a broken rule.

54-7) Tech companies should not be acting as arbiters of free speech, as the motivation of profit easily sways judgment.

54-6) In order to help alleviate poverty and disadvantage, it is probably necessary that we first get over our misconception that by sharing we are encouraging freeloading.

54-5) Immigration feeds our fear of losing, or having to share, our economic advantage.

54-4) A common enemy is a better uniting force than a common friend.

54-3) We are only as civilized as the least enlightened among us.

54-2) I may want to feel like a Luddite, but then I don’t know what I would do without so many of today’s conveniences.

54-1) It is strange to consider that a casino, which relies on losses by its patrons, would bring economic benefit to a neighborhood.

Round 53

53-40) There’s always tomorrow; until we realize that all those tomorrows were only happening in our dreams.

53-39) We have already succeeded in altering genes to produce a particular sex, and it may only be a matter of time before we produce both together.

53-38) We lie to our children to protect them, and that’s probably because we don’t know what else to do, for centuries having taken them out of the traditional extended family group that would have allowed them to understand.

53-37) We turned fossils into fuels, and now we look to a bevy of other natural resources to abuse in their place.

53-36) We have a very narrowminded view on that which we like to call progress.

53-35) Conservatism does not tend to look very far back in human history for ideals, relies on preserving doubtful notions that there existed a time when personal expression was not governed by some sort of authority, and focuses only on the perceived rights of one group.

53-34) Even a free press does a pretty good job of filtering content, especially if it would improve or harm their profits or reputation.

53-33) Automobiles have always been the purview of the rich and increasingly the bane of the poor.

53-32) It may bear remembering that criminals were among the first immigrants to America.

53-31) Being so accustomed to being alive, it seems implausible to think of being dead.

53-30) Most pharmaceuticals concentrate primarily on the promise of creating what we want most, an absence of disease or infirmity to which we have become prone.

53-29) Our Declaration of Independence attempted to affirm the dignity of the human person and their equality under the law, however such affirmation still fails to ring true among the masses.

53-28) When a group fights for rights, they may forget the rights of another small part of the larger group to which they belong.

53-27) We like to modify the environment around us to suit our pleasure and perceived needs, most often disregarding, usually unknowingly, how the changes affect other elements that then must change for their own perceived needs and create adverse effects for us that we must then look to change for our perceived needs for survival.

53-26) When the government subsidizes the poor, it is actually re-distributing money to the rich, since they are the ones who provide both the taxes and the subsidized services.

53-25) Every political philosophy is loosely based on how profit is made and distributed.

53-24) Billionaires become penniless upon their death.

53-23) After we get the drift of the little picture, then we can embark toward the big picture.

53-22) Even the brightest among us can be so easily manipulated when the right chords are struck.

53-21) Personally deliver the good news, but never the bad news.

53-20) We say that children practice for when they become adults, but, in my experience, we never stop practicing, and we never get it quite right.

53-19) It is wonderful to be able to screen people for healing, but not very useful when we can’t afford to be healed.

53-18) The stock market requires, as with other gambles, that there always be a fool and an opportunist.

53-17) Price increases happen not when the initial increaser is coerced by the market forces of supply and demand, but when they take advantage of them.

53-16) We will easily overlook competence when we are presented with arrogance.

53-15) Everything in nature is closely geared toward inviting others to help us reproduce.

53-14) Algorithms prevent us from learning, acting as shortcuts that may come back to haunt us once they become less, or no longer, available.

53-13) Focusing on the outliers makes us feel that we, too, are special, but in ways that we judge as better.

53-12) A country ramping up its nuclear arsenal seems to be an attempt to convince opponents that you’re bigger than they are, irrespective that none would remain standing after a conflict.

53-11) No matter how much we try to diversify, more often than not we seem to accumulate most, if not all, our eggs in one basket, just because it’s more convenient.

53-10) All sides form from one part that expands and is then challenged.

53-9) We are so intent on our own survival that we have little or no respect for what is different; what we don’t understand.

53-8) We don’t seem to seriously acknowledge that a rapidly growing human population is a threat to our future not very much unlike other existential threats that we either address or see the need to do so.

53-7) In life we call it agreeing and disagreeing, and it is like in medicine where sometimes we call it killing and sometimes we call it curing, however all processes can be more accurately described as merging, consuming, or being consumed, which is the usual way an idea, an organism, spreads, its parts reorganizing with others to create different organisms.

53-6) Free markets produce great leaps in human ingenuity and are usually followed by great declines in human equality.

53-5) Media are not as interested in bringing you news that matters as in snippets of emotion wrenching gossip without context, which is more likely to capture your attention.

53-4) Media filters like to target emotion.

53-3) We seek normality but prefer curiosity over acceptance.

53-2) Difficulties accepting change often manifest themselves as prejudice.

53-1) Just because humans prefer brains over brawn does not mean that we will not evolve toward brawn over brain, as we have before.

Round 52

52-40) All over the world we use various ways to develop draconian social restrictions as convenient shortcuts in a likely response to an evolutionary drive to lessen our numbers, to stave off the destruction of the resources in our environment, and to thus further the survival of our species.

52-39) Perhaps in one more sign that evolution is trying to make known that we have grown too many, is that even our children are killing themselves, devoid of the attention that, in smaller groups, we used to dote on them when they were counted upon to carry out the future.

52-38) We used to count on our children to carry out the future, but now we’re trying to take over that task, to the point where they we are no longer training them to do so.

52-37) We think ourselves the most clever generation ever, even as continued research into the ancients keeps finding new ways in which they were much more clever.

52-36) Though we know that change might be expensive when it is worthwhile or even necessary, we tend to resist it until its cost drops, often until it changes to profit.

52-35) The reason we need medication to combat anxiety and whatever other disorders we call mental, is because we have lost the support system of the closely knit group that used to counter the symptoms.

52-34) The loud and obnoxious are not likely to feel bothered by the quiet and meek.

52-33) Consciousness might be defined as our perception of the resulting chemical and electrical interactions within the cells of our brain and body.

52-32) Price discounting is a form of bias and greed.

52-31) What we call intelligence seems based on a perception of ourselves having a superior ability to continually figure out ways to endure and dominate over other species, but that is simply not true.

52-30) Though our known history is very short, we tend to rely on it as if nothing else ever happened.

52-29) Although we have pretty good science on what constitutes healthy and unhealthy foods, we continue to allow the marketing of unhealthy foods and subsidizing their production and their adverse effects on our health and ecology.

52-28) Our ignorance and stubborn nature keep us tied to choices we make that we understand not to be good for us.

52-27) When it comes to our ego, we won’t let anything stand in its way.

52-26) It’s not fear of punishment that keeps us from destroying each other; rather, it’s the promise of reward that keeps us working toward developing alliances.

52-25) It is very difficult, or perhaps impossible, to really believe, or even consider, one’s frailty when at the top of the world.

52-24) It may be difficult to trust anyone who states they have always adhered to the law.

52-23) The intelligence of politicians seems to suddenly change right after their party wins or loses the majority.

52-22) It is a rare person who will look a free horse in the mouth.

52-21) Justice and our own sense of it are usually very distinct from each other.

52-20) We may not feel so badly about something until we are offered sympathy.

52-19) There are real, identifiable culprits and victims in rising prices, though only the victims are usually singled out.

52-18) Culprits are often coerced with rewards than punishment when their deeds adversely affect others but benefit us.

52-17) To set an example for behavior, there’s nothing like praise and castigation directed toward popular figures by their peers.

52-16) We broadly tolerate waste when we benefit from it.

52-15) Fairness rarely comes into play when we stand to benefit from something that others might deem unfair.

52-14) We remove the human element to prevent errors and increase profits, at the price of lost jobs and increased poverty.

52-13) Nature eventually forces us to act when we falter.

52-12) No matter how generous we may be, or present ourselves to be, we remain our own primary intended beneficiary.

52-11) There is always something to feel anxious about, and that’s probably a desirable evolutionary trait.

52-10) We correctly assume that every attempt to rein new approaches is intended to curb freedoms, but that is the price we pay for living in harmony.

52-9) News outlets often cite analysts to figure out that prices will increase when supply falls or demand increases, even though logic strongly suggests it.

52-8) Our beloved sports have turned into exercises for money making.

52-7) Thefts of cryptocurrency involving millions has brought us a long way from the days when food for sustenance was the preferred object of desire.

52-6) We will probably always place bets on losers with the expectation that they will suddenly become winners.

52-5) Considering as illegal any sexual advances that do not result from bullying or physical harm, may suggest an underlying evolutionary adaptation for a need to decrease the number of humans by reducing opportunities for sexual reproduction.

52-4) Knowledge is not the same as wisdom.

52-3) Democracy is a good illustration for a taste of what could be, but isn’t.

52-2) A monument that some see as a symbol of oppression may be seen by most as just a landmark.

52-1) Studies of the lowly fruit fly suggest that humans may once again face rapidly changing evolutionary dynamics that match the speed of changes to our environment.

Round 51

51-40) The support to combat loneliness and many mental health disorders and problems that used to come from family and friends now comes from drugs.

51-39) To be believed of no matter what, find a way to meet the expectations of your audience.

51-38) To be conservative now only means returning to what we think was the practice in a time of tranquility, perhaps failing to go back further when conservative thought and action was radically different, and without even considering that our species never experienced an unruffled time.

51-37) In practice, a constitutional democracy never truly replaces a monarchy, tending instead to create more monarchs.

51-36) Politicians, like businesses, tend to seek and maintain the support of an audience by exploiting their ignorance and misconceptions.

51-35) Investors take pride in their ability to be considered charitable while profiteering from their exploitations.

51-34) The government loses many of its court cases, posing the prospects of incompetence and excessive zeal, as, with all their supposed talent, one would think that they should know if there exists a preponderance of credible evidence to charge and convict.

51-33) Inventions such as clocks may seem to have been positive innovations, but they may actually have unnecessarily altered our lifestyles to our detriment.

51-32) Legislators rely on common values, many of which are based on ignorance, suggesting that our laws are often based on ignorance.

51-31) We think we are smarter than nature even as we continue to learn how much better nature performs while we struggle with many of the simplest elements.

51-30) Our use of technology may seem helpful to us and the environment, but it also fuels abuse, especially in the autocratic countries where the elements are mined.

51-29) That we periodically shift from our houses, jobs, relationship, may have something to do with a survival lifestyle we led for millions of years.

51-28) We may frequently see the word “bet” in articles related to investing, however we rarely seem to perceive it as an aspect of greed.

51-27) We like to stockpile for a rainy day, but are loath to draw upon it even when it pours.

51-26) The value of oneself is the point of pride that is limited by what we have been exposed to, what of that we choose to buy into, and ultimately what we think our tribe expects of us.

51-25) Most of our bigotry is benign, and not intended for those outside our tribe.

51-24) First we find and implement the solution to a problem, then we search for the solution of a problem caused by the solution.

51-23) We are incredibly slow learners, compounding rather than lessening our reliance on entrenched systems.

51-22) Waste happens when there’s too much of anything, including freedom.

51-21) Not having relegated our record in enduring form such as stone, I wonder what they will be able to learn about us a few thousand years in the future.

51-20) With the expectation that scientists follow empirical evidentiary causality, I find it peculiar that so many believe in spirituality.

51-19) Religion anchors us to its fantastical reality when we won’t buy into the certainty we try to create through science.

51-18) Temptation is anything that you might find enticing enough to consider a different viewpoint.

51-17) If there were such things as wishes, I would like for semiconductors to disappear, and if we could revisit the past, we could do without the industrial revolution, or the agricultural one that sped us toward today, so that we could re-start our attempts at becoming civilized.

51-16) We think we are so enlightened, when we are actually still so unaware and ignorant.

51-15) We are not mere pawns; we are willing pawns.

51-14) It’s not so much the possessions as it is their pursuit where we find pleasure.

51-13) We may feel innovative, but we are mostly copycats.

51-12) We delude ourselves into artificially separating business and personal matters as if they have no effect on each other.

51-11) It doesn’t usually take long after government releases the brakes on business before it realizes the need to re-apply them.

51-10) Adaptive reflexes may not seem a lot like emotions, but they do seem to come from the same place.

51-9) Evolution is the story of trial and error, where error is the likeliest result and achievement a mere momentary by-product.

51-8) We view permanence as success and unpredictability as failure, contrary to nature’s perspective whereby there is nothing as constant as change.

51-7) Every good intention has its downside.

51-6) Education is increasingly focused on making money and less on sharing and expanding our knowledge.

51-5) Every bureaucrat gets the opportunity to practice being a little dictator.

51-4) We will readily forget our charitable nature when we stumble upon a novel way to amass possessions.

51-3) There are times when I want to remain ignorant, fearing how I will react if the news is not favorable to me.

51-2) Government investments tend to benefit companies first, with a hope and prayer – which politicians call a promise – that some benefit will filter down to the voters.

51-1) When there is a choice between free trade and freedom, free trade tends to win.

Round 50

50-40) Compromise has an unjust reputation.

50-39) So much seems to be identified as unprecedented, that it feels like we have never before undergone change.

50-38) From time to time, nature has a way of reminding us, often harshly, that we are not its master.

50-37) Regrets don’t automatically stop after the ship has sailed and your attention has been drawn elsewhere.

50-36) Doctors get old as do their ways, not unlike the rest of us.

50-35) Only the poor are expected to live within their means; everyone else, including the government, borrows.

50-34) Far from evolving toward teachable moments through compassion, we have adopted condemnation and punishment by banishment from the group, leaving the guilty gnashing their teeth in aloneness.

50-33) Important conversations tend to happen in a vacuum, as if nothing is interrelated.

50-32) We often uphold our own principles at the expense of others.

50-31) We might imagine the worst possible outcome, but it’s rarely representative of the actual emotional reality we will experience.

50-30) We ask parents to talk with their kids about issues encounter on social media that they are not expected to understand, but, unfortunately and predictably, the parents themselves don’t understand either.

50-29) When it suits our purposes, we will readily make mountains out of molehills, or diminish mountains to bumps in the road.

50-28) Perhaps we feel that there’s something more to the arts or anything else than simply a matter of survival, a way of distracting predators, of gaining the upper ground in forwarding our genes.

50-27) Our judgment of what is art and what is not is a mere matter of interpretation.

50-26) We used to make money from physical and cerebral trade, and now the quickest way only involves trading the money.

50-25) Following the rules and skirting them are both pathways to success when in the context is just right.

50-24) To be corrupt is to be found out not following the rules, and before which time we were deemed honest.

50-23) Once deemed corrupt, we find it hard to believe we were ever honest.

50-22) Satisfaction in life might happen when you are no longer concerned about your legacy.

50-21) We prefer the simplicity of labeling others and expect the complexity of others delving beneath our surface.

50-20) For most of our existence, wisdom from entire lifetimes was shared with the groups’ young, and for some time it has largely been discounted as groups dissipated in favor of individual pursuit, and popular and novel ideas have trended, so while the old wither and their knowledge with them, the young are left in the dark, destined to repeat old mistakes.

50-19) Often, distraction is the best medicine.

50-18) It’s easy to deny others when we don’t see ourselves in them.

50-17) We want everyone to be happy, in the manner that we think they should be.

50-16) The only rules that exist are the ones we believe in; everything else is an injustice.

50-15) Rules, their interpretation and execution, are made imperfect by human nature, and rarely likely to be impartial and just for everyone.

50-14) We rarely, if ever, experience something in the same way repeatedly.

50-13) The fear of incurring adverse effects from immediate costs are the greatest impediments to achieving long term gains.

50-12) More of the same might seem easier now, even with difficulties looming, however there will be a time when we won’t have a choice but to face them, hard as they will have evolved.

50-11) A bet becomes an investment once it gains a track record as a maker of profits for its bettors.

50-10) The poor seem to have mostly beneficial and few adverse effects on the rich, while the rich seem to have mostly adverse effects and very few beneficial ones on the poor.

50-9) I interpret things believing that is how they actually are.

50-8) We prefer to invent technology to fix problems that often have solutions in simple human behavioral changes.

50-7) It is impossible to learn the true qualities of distant leaders, as even of those whom we consider as relatively close are often elusive.

50-6) Group alliances through marriage no longer seem to be as important, suggesting we are creating alliances elsewhere, though they seem fleeting as our reliance on institutions and the state for late life support is increasing.

50-5) Our heavy reliance on resources that are far away put us at constant risk that we have a tendency to ignore, until we can’t.

50-4) Parents who demand certain prescribed limits on what can be instructed in schools have clearly not learned their lessons.

50-3) We have a penchant for redefining our conservative values, but rarely do we perceive that while we strut them.

50-2) Often we hold on to things and ideas just because we can’t bear to imagine what would happen if we let go.

50-1) The wide efficacy of the placebo effect suggests that we should not expect solutions that we find logical to be logical to others and vice versa.

Round 49

49-40) We will happily turn a blind eye until we no longer perceive benefits from doing so.

49-39) We don’t like to lose, so we will gladly, if apologetically, pass on costs in order to maintain or better our status quo.

49-38) The feeling of having worked one’s entire life for something makes it very difficult to let go when others, or even we ourselves, deem it to have become harmful.

49-37) We like to take ourselves seriously, despite the buffoon that we present to others.

49-36) Pride too often takes precedence over reason.

49-35) The wide variety and quantity of supplements that line the shelves of pharmacies suggest that we are replacing elements that we have ingested naturally over millions of years, with largely unproven ones.

49-34) In a seemingly endless cycle, first we open the spigots wide open to give businesses a free hand for making money, and supposedly improving everyone else in the process, then we try our damnedest to shut them when we eventually figure out that they are actually prospering at the cost of everyone else.

49-33) We are so unwilling to accept similarities between humans that it may be unreasonable to expect we can acknowledge our close similarities with all animals, not to mention what we consider as inanimate objects that exist in our space.

49-32) It is difficult to discern between actual facts and individual perceptions of what constitutes facts.

49-31) Group values may seem good and right at one time only to be seen as detestable and wrong at another.

49-30) Without the promise of a direct benefit, most of us would rather hoard than invest in others.

49-29) As long as no one complains, lawmakers generally leave big and small business to do anything they like.

49-28) We have a deep biological drive to have sex, and not necessary to pass on our genes.

49-27) No matter how much we may want to believe that some things are free, there is always a cost.

49-26) We are biologically attuned to seek gains expending the least energy possible, so it’s no wonder that we easily fall for the cheapest.

49-25) We seek to be crowned the enlightened ones, separate from those whom we firmly believe don’t think like us, who are, in fact, seeking and thinking exactly the same.

49-24) We easily fall prey to the pitfalls of shortcuts because they are not usually clearly discernible or because we just don’t want to see them.

49-23) Self-destructive behaviors of humans may have motivations in the same sense as other animals, though we prefer to believe that individual decision making that might prevent them is not instinctive.

49-22) We are severely lacking in compassion when it comes to personal gain from following the letter of the law.

49-21) When choosing a physician, we’re probably more likely to prioritize bedside manner over other qualifications.

49-20) We can be so fearful of losing our traditions, and the comfort we find therein, that we will forcibly try to prevent diversions, even to the point of harm.

49-19) The high rates of imprisonment make it seem as if most people will be living in prisons before long.

49-18) Perhaps education funding remains low because those who balk the most about tax increases are extremely relied upon to fund campaigns for the politicians making tax decisions.

49-17) Push an offer ad nauseam and eventually they will relent.

49-16) When it suits them, they will remind us that we have the freedom to make our own decisions, despite the likelihood that we are too ill informed to make them wisely.

49-15) Everything is for sale, eventually.

49-14) Most of what we do does not result from conscious thought and deliberation, but from formed habit patterns.

49-13) Almost everything that is enumerated as a health benefit is listed not as a certainty, but merely as a possibility.

49-12) Mega-churches and big business outwardly represent highly sought after traditional values, so it is no surprise that they are supported by Christian conservatives, despite core religious beliefs that they fundamentally contradict.

49-11) We all seek power of sorts, and politicians are no different, and what may make the difference between a is the extent of their talent for demagoguery, the support they receive those who ride their coattails, how much the system can be gamed to their combined benefit.

49-10) Recreational pharmaceuticals were not prevalent until relatively recent times, when big pharma used them to create riches for their investors, with their effectiveness at treating misunderstood maladies as an excuse, and each of us who partook in the medicine, invested, prescribed, sold, or connected with it in any way unknowingly contributed to, and has been part of the problem.

49-9) We have a tough time with cause and effect when we’re part of the cause and we can’t, or don’t want to admit it.

49-8) Child marriage customs, common across all ethnic groups and religions that advocate sexual restraint, suggest that legitimizing certain sexual relations is an important, if not the sole, driver, despite counterclaims.

49-7) Our desire for distinction suggests that we will throw anyone under the bus if it means gaining recognition and acceptance.

49-6) You choose a dream and set aside that you don’t really believe it, simply because it makes you feel good.

49-5) Government is a mechanism for redistributing money and could not possibly function like a business that requires profit.

49-4) Getting to the center often requires enough to be positioned on the far right and left.

49-3) Parental control over children’s education, as with absolute control by the instructors, tends to limit the choices made available to our children from what we have learned throughout history.

49-2) It is helpful, if not essential, for parents to learn how instructors arrive at their choices of what they teach.

49-1) History dictates that all the lessons in the world will not help us remember the pitfalls of putting all our eggs in one basket.

Round 48

48-40) It may not matter to us what harms something may cause to others if we perceive it beneficial to ourselves.

48-39) Lack of access has always been a factoring consequence in inequality.

48-38) We don’t even want to think of utilizing alternatives to energy that we don’t have to produce ourselves.

48-37) We romanticize life to the young, perhaps because that’s how we would like it to be, even though by doing so we prevent them from dealing with life as it really is.

48-36) There’s no pain like the loneliness experienced by a child.

48-35) Each country holds on to its little disparate fiefdom as the sole arbiter of what’s best for all.

48-34) We love to introduce new gadgets in our lives to give us more leisure time, and we wind up spending it to earn enough for the gadgets.

48-33) Sometimes I think that scientists, for all their intelligence, lack common sense.

48-32) An instrument is only as good as the talent of its user.

48-31) Social anti-depressants have a longer track record than the pharmaceutical kind.

48-30) We invent things to solve things that would not need solving if we just got rid of them.

48-29) It is often only enough to stir emotions in order to start a revolution.

48-28) There can be no freedom from interference by government, because all its actions necessarily represent trespasses on the freedom of some citizens in attempting to guarantee a similar range of freedoms for all.

48-27) It is not always easy to discern if government incentives favor citizens or large corporations.

48-26) Trust and privacy don’t blend well.

48-25) Parents and lawmakers may well have good intentions about what and how children should be taught, however most of us are relatively short sighted and ill equipped to guide professional educators, despite their own shortfalls.

48-24) Having vastly increased ways to spread knowledge, we have gotten much better at suppressing it.

48-23) Emotion trumps knowledge, even for the best educated and the most intelligent.

48-22) Though forgetfulness helps us to try again when at first we don’t succeed, it does not necessarily distinguish between what is helpful and what is harmful.

48-21) We like to think that animals are simple compared to humans when they respond automatically to a reward, however we do the same thing.

48-20) Hiding, erasing, subverting what we don’t like, seems preferable to analyzing, contextualizing, and elucidating, when we are afraid our views will suffer, or expect they will be praised, in the eyes of others.

48-19) There will always be outliers.

48-18) We don’t seem to be good learners, as over and over people discover that emotional well-being is key to success.

48-17) Knowledge is useful for both expanding and suppressing ideas.

48-16) A lifetime of study can provide a wealth of knowledge, though its applicability should always be in question.

48-15) To feel so secure in oneself is to restrict all other possibilities.

48-14) Religion is something we can’t explain that explains things we can’t explain.

48-13) Once exposed to choice it’s hard to accept constraint.

48-12) Constraints hide choice; choice exposes constraints.

48-11) Constraints placed upon us may feel more comfortable than the unknowns that we would face given choices.

48-10) We are more likely to lend our support when we notice others doing so.

48-9) Expressing a possibility using words such as may and might, is a good way to confuse.

48-8) So many people with long hair shake their head as if annoyed by the hair.

48-7) A sure way to invite discrimination is to broadcast your differences.

48-6) There will always be backlashes to newfound freedoms, though some of them will have taken hold.

48-5) The expectations we place on others wildly exceed those we would place on our own selves were we to be in their position.

48-4) A structural approach that focuses on egalitarian treatments, and their enforcement, should be preferred over preferential treatment in overcoming systematic discriminatory practices.

48-3) The right thing to do is constantly thwarted by political ambition that panders to voting groups with self-serving agendas.

48-2) Though we often have difficulties choosing between our planet’s health and our wallet, the wallet usually wins.

48-1) Rich people seem more greedy than the poor, perhaps because we notice it through the larger scale of their possessions.

Round 47

47-40) We may possess the technology to study behavior, but not to study the minute chemical changes in our cells that manifest in behaviors, so we continue to operate in the blind, able to detect mountains yet largely unaware of its grains.

47-39) These days you get umpteen last chances to re-subscribe.

47-38) Just like us, governments are guided more by the desire to create money and possessions than by their equitable management.

47-37) Though one of the problems in raising prices is the potential of pricing oneself out of the market, large businesses, unlike small ones, usually get lots of chances to get back in the game.

47-36) Too big to fail means that the taxpayers will be footing the bill after the investors take off with the loot.

47-35) We probably think we do and think some things exclusively, and may even doubt it but not want to bear the thought of sameness.

47-34) When legislators fail to make clear statutes and they are contested in the courts, they accuse judges of making laws.

47-33) I would argue that what we hold dear as traditions are merely what we like to think they were, and quite unlikely what really happened.

47-32) Our increasing reliance on electrical power also increases the chances of catastrophic failures.

47-31) Our views on education, sex, possessions, and so much more are so regressive as to evoke the notion that our species is deteriorating towards its doom rather than evolving toward continued survival.

47-30) I wonder if instead of moving one step backward for each two steps forward, that for each step forward we are moving two step backward.

47-29) We will continue following the crowd up the mountain until, and often after, we realize they are past the top and falling off the cliff.

47-28) We regularly train to build, and rarely to maintain.

47-27) So much in our lives depends on bets that involve monetary investments, most worryingly involving the production and distribution of comestibles.

47-26) Labels disunite what was previously united, however they also identify what we didn’t realize as disunited, separate, segregated.

47-25) Often we are glad to get something bad if we were expecting something worse.

47-24) Many laws are enacted simply to protect ourselves from our own selves.

47-23) We rarely, if ever, hear about the differences between the prisons where the rich and the poor are sent.

47-22) The distinction is not often clear between predictions based on science and those based on ignorance, and we will probably continue to believe whichever ones we feel suit us best.

47-21) When you open the spillway gate you have to be ready, not surprised, by the flow.

47-20) We are not ready for free speech because we refuse to accept any powerlessness to censor the parts we don’t like.

47-19) Perhaps too many surveys are intended not to obtain feedback on their products and services, but to create a marketing profile of the respondents, not even for rewards, but for a mere chance at an elusive prize if you give them personally identifiable information.

47-18) Experiments on people and animals by research institutions will likely continue endlessly, though they would be unthinkable if we were taking better care of each other and not constantly invading our environment.

47-17) We seek solutions to ease symptoms caused by circumstances that we know need not exist, instead of just eliminating them.

47-16) What was not so attractive yesterday might well have become so since, and what is so today may well fade into repulsion.

47-15) Just about anything that moves your attention from one thing to another helps you forget the former and helps heal whatever ailments it might have caused you.

47-14) Politicians are stuck between a rock and a hard place, as they try to woo voters by condemning their oppressors, which wooing is financed by the oppressors.

47-13) Traditionalists seem to forget that they see differently today so much of what we used to believe in, and rely upon.

47-12) It would seem logical, on the surface at least, that the haves who are able to travel to remote destinations, are more likely to spread new diseases, and that the poor are more likely to bear the brunt of the impact, with little, or no, ability to reverse it.

47-11) We have developed a different kind of slavery, by proxy, perhaps to avoid guilt or responsibility, even though, like any slaver, we benefit from the low wages, cheap education and healthcare they receive, and the sub-par housing stock and locations where they live.

47-10) Everyone is looking for a shortcut.

47-9) We consistently think ourselves thirsty enough to open unfamiliar spigots and drink without first testing the quality of the water.

47-8) For every one who is selling a dream there are probably a thousand losing their shirts to buy it, and a thousand more trying to steal it.

47-7) From our early infancy we are taught to resist temptation, and all too often we simply can’t, so it’s no wonder that we rely on religion and government to curb our desires, even though we often pretend to fight, or prefer to think we are fighting, against such curbs.

47-6) People who want to become leaders are rarely the innocents we want them to be.

47-5) I wonder if our growing pursuit and acceptance of non-reproducing relationships is part of an evolutionary response to our planet’s overpopulation.

47-4) Neither of whom we identify as black or brown is either.

47-3) To kill or to die simply refers to an alteration of existence, not very different from what we call recycling.

47-2) Far from revolutionizing education, technology companies are merely monetizing it.

47-1) Every family has a history of mental illness.

Round 46

46-40) We become so fickle in order to fit in, choosing to remain blind to anything but the results we desire, eager to denounce what and whom we think others expect us to, and quick to get distracted from one controversy to the next.

46-39) As we dedicate extensive resources toward finding solutions to unconventional problems, we neglect all the basic problems that could easily be solved through those resources.

46-38) It doesn’t beehove us to listen to experts when we fear that they will not affirm our beliefs.

46-37) Religion is such a powerful force because at its foundation is faith that is imparted by a trusted source, and it is faith in a trusted source that humans have always relied upon for survival.

46-36) Well-educated is codespeak for someone with a college degree that cost a minor fortune, though not necessarily one who is clever.

46-35) Many are quick to denounce sex, violence, and nudity in books while lending continued support to visual media that depicts the same.

46-34) Lacking knowledge and understanding of situations easily and often causes us to misjudge and to unintentionally harm others.

46-33) Attempts to equalize benefits find no fans among those who can afford them.

46-32) We are probably attracted to tragedies because we are hard-wired to focus on our mistakes, and less attracted to others’ prosperousness for the regret and jealousy that are prompted by our own mistakes.

46-31) Often we find that anti-social behaviors have physiological causes, yet we still harbor desires to exact punishment, and even insist on doing so.

46-30) We like to create lots of rules and regulations, but don’t like to do what it takes to enforce them, or to prevent the infractions in the first place.

46-29) Once we have achieved a certain lifestyle, it becomes easier to compound its problems than to fix them.

46-28) How can we ourselves be trusted to tell the truth when we will indubitably look for any excuse at being caught in a lie.

46-27) When presented with a reward for potential impact, we are more likely to favor our own contributions and discount those of others.

46-26) We are evolutionary creatures, great at moving on and at fixing or avoiding what gets in our way in order to move long, but lousy at repairing what needs fixing for others and for those who will come after us.

46-25) Information sharing is part of any societal group, and since it is more likely to be accepted from popular figures, the type and quality of the information is easily skewed by the resources to which one has access in order to master the power of popularity.

46-24) We have not really increased our life expectancy by the number of years we have the potential to live, but by how many ways we can avoid dying early.

46-23) In our compulsive obsession to create new energy outside of our own body, we are corrupting the fuels that we need to burn for our own energy.

46-22) When a new habit is found to generate problems, we search for ways to mitigate the problem instead of quitting the habit.

46-21) Our indifference suggests that we don’t feel we matter within our group.

46-20) It may seem like someone else is paying, but we fail to recollect that it’s always tit for tat.

46-19) We may like to think that every click validates others’ recognition of us, whereas it’s more the other way around.

46-18) No matter how often we are reminded that nothing comes free, and even if we believe it or have suffered loss from it, we still feel and act as if we are entitled to it.

46-17) The appearance of justice too often seems more important than actual justice.

46-16) We have lots of vocal voters in the left and right wings, and not enough political representatives willing to harmonize – negotiate – them into a centrist position.

46-15) Governments like to label ammunitions they sell to others as lethal aid, and those sent by foes as weapons of mass destruction.

46-14) We see the power of one when it comes to tragedy and fortune, but rarely when it comes to small individual acts, like voting.

46-13) When an app makes something easier for us, it costs a person their training, and as it profits us, it costs a person their livelihood.

46-12) Anything that you experience in the same way often is bound to become boring before long.

46-11) So much of our livelihood is dependent on money and possessions.

46-10) I do my best thinking five minutes too late.

46-9) We find it hard to let go of some things, at least until we feel we have been heard.

46-8) Immoral are only things we discuss in public; what we do in private is a different story.

46-7) When unable to refute an argument, it is easier to just stick your fingers in your ears and pretend you can’t hear it.

46-6) It is often not difficult to discern whether drugmakers operate to make the world better or to make a profit.

46-5) Larger businesses increase accessibility with initial advantages that eventually become disadvantages.

46-4) It is important to realize that doctors are quite fallible, keeping in mind they are prone to slack competence and conceit like the rest of us, perhaps too generous with overzealous advice and prescribing habits, while under loose regulatory supervision and controls.

46-3) It is important to remember that larger businesses consistently tend to consider tax perks before philanthropy.

46-2) It is within our nature to be copycats, and that includes tragedies which are reported by, and depicted in, the media.

46-1) The disconsolate will readily partake in whatever promise convinces them that they will rise again.

Round 45

45-40) We have come to believe that leisure time is the best way to spend our lives, and yet it is probably the worst.

45-39) For many thousands of years we knew that the rich were no friends of the poor, but now that our chances of becoming rich have increased exponentially, we’re no longer so sure.

45-38) We get so worried about how others perceive our dignity and reputation that we will willingly sacrifice anyone who assaults it.

45-37) Wisdom suggests that one of government’s roles should be to help us to place greater value on creating long term solutions and less on immediate gratification.

45-36) We often devalue in others behaviors that we value in ourselves.

45-35) We remain trapped in a vicious circle as long as we continue to believe that we can buy happiness through our possessions.

45-34) We are led to believe we are fools if we don’t use our money to make more of it.

45-33) We don’t create money out of thin air; we take it from others.

45-32) Money wouldn’t be so harmful if the value of what we covet remained constant.

45-31) Money would not be a problem if its value remained constant.

45-30) Experts mean little or nothing when politics and money enter the picture.

45-29) Food has graduated from nourishing the body to satiating the emotions.

45-28) Moving from asexual to heterosexual beings apparently increased our chances for survival, and though we are probably continuint the transformation process, it seems we may be artificially speeding it.

45-27) A mechanistic view of our existence is helpful in putting our emotions in perspective, without replacing them.

45-26) Those are choosy can either afford to be or are speeding their demise.

45-25) One of the most interesting things about attorneys is that by proliferating in the profession of making laws, they have made it very difficult to get rid of their kind.

45-24) The truth is the one we believe in.

45-23) We will follow the mob if it benefits us, denying that we are party to it.

45-22) Given the opportunity, we will find our voice and go to extreme lengths in order to be noticed, to influence.

45-21) We advocate for more cheap housing, though it behooves us to find better ways to live in closely knit groups.

45-20) Every person close to someone whom others consider as bad knows that such definitions are in the eyes of the beholder.

45-19) Justice, in most people’s minds, means revenge.

45-18) Predicting inflation is the art of guessing what will increase and decrease people’s greed, followed with caveats of blunders attributed to others.

45-17) As I understand it, mathematics, at its core, is a tool merely to measure probabilities of a moment in time.

45-16) The way of truth is just another illusion.

45-15) Rational and understandable relate to our faith at the moment.

45-14) New studies are constantly upending accepted beliefs, even as we resist some findings with passionate skepticism or denial.

45-13) All evidence is experimental.

45-12) To believe that something is infinite seems to imply that we understand the meaning of infinite.

45-11) The best way to alter behavior might be to present alternatives and accept that no solution is static.

45-10) We usually discount the fear of loss that we all experience in making decisions, as the perverse fear of everyone else.

45-9) The loudest voices are of those with the strongest of opinions to mute knowledge.

45-8) The myriad mutations of all the organisms that comprise humans, have helped us to feel different, but the differences are relatively superficial.

45-7) We see change as progress in our endless evolutionary pursuit, though we rarely accept that it’s only change.

45-6) What we refer to as consciousness is the chemical process that represents what we interpret as being the choices that we make, and what we experience might be compared with what we see on the screen of a device, mostly unaware of everything that is happening and has happened to make that content appear.

45-5) Just as we know that animals possess emotions, there is no reason why consciousness should only be a human quality.

45-4) Religion helps us to respect morality and science helps us to understand it.

45-3) We come into the world in the company of at least one, and often many, yet we leave alone too often.

45-2) We like to think that everyone else always has the ability to make should become must.

45-1) Persistence pays off, whether for good or bad.

Round 44

44-40) Smooth is just a degree of rough.

44-39) Searching for shared ground is not normal practice in a competition.

44-38) As our old heroes are beat into the ground, we look for new ones to stoke the passions of our imagination.

44-37) You’ll ride the cart of success until it reaches the cliff’s edge, hoping against hope there’s no precipice there and discarding worries just to enjoy the ride.

44-36) Call it delusion, fantasy, hallucination, or deception, it is a perception that is as equally common in the chemistry of all organisms as we find in humans.

44-35) We used to construct buildings to create stuff, now we construct buildings to store stuff.

44-34) Over many thousands of years past it seems we have repeatedly gained and lost wisdom and expertise.

44-33) Whether exposed to fresh air or prescription drugs, it will have a trajectory effect for the youth.

44-32) A tragedy may lay bare problems, but not their solutions.

44-31) Most, if not all, health problems certainly seem syndemic, though we don’t seem to treat them as such.

44-30) When watching a show, what the extras are doing in the background can often be more interesting than the plot.

44-29) Humans left hot climates for cold several hundred thousand years ago, however our bodies did not adapt naturally but require clothing and shelter to keep us warm, suggesting that we are not necessarily very transformable.

44-28) We can will ourselves to alter our eating habits based on our environment, but not so our sexual habits, even though our excessive numbers suggest there is no longer much danger of extinction.

44-27) It’s a sign of the times when the most ludicrous moneymakers are the fortune tellers of profit, the financial advisers.

44-26) Our diminishing levels of privacy may be steering us back to a more traditional reliance on small group trust.

44-25) We like to rely on abrupt changes to alter behavior, even though we know that nudges work better and have longer lasting effects.

44-24) We confidently honor and serve some deviants with extreme devotion and ostracize and persecute others intolerably, even as history points to frequent role reversals.

44-23) Tinkering to extremes can create opportunities as well as trouble.

44-22) Remediations based on theory have often had disastrous effects throughout history, but we prefer to think that our own unproven ideas are the ones that will finally work.

44-21) Life was never simpler in the past, and was just similarly different from its past, but we are poor observers and easily prone to forgetfulness.

44-20) Often, it doesn’t matter so much what you do for others, but how you make them feel when you’re doing it.

44-19) How you think you make others feel can be quite different from how they feel.

44-18) Material changes are often prevented by fears of the loss of profits or property.

44-17) The media have largely taken over life miseducation to our youth, in a circular process driven by viewer demand through the profits generated from advertisers’ empty promises to youth’s incessant need for satiation.

44-16) We always find a good excuse for returning to habits that we shed.

44-15) We may refrain from a habit that causes an affliction, but will often go right back to it as soon as a cure is found.

44-14) Patterns represent only part of a story, and we are easily misled by them, often with disastrous and unintended consequences.

44-13) Part of the trick to beating your addiction is convincing yourself that you will survive without it.

44-12) We like abusing adjectives in order to evoke certain emotions.

44-11) Change seems to most often happen either when there’s profit potential or when there’s catastrophe.

44-10) When in the thick of things, everything feels subjective.

44-9) We dislike entitlements to others when our income is rising, and we demand them for ourselves when our income is falling.

44-8) The free and independent die alone.

44-7) Our desire for independence may grow out of our existential need to influence others, to foster our genes on the future of humanity.

44-6) We find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe that people who lived before us, perhaps very long ago, might have been smarter than us.

44-5) Birth control pills are not s much unlike pills that prevent bacteria or other pathogens from reproducing.

44-4) We are kidding ourselves if we believe that victims can lack the ability, however slim, to also be predators.

44-3) We fail to see the irony when we deplore immigrants wishing to enter our country for the promise of a better life, while we don’t object to the issuing of visas for cheap labor to keep our prices lean and our pocketbooks fat.

44-2) Our desire to desexualize the way we see youths, and to ban and criminalize young sex, goes counter to most images we still encounter in all media.

44-1) We broadcast our desire for attention by flaunting ourselves to everyone, and detest those whose attention we don’t think we want.

Round 43

43-40) In some ways, economics resembles a pyramid scheme, relying on an ever growing number of workers for support.

43-39) When the poor class is affected, some people notice, but rarely is anything done; when the middle class is affected, lots of people notice, and sometimes something is done; when the rich class is affected, few people notice, and something is almost always done.

43-38) We claim to resist conforming, but will do everything we can to make our children conform to age appropriate, religious, and sexual behaviors, and others to our way of thinking.

43-37) The type of freedom that we want comes at the cost to the freedom of others.

43-36) The older I get and the greater the number of afflictions, the more I learn about how little we know about our bodies and the world around us.

43-35) Just as with an idea, what unwittingly starts as a gentle jostling forward in a crowd can easily become an uncontrolled surge.

43-34) Though we have the potential to be quite violent, most of us are not prone to it, perhaps because we feel less confidence in hurting than in getting hurt.

43-33) First we allow and even encourage companies to get bigger and bigger so that we can benefit from their scale, and when we become committed to them, then we complain that their prices are volatile, they take advantage of their workforce, abuse our ecology, and put small companies out of business, call to government for their control and even use our taxes to subsidize competition.

43-32) We like adjectives and adverbs because they allow us to inject personal narratives that we either can’t or don’t want to describe in greater detail.

43-31) Independence is overrated, misunderstood, and does not exist as an absolute, but is merely an elusive goal that can eventually damage us, since our existence is predicated upon our dependence on external resources.

43-30) Inflation is the result of a situation that emboldens some to take advantage of the profit potential that it creates.

43-29) One who is identified as politically incorrect might be racist, but so would the identifier be if their focus is solely political.

43-28) We find it all too easy to mistake religious dominance for religious freedom.

43-27) We should always be wary when feeling certain.

43-26) Our personal and judicial minds often mistake stupidity for intelligent intent, meting mindless punishment instead of doting knowledge.

43-25) First we create hospitals as charitable insitutions, then we allow them to become competitive profit centers, then we expect them to be profitable charitable institutions.

43-24) What counts as evidence can look very different depending on where you stand.

43-23) There is a narrow distinction, though not always apparent, between stock market prediction and fortune telling.

43-22) We restrict marketing only when the strongest of doubters are convinced that people have been hurt very badly by its effects.

43-21) No matter our ignorance we always have the answer.

43-20) We strive to move forward even though every forward step often takes us backwards.

43-19) The definition of need changes over time, custom, and different levels of prosperity, suggesting there is a thin line between need and greed.

43-18) We can’t stand to make less money even though we may make and have much more than enough.

43-17) Shame is a tool of the ignorant, intended to control behavior through impulsive reaction and punitive reinforcement.

43-16) Adverse experiences might not affect you as much, if at all, when you are not aware that they are out of the ordinary.

43-15) The need to feel part of a group can be strong enough to allow you, or make you feel compelled, to overrule any values you might otherwise hold.

43-14) Just like those who will not give up their beliefs when we try to bring reason to their attention, we are often reticent to do the same when others present reason to us.

43-13) We still understand the power and importance of groups, as we move away from those with closely knit family ties toward artificial ones produced by detached concerns whose primary motivation is monetary and developed to simulate intimate ties, though with dubious efficacy.

43-12) One of government’s many failings is not addressing the elephants in the room.

43-11) We probably work hard to prolong our lives because we no longer trust our progeny, and youth in general, to follow in our footsteps, having given up on training them for the illusive promise of one’s own glory.

43-10) Judicial settlements seem to have become rewards for bringing lawsuits, instead of resources for correcting problems they sought to address.

43-9) That we constantly seek, and are always in, some sort of conflict suggests that opposites represent an integral part of human nature.

43-8) The prevalence of loneliness and its higher risk for declines in physical and mental health suggests that humans were meant to function in groups and to die off once separated.

43-7) We consider advice to be good primarily when it is what we want to hear.

43-6) Long accustomed to certain habits and traditions, we may view anything different as deprecation and insult.

43-5) Police, perpetrators, and victims are often constrained by arcane, outdated laws that legislators routinely ignore.

43-4) We all need someone to run away from and someone to run to, then to reverse the order once the honeymoon is over.

43-3) History tells us that bad things always happen over time when any one or group dominates another.

43-2) Censorship alters history and condemns us to repeat it.

43-1) Lacking the attention that children need from adults, we resort to censorship.

Round 42

42-40) To want to know more than that we are an integral part of nature is a fruitless endeavor; to act like we are superior to any other part of nature is frivolous.

42-39) A group of humans walk into a group of trees, make use of their resources to proliferate, some are attacked by those resources, others adapt; a group of coronaviruses walk into a group of humans, make use of their resources to proliferate, some are attacked by those resources, others adapt.

42-38) Anonimity can protect as well as cause serious harm.

42-37) Instead of helping to empower small groups of related individuals in dealing with their own problems, the common preference is to outsource solutions to the unrelated and less or un- caring.

42-36) We are easily driven to strive for power and profit over any other motivator.

42-35) Often the poor are asked to sacrifice while the excesses of the rich remain unnoticed.

42-34) When we can’t, or don’t want to, check out a competing claim, we’ll just use our own sense of logic to disclaim it.

42-33) Equality is very difficult to achieve, because as soon as we achieve gains we will protect them at all cost.

42-32) A religious person is convinced that superstition only lies outside their own beliefs.

42-31) Every law and rule is applied unevenly, because their interpretation and enforcement are widely arbitrary.

42-30) One of the more wonderful qualities about the American system is that you are more free than elsewhere to do exactly what you want without impunity, as long as others let you get away with it.

42-29) Our economic system relies heavily on leveraging, yet the least access to borrowing is to those who need it the most.

42-28) Culture is a relatively recent phenomenon being propagated to segregate us by flinging it instead of sharing it.

42-27) A survivor used to be someone who cheated death; now it identifies anyone who got through an ordeal, and we are adding more ordeals to the list daily.

42-26) There is not a lot of difference between economic forecasting and foretune telling.

42-25) Large companies that can employ lots of individuals can also leave them all unemployed.

42-24) In our concept of time, the road ahead of us seems long and close, and the road behind short and distant.

42-23) The almost-daily corrections in newspapers suggest not only that you can’t believe everything you read, but also that many more inaccuracies likely exist.

42-22) Even if it looks, smells, and sounds like it, it doesn’t mean it is, and it is just as easy to believe or pretend it isn’t.

42-21) When relying on money for a living, the less you make, the more expensive it is.

42-20) Arming people with knowledge is quite different and much more effective than arming them with facts.

42-19) It may be difficult to comprehend how students entering college, with no collateral nor commitment for a job, can commit to owing hundreds of thousands of dollars upon graduation, and even more difficult to understand how imprudent and unethical are the actions of lenders and educators who benefit from enlisting them into this practice.

42-18) We can’t wait to be part of a group after longing to leave a different group.

42-17) Simply put, prices rise as a result of greed.

42-16) We want to believe that we can do what we want, forgetting that our livelihood is largely shaped by our neighbors.

42-15) Technological progress is made possible today by the vast amounts of money already made through the general lack of oversight.

42-14) Entrenchment has more to do with pride and ignorance than with anything else.

42-13) Suicide is not an act of courage, but an urgent flash of desperate hopelessness.

42-12) Playing the stock market is the art of guessing what everyone else will do.

42-11) I want it to be so, I think it’s unreasonable for it not to be, therefore so it is.

42-10) Information without knowledge is often perilous.

42-9) Our personal preferences frequently interfere with everything we do, supplanting professionalism with proclivity.

42-8) No amount of reason can convince us to change our position once we feel vested.

42-7) Controlling inflation seems to largely be a matter of curbing people’s greed.

42-6) We are under the mistaken assumption that we have an inalieable right to live, though living together in harmony is actually only realized through social contracts, which are frequently altered and broken.

42-5) Some commit to violence after having realized that the right to live social contract can easily be abused and the chance of retaliation for doing so is small.

42-4) You can’t make money frm being charitable.

42-3) When old systems are questioned, we seem to prefer denigrating and doing away with them or insulating them over explaining, evaluating, and reforming them.

42-2) We love to destroy, build, and expand, and hate to contract and fix.

42-1) Often we will only try the wise thing after we have become damaged by the foolish one.

Round 41

41-40) We place our future on the whims of one judge, one police officer, one doctor, one teacher, one supervisor – in contrast with the care we might expect from two parents, four grandparents, our entire family, and all those who participate in the small groups that surround us.

41-39) Were I to be judged by my peers, those should not be strangers, but friends, family members, and others who know me well.

41-38) Good and bad are qualities we attribute to both big and small government after each time it contracts and expands.

41-37) The money is in how to make money.

41-36) Instead of making it easier for working parents to be with and care for their children, we are making it easier to fund, and thus encourage, strangers to do so.

41-35) We like to think that others should be pleased simply because we are taking pleasure from something or someone.

41-34) It doesn’t take much convincing to change views by appealing to our base instincts and sowing doubts.

41-33) Repeat something often enough and people will start believing you.

41-32) We are good at making change, bad at revisiting and maintaining it.

41-31) We have grown so distant from that natural, normal process that we call death that we have come to fear it.

41-30) Everybody is focusing on addiction caused by introductions to prescription pain killers, while forgetting the ones caused by choice as a result of the lack of social mechanisms of support.

41-29) Drawn to follow trends, we remain intent on pursuing that elusive distinctiveness.

41-28) Most people won’t stand having a privilege taken away in order to share it with others, especially with strangers.

41-27) We can choose government to increase equality and corruption, or private industry to increase individuality and corruption.

41-26) Competition forces both innovation and stagnation.

41-25) Feed information to artificial intelligence and, somewhat like with humans, expect unpredictable results.

41-24) No matter how much we try or would otherwise prefer, we are much better at being reactive than proactive.

41-23) We seem to be stuck in a drive for economic growth without slowing down or stopping for time to have everyone catch up.

41-22) Economic growth seems to be a concept where the masses largely support the few who provide the masses with handouts that are just enough to keep them dependent.

41-21) Give people too little and they become exploited; give them too much and they become complacent.

41-20) We have sucn an outsized need to reproduce even though there are already way too many of us for our good.

41-19) Solutions become popular when others find ways to profit from them.

41-18) We usually prefer to take solace in our fantasies than to deal with the realities of our existence.

41-17) Everyone is looking for someone weaker to bully, though we would never admit it of ourselves.

41-16) Family has been bested by jobs as our primary motivation.

41-15) We stopped living with our families and no longer recognize aging when we’re young and youth when we’re old

41-14) We choose electronic communications for short term convenience at the price of long term relationships.

41-13) When we think of “family or career” it seems to suggest our choice is between having children or not, however we might consider careers in a bigger picture of family that fosters care of adults and other people’s families as well.

41-12) Logic suggests that programs for the common good should be administered by government, since market intervention tends to favor some over others, nevertheless access almost always appears to suffer at the hands of government, and fixing it never seems to be a post-election priority since those who are in charge of the fixing benefit from the markets.

41-11) Acting alone may reflect a more primitive sense than acting together.

41-10) An emotion needs to be repeatedly experienced in order to be remembered, and that doesn’t guarantee it won’t get corrupted over time.

41-9) Instead of teaching our children all about the pleasures and pains they are likely to experience, we try to suppress all such knowledge, essentially preferring they learn either on their own or from some third party, usually through their similarly ignorant peers, inadvertently condemning them to be mentally and physically hurt or damaged.

41-8) We search for the most complicated explanations even when the answers turn out to be the simplest.

41-7) We often miss the big picture because we like to focus so much on the minute, which is where we find the money.

41-6) Our desire to feel attractive has everything to do with seeking preferential treatment, whether or not we care to admit it.

41-5) The oceans might be considered fish toilets, but we can also call them, as well as the air we breathe and the land we live on, not to mention space, human toilets.

41-4) The high degree in automaticity and large number of organisms in our body’s systems suggest that we will never understand them enough to even come close to mastering them.

41-3) Long term planning is not one of our best qualities, perhaps because we have been practicing short term planning over millions of years, and with long term goals for only 20,000 years, or less.

41-2) Change can have global effects but it always starts at the minutest levels.

41-1) The closer we think we are getting to an answer, the farther away we usually find ourselves.

Up is now the way to go.

Round 40

40-40) The essential meaning, or purpose, of life is preservation through adaptation.

40-39) As intelligent as we claim to be, we still react largely through our natural animal instincts.

40-38) To be civilized is to quell selective instincts for what passes as the common good of the times.

40-37) We invest in our children as if they were chattel with a worth primarily measured in their potential for making money.

40-36) We easily fall prey to the first explanation that confirms our suspicions or beliefs.

40-35)When it happens to others it’s shameful; when it happens to us we it’s embarrassing.

40-34) Calm and static are mental delusions.

40-33) Cooperation happens when alternatives no longer seem viable.

40-32) We will usually do just about anything in order to preserve our power, or our delusion thereof.

40-31) The deeper we dig, the more likely we are to encounter the unexpected.

40-30) Bravado is stronger than any warning or threat.

40-29) Those without your obsessions may believe that you can overcome them, though I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t hang on to their own.I wonder if everyone, when aware it’s their last moment of life, think they didn’t expect it was going to end that way.

40-28) When we become too entrenched, we become blind and deaf.

40-27) That we like to justify certain conditions as a natural course of human history suggests we haven’t learned much from it.

40-26) We are not very consistent in the narratives we believe, except that we are consistent in taking whatever views suit our purpose.

40-25) No matter how much equality we long for, we always find dominance to be an essential quality.

40-24) When menaced you will cry foul at the intimidator, and balk at the intimidated when you are doing the menacing and they cry foul.

40-23) Autocracy lives on in democracy, where most systems still consist of authoritarian institutions.

40-22) When we legislate third-party support for others, we relegate trust to people we don’t know, expecting them to invest of themselves in ways we ourselves are trying to avoid.

40-21) Whether you attribute inflation to supply or demand issues, it’s still a matter of greed.

40-20) What at one time were considered a series of normal progressions in old age are now considered ravages.

40-19) We have become proficient at shielding ourselves from the pains of our elderly, having dramatically increased their segregation from our everyday lives, herded in old age homes in the care of strangers who are mostly doing it for the paycheck.

40-18) As much as we want to think of children as innocent, in reality they are terrors in need of taming.

40-17) Invariably, we yearn to reproduce even before we become capable of managing that which we have already produced.

40-16) In all of nature every shape is temporary.

40-15) We regularly make decisions based on assumptions, whereby the promise and the danger can be ascribed to both the most radical of decisions and the lack thereof.

40-14) We have sidestepped evolution by becoming mere part-time role models.

40-13) Even though I know it’s there, if I don’t see, hear, or touch it, I don’t have to admit it and can more easily not think it’s really there.

40-12) We condone abuse by not naming it until we recognize how it directly affects us.

40-11) We are invincible, until we are not.

40-10) Beliefs and customs that are held for many years, and the comfort perceived from their apparent immutability, contribute to the difficulties faced in understanding, accepting, or even at finding the will to look at different ones; and we only think this applies to others, never to ourselves.

40-9) Disagreements, fights, wars, are all made possible by a purported inability – we call it unwillingness in others – to perceive the situation from a detached perspective – which, of course, is the one we think we possess.

40-8) We know that every party in a conflict believes the others are unreasonable, and find it unfathomable that it could be us.

40-7) Those who have never held a prejudice may be the least capable of guiding others to prevent it.

40-6) The successful own up to their mistakes and learn from them, while the unsuccessful hide them.

40-5) Accepting advice is preconditioned on having developed a trusting relationship.

40-4) A not so unpredictable result of media censorship is not only that there are ways to get around its limited scope with what is allowed, but that everyone still understands the intent.

40-3) Prostitution enslaves the prostitute as much as any job enslaves its workers.Our survival is based on a careful balance that happens on the smallest scale which effects we notice only when avalanched into a much larger scale.

40-2) Civics lessons teach the basic structure of our political system, however they don’t delve into its actual workings, such as the bargains, favors, excuses, backstabbing, posturing, and other actions for gaining advantage.

40-1) When we don’t feel another’s pain, we rarely have qualms about leaving them to experience it.

Round 39

39-40) Lacking, or avoiding, our naturally evolved diet and exercise regimens and small group dynamics to avoid or resolve depressive emotions, we seek chemicals and the fleeting comfort of possessions to do the job and call it progress.

39-39) Side effects are usually relegated to mere afterthoughts when seeking to satisfy our desires.

39-38) Side effects often have their own side effects.

39-37) Urgency dictates we are willing to accept just about any alternative.

39-36) If you are wondering how to solve a problem, any place that tells you what you want to hear feels like the right place.

39-35) Our overwhelming concern for the existential risk of our species, at the cost of others, suggests that we have little understanding of the big picture.

39-34) We are not often apt to act on warnings, preferring to wait at least until the point of no return rings annoyingly loud, or, more likely until we feel the effects of the fait accomplit.

39-33) People’s capacity for treachery, conflict, and abuse of power is immeasurable and predictably normal.

39-32) Movements against abortion seem to target services that cater primarily to women with little means, while the monied carry on as usual.

39-31) Our first experiences with sexual pleasure and pain can easily dictate our proclivities for the remainder of our lives.

39-30) Change only happens when the cost rises above both real and imaginary benefits perceived from remaining static.

39-29) We regret missed opportunities even though we might never have taken them.

39-28) Even though evolution is the reason for our insanity, the blame goes to our insanity.

39-27) It’s one thing to think we all breathe the same air, and another to consider that we each breathe and absorb molecules that waft from everything and everyone around us, and, consequently, from everything that ever existed and everyone who ever lived.

39-26) We like to think that quality of life is related to prosperity in power and possessions.

39-25) Incidental ervices that are regularly provided become fundamentally expected.

39-24) Winning over one from an opposing faction is often the key to convincing all to appreciate and move to your stance.

39-23) If we are unable or prohibited to participate in a way that is meaningful to society, we will likely find something forbidden to do.

39-22) Probably the most influential bellwethers on undertaking behaviors is how we feel perceived by others.

39-21) Being unable is often a matter of just feeling unable.

39-20) Many underlying costs of conveniences are often apparent only after they have become staples.

39-19) If effective political speech requires spending money, then the speech of the poor is basically null.

39-18) When the ego speaks, there is no measure of intelligence that can penetrate the din.

39-17) Comfort foods used to be those made by a loved one; now they seem to constitute anything you can get into your mouth.

39-16) When the word unprecedented rises to the company of the most frequently uttered, it’s time to consider how lacking our species is in the field of wisdom.

39-15) It seems every generation past has tried their turn to tighten control over young people, even though it continues to prove a losing battle.

39-14) We have no problem with blaming an entire organization or generation for the failings of a few.

39-13) We think it very different when someone else does something to us than when we do it to our own self.

39-12) Marketing is a way of getting others to support us by convincing them that we care, even though we don’t.

39-11) The silliness of some of the things we do is only apparent when we try to look through a different lens.

39-10) So many ancient first are less about who first did or saw something as about who first wrote about or lived to tell about them.

39-9) Despite all claims as to our ability to control which, and how, nutrients will benefit us, their behavior is still largely dictated by millions of years of evolution.

39-8) In the blink of an eye we have moved so far away from our naturally evolved behavior that we don’t even know our children, nor they their parents.

39-7) The sexuality that children perceive on screens is not taught elsewhere.

39-6) My plans never fail, as long as they remain in my dreams.

39-5) Time only passes quickly when we are having a good time.

39-4) We honor the recent dead in ways that, to their detriment, we would never have while living.

39-3) Whereas in times past we would have offered food, clothing, shelter and comfort to the poor, now we offer them money and empty promises.

39-2) Common understanding is mostly based on knowledge and traditions shaped within the past few hundred years, and some on a few thousand, yet most of what we think we know was shaped by what we don’t know that happened over millions or even billions of years.

39-1) The rich sacrifice work to be home for their children, and the poor sacrifice being home for their children to be at work.

This finger has no fickle intention.

Round 38

38-40) Lots of things that we take for granted will seem logical if we only take the time to think about them.

38-39) We like to take things small and make them big, because we think of bigger as better, until it no longer is.

38-38) We tend to consider small a diminutive quality.

38-37) Current economic systems are geared to amass property in the hands of a small number, with most workers reliant on, and indebted to, this number and their strictures for sustenance and shelter.

38-36) Routine creates a degree of comfort that makes it difficult to respond to things that go awry.

38-35) Child care programs focus on paying others to care for our and other children, when they should be paying us to care for them ourselves in the company of other community members, parents, and children.

38-34) Perhaps we elevate and worship others whom we consider beautiful and talented because we think that of ourselves, and are acting out how others should be treating us.

38-33) If the pursuit of happiness did not consist of reaching a goal as the ultimate focus, we might not experience the richness and intensity that we can discover along the way.

38-32) The loss of a common enemy can create new enemies.

38-31) So much flawed and enduring fundamental education is influenced by, and learned through, peer pressure.

38-30) Youthfulness has license to believe they will never become old like those around them.

38-29) The more removed you are from something, the more mysterious, desirable, fearful, questionable it becomes.

38-28) It can be easy to confuse logic about what should happen with what happens naturally.

38-27) So little of what produces our evolved behavior is apparent to us.

38-26) Any argument that we might consider for changing behavior to one extreme or the other is not likely to remain valid for long, as we tend to become easily desensitized over time.

38-25) We may think of morals as civilized behavior, but digging deeper we may find they are simply ways to limit behaviors based on a genetic predisposition to fear the loss of limited resources, and perhaps to not give up advantages gained.

38-24) It might help us to face our difficulties in working with, and adapting to, large groups, if we consider how our genetic evolution over millions of years shaped us to rely on small groups for safety, sustenance, and shelter.

38-23) We may be bored with sameness but remain glued to it for the safety, or comfort, it affords us.

38-22) The latest firsts frequently weigh more heavily on our reasoning than all the historically best.

38-21) If punishment worked as a deterrent, our prisons and jails would be empty.

38-20) Even parents who can’t afford to pay for a doctor will insist their child become a doctor who can charge so much that people can’t afford to pay them.

38-19) The most successful in the media are the best at exploiting the prejudices of their audience.

38-18) Science diagnoses moral behaviors to quantify mental disorders.

38-17) Most of us seem to prefer taking pharmaceutical drugs to decrease the symptoms of our maladies, despite the high risk of adverse reactions, rather than to alter our food intake and lifestyle that cure or prevent them.

38-16) Value lies in rarity; nobody sacrifices or fights for the mundane.

38-15) Rarity creates demand, as well as pecuniary and judicial ways to limit availability.

38-14) The concept of upward mobility suggests that succumbing poverty is an economic opportunity rather than a human right.

38-13) Impartiality is probably impossible to achieve, and the best we can hope is to achieve a consensus.

38-12) Reproductive relationships undergo three usual changes, one at coitus, one when pregnancy is achieved, and one after the baby is born.

38-11) To be knowledgeable and to be able to use that knowledge are not talents often held by the same individual.

38-10) We sense alliances when distances separate us, and differences when near.

38-9) Despite our fondest hopes and dreams, no one will ever judge us the way we judge ourselves.

38-8) When passing judgment it helps to keep in mind that every ensuing generation acts as if it is the enlightened one.

38-7) We’re not ok with physical punishment, because we can clearly perceive it, however we don’t mind meting out mental punishment because it seems invisible.

38-6) Our systems of justice use blame as a form of status-seeking through attempts to condition others to behave in ways condoned by those with more socioeconomic means.

38-5) Displacing blame is a reaction to fears that we will not be perceived as valuable, hiding blemishes that might thwart our natural impulse for spreading our genes.

38-4) We, the common people, find those with power and prestige to be mean spirited because they have what we all strive to possess, and unjust because they’ll do just about anything to keep it.

38-3) The most powerful of the persuasive tools must certainly be the placebo.

38-2) When we care so much we can easily lose track of the consequences of focusing too much on the issue and too little on those affected by it.

38-1) Notwithstanding the high chances to the contrary, we prefer to believe that all the opportunities we missed would have turned out well.

Take my hand.

Round 37

37-40) Truly grasping that I’m an idiot is difficult enough; recognizing when I’m being an idiot is harder still; to not be an idiot feels virtually impossible.

37-39) Being in the right, along with actions that represent that perception, is such a basic evolutionary trait that it easily trumps reason.

37-38) As hard as we may try, we usually fail to notice how much like others we are, especially those we criticize.

37-37) Our perception of things may seem largely based on how we measure time, making it easy to misunderstand reality as it is perceived by other organisms.

37-36) If changing our minds scares us, we are not likely to be in a listening mood.

37-35) Missed opportunities may not always be beneficial, and neither is the grief or doubt if missed.

37-34) We are all strutting peacocks; it’s in the nature of things.

37-33) Even in sacrifice do we assert that our way is the right way.

37-32) There is no birth or death, but only a change in the shape of the big picture.

37-31) Cheap and expendable are not terms to be used lightly, as history has repeatedly revealed that what they describe can quickly and unexpectedly turn into costly and indispensable.

37-30) Generals may fear peace for disturbing war, and businessmen may fear war for disturbing profit.

37-29) We love to use adjectives, perhaps because they allow us to show off our vocabulary or lack thereof, or perhaps because they allow us to mask our meaning, such words being notoriously subject to extensive interpretation.

37-28) Successful medicine depends not only on good science, but on good relationships between provider and patient, and on good support systems.

37-27) Sometimes, or more, our courts system seem to convict solely to show they can, perhaps in attempts to keep from losing the people’s confidence.

37-26) When a headline aligns with our truths, it is easy to regard the details as mere fluff and ignore them.

37-25) When the stick that organized religion wields loses influence, adherents turn to their own personalized version, or to one that sports a bigger stick that they can knuckle under.

37-24) Change threatens traditionalism, and most of us are intimidated by prospects of the unknown, fearing threats to our privilege or even to our existence, so we fall back on conservatism at every available opportunity, even though it might have been a source of our suffering and with prospects for more of the same.

37-23) We desire changes, we often fail to follow through with them, when we do we are often bored with them and backtrack, but we actually always change, even if just a little bit, with every step starting with the initial desire.

37-22) To think that humans, being natural, can do unnatural things, might be compared to thinking that machines, being unnatural, can do natural things.

37-21) Tomorrows are only as important as the significance your future self will place on your yesterdays.

37-20) The service workers of today are the coal miners of yesteryear, slaving to keep opportunities alive for the haves of our world.

37-19) The responsibility for teaching children their social skills has of late largely fallen to schools, supplanting the parental role established in our genetic makeup over the past few hundred thousand years.

37-18) Being special is never as meaningful to oneself as feeling special.

37-17) Trust is a tool that has the distinction of being used to make connections for both building love and wreaking destruction.

37-16) The quantity of higher courts and cases they hear strongly suggests that lawmakers are severely lacking in clarity and not interested in reviewing their work except under political pressure.

37-15) The funny thing about politicians is that they believe it’s more important to be liked for their rhetoric than for responsible leadership.

37-14) We are so consumed by all the information that we constantly have at our fingertips about today that we are immune to history, from which mistakes we will surely repeat for lack of having studied for answers.

37-13) We go with the first innovative idea that’s going to make money and let future generations worry about the unknown variables.

37-12) Should we think of indulging in lofty thoughts of self importance, we should be reminded that we are but mere hosts of the trillions of organisms that own us.

37-11) We impertinently expect superhuman perfection from everyone except ourselves.

37-10) Dissimilation of asexual to bisexual reproduction spurred the chances of survival for most species, but their reassimilation has still always been required.

37-9) Prohibiting unsolicited sexually provocative communications acts as a form of birth control.

37-8) Scientific findings seem to make it obvious that the reasoning for our actions is rarely, if ever, clear, that we prefer to believe otherwise by placing our trust in instinct and psychology, and that we pay only minor attention to our chemical nature that leaves better evidentiary tracks in evolutionary biology.

37-7) Stating that a child is better off growing up with two parents merely reflects the modern societal definition of a family group, discounting the evolutionary reality that a child has always been better off growing up with a large extended family.

37-6) Perhaps time seems to speed up with age because we have forgotten, lost, disarranged, many of the connecting details, parts, moments, that, assembled in order, used to form a longer lasting memory.

37-5) Each period of historic climate change created some very drastic and largely unforeseen changes in how humans lived, however, even with foreknowledge of how we can change to mitigate climate’s effects, we will resist voluntary change until it is forced upon us, or until it’s too late.

37-4) It is not the smooth workings that excite us, but the sudden snags, crags, chinks, and other disturbances that rattle the calm.

37-3) What we perceive in the calm is the secret pleasure of anticipation.

37-2) We long to join the fray even as we pray for peace.

37-1) Our natural state is not satisfaction, but dissatisfaction.

I give you the finger for a boost.

Round 36

36-40) Large projects might work best if they comprise a coordinated series of small projects.

36-39) When you realize that no one is paying attention, you either change your tactics or fold.

36-38) When you challenge power, you are more likely to get stung than to prevail.

36-37) The dream is that laws will be made, and their enforcement carried out, at the hands of people who understand the human condition, instead of by those who promote our base instincts and look for actions to label bad and for ways to make strangers miserable.

36-36) The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, until it, too, turns brown.

36-35) Appeals to our vanity are the easiest ways to make us forego scrutiny.

36-34) We are so quick to discount the experiences of others, that the troubles and delights of our fathers seem to never have happened.

36-33) It’s true that we have the freedom to choose, but only from options chosen by others.

36-32) We sell them weapons then wonder why they’re belligerent.

36-31) What we want most from others is to have them take a walk in our shoes.

36-30) Advice to the young is often alien of the reality from the elder’s youth, perhaps because it more closely represents wishful thinking for something they no longer have the opportunity to change.

36-29) Democracy bellows to be freed of the secrecy that runs rampant in the routine workings of agencies of our government.

36-28) High winds snap trees and power poles which fall on our cars and houses, but we don’t demand that the power poles be felled.

36-27) I wonder which will be the next species to die under our knife so that we may learn what makes us tick, and which we’ll later regret when we learn it also has emotions like us.

36-26) I wonder what we’ll experiment on after we learn that all organisms have emotions like us.

36-25) History books of the future will note our depravities, pointing out that we knew many of the things we do today as being immoral, evidencing references from some of today’s individuals which our society considers as outliers, surrealists, extremists, and they will pull down our symbols. And that is how we often view our own history.

36-24) Many things we get right simply because all our evolutionary ancestors who got it wrong died as a result.

36-23) We like to look outside ourselves for solutions to our problems, even though we always hold the keys.

36-22) Most laws are enacted to control the masses; the rich can pay their way through just about any law enacted to control them.

36-21) To shed some light on how ineptly justice serves the accused poor are the numbers jailed who are eventually exonerated.

36-20) If we continue to shut more and more people in jail, and for longer and longer terms, one might ponder on who will be left to guard them and to foot the bill to feed and house them.

36-19) Power, control, dominance doesn’t get taken down, but simply transfers from one to another, from place to place, from thing to thing.

36-18) We just say what we think to be the darnest things when we surrender to our temper.

36-17) Patriotism is pride in the rosier views of our country’s past.

36-16) The roots of our history are usually much more telling than the narrative we hear.

36-15) We find great comfort in things that haven’t changed, until we study our history in detail; then we get angry not because we were kept in the dark, but because our sense of contentment in permanency has been rattled.

36-14) We don’t like to give much thought to, and often totally disregard, harm to others if it is something from which we benefit.

36-13) Even though we may speak the same language, we could often use a translator.

36-12) As much as we want to believe otherwise, there can be no humility in fame.

36-11) If we don’t empower people with enough opportunities to do valuable things, we or they will indubitably manage to find empowerment from destructive ones.

36-10) We see the abuse that other nations mete to their citizenry, but we remain blind in our own.

36-9) All the opportunities in the world don’t matter if the personal connection is missing.

36-8) We often hold others culpable for what they were blamelessly taught and reinforced throughout their lives that shaped them.

36-7) It’s easy to explain prejudice, and though we may find it easy to explain solutions, what’s hard is implementing them.

36-6) Simply being aware of your prejudices does not release you of them.

36-5) In reality, our government was founded on lawless principles and has been run by lawless individuals since the beginning, yet the ones who are punished have usually only been the governed.

36-4) One might conclude that the nine persons who are supposedly the most knowledgeable about our laws would be in total agreement all of the time.

36-3) We need attorneys in order to maneuver the judicial system, not necessarily to serve justice, but to serve clients.

36-2) Babies, compromised and old folks waddle, and everybody else bobs.

36-1) If I don’t see it, it’s not there.

What’s up, ducky?

Round 35

35-40) The brain is an imperfect vehicle for processing all the chemistry that it serves.

35-39) With the passing of centuries we have once again come to understand that children can be educated at increasingly younger ages, however, much to everyone’s detriment, we still believe that we should not teach many crucial behaviors, expecting them to learn those on their own.

35-38) It is so difficult to change expectations when it means we have to lose or do without some things in order to enjoy others.

35-37) Progressives tend to not look far past the change they see as necessary, and though conservatives may also see a need for change, they fear the unknown changes they themselves will experience as a result and so opt for inertness, or for the return of a bygone era from which memory has edited out unwanted discomfort.

35-36) Cities are narrowly defined by mapped boundaries instead of by where the people live whom they serve.

35-35) Though we think of motor vehicles as ways to reach destinations, they may simply have evolved from our evolutionary habit of wandering from place to place.

35-34) No matter what anyone else may say, it is our own opinion that ultimately holds the greatest sway.

35-33) The children we failed to support through education, sustenance, and shelter, we are now supporting by giving them time in jail, and at a much greater cost.

35-32) I wonder how many persons die in compromising situations.

35-31) When public officials start spewing morals you know that election time is near.

35-30) Being on the right side of moral opinion is more important to most of us than being on the side of justice; which is how we got conditions like slavery and genocide.

35-29) Though we may be well aware that morals change with the passing of time, as we know from our history, nevertheless we hold on to current ones as if they never will, forgetting and discounting the importance of the benefit of doubt.

35-28) It’s easier to make decisions based on imagined threats and promised peace of mind than on an uncertain future.

35-27) Economists feel the most threatened by falling population growth.

35-26) Cities respond to overcrowding by increasing housing density and overburdening systems that respond by creating even more problems. Lacking is any creativity that melds nature and nurture to materially change how and where people live and how people work for their sustenance and a roof over their heads.

35-25) Having been taught to blindly or forcibly accept them, there are so many thing we don’t challenge even though we can and should.

35-24) To the old, healthy aging is an oxymoron.

35-23) We have managed to weaponize our personal connections by surrendering to the addictive online sweets that exploit our natural evolutionary need to belong to a group.

35-22) Fear not the ignorant person, for they are known to use their strength to get their way, as long as you can run away before they use it. Fear not the educated person, for they are known to use their knowledge to get their way, and you can just close your ears and look away. The one you should fear is both strong and educated, for you never know how they will try to impose their way.

35-21) A hermit may be protected from the cruelty of other humans, but they are also precluded from all their love.

35-20) Toenails arranged like smiling faces in a neat little row.

35-19) Among the best courses that every school should teach all students is healthy foods preparation and consumption; the second being physical education.

35-18) The only real attention we want is the one living in our imagination, not the one we usually wind up getting.

35-17) We are willing to sacrifice a lot for 15 seconds of fame, from which we then long to escape, even knowing the odds beforehand.

35-16) Instead of viewing our natural attributes as a way to help the whole, we view them as a way to gain singular advantage.

35-15) Simply because of our arcane attitudes toward breasts, most women, and not men, have to suffer covering them under the law.

35-14) Emotional responses seem to be shortcuts to actions that are primarily intended, though not without side effects, to quickly reduce chances of injury or death and, obviously, to increase the rate of survival, in a world that was much more violent and did not allow for contemplation.

35-13) When we view motivation as an emotion that is distinct from biological causes, we are hampered from both understanding and altering the emotion and its outcome, and we often cause irreparable harm as a result.

35-12) A man should feel complimented to be compared favorably to a woman.

35-11) There was never enough time to say good bye, you’re convinced after they’re gone.

35-10) A strong unifying voice carries the potential to take us straight to heaven, or straight to hell.

35-9) Religion and science teach us that beliefs need not change in response to evidence presented by those we don’t, or don’t want to, trust.

35-8) As many scientific principles continue to be revised, or debunked, our trust in scientific evidence and proponents of science continues to deteriorate.

35-7) Every element of our body, from skin cells to hair that we regularly shed, nails that we regularly cut, to our ultimate total decomposition, is repurposed by other organisms, insuring that we live forever.

35-6) When thinking of the future, the past seeems to have happened slowly, and when thinking about the past, that it elapsed too fast.

35-5) Perpetually drawn to similarities, we still seek differences; and though repelled by differences, we still seek similarities in them.

35-4) Local differences abound, but in the big picture we are usually split in half.

35-3) Life expectancy has gotten longer, people are retiring earlier, and less children are born where income has grown, but we still rely on the income of the shrinking future generations to support the retirees.

35-2) It would take nothing short of a miracle for an alien world to reproduce the current window of time that has taken an untold number of mutations and conditions over billions of years, and miracles don’t exist in science.

35-1) We have this strange notion that liberty only protects the truth.

Wanna go to the head?

Round 34

34-40) Where independence is encouraged, the needy suffer.

34-39) Though our survival depends on an unquestionable need to be affiliated with a small group, we constantly gravitate to larger groups that are dominated by strangers whose primary aim is to add to their gains from as many as possible who are drawn to the glitter they offer in return.

34-38) Like cancer cells, we could thrive for a long time by keeping our numbers small as we feed from our host, and, like cancer cells, as our numbers get larger we kill our host in the process and die with it.

34-37) Smells might be better than other signals at eliciting memories because smells don’t change, whereas appearances and sounds do over time.

34-36) Morals, whether in the form of religion, tradition, or legislation, protect us when knowledge is impaired, incomplete, missing, or ignored.

34-35) Once something is made immoral, or morally suspect, our judgment is taken over by our emotions, and the prospect of being ostracized prevents most, if not all, attempts to re-evaluate the rationale.

34-34) We seem to only like having government in our life when we stand to gain by it.

34-33) Wisdom is often lacking when we consider foraging into the unknown as progress.

34-32) You may dislike and not even practice your traditions, but you fight for them tooth and nail when told to give them up.

34-31) We tend to view mutations negatively, missing the fact that they constructed the past and present, and are constructing our future.

34-30) Our bodies change when we are affected by extraneous sources that physically result in structural and chemical alterations, and when our brain incurs chemical reactions that we call emotional responses.

34-29) Being aware that there are trillions of bacteria and viruses that inhabit my body does not make me less anxious about one small insect crawling outside of it.

34-28) For millions of years we led exciting, albeit dangerous, lives every day, and it is ingrained in us to constantly deal with surprises. It has been only for the last dozen thousand years, a teeny fraction of those millions, that our lives have turned routine, and relatively safe, so it’s no wonder that we have not yet evolved to be accustomed to the ennui.

34-27) Notably for our technological age, we like to make things more difficult in order to simplify them, with little thought about the difficulties we might face when the technology fails.

34-26) We don’t know how to be the children just as much as our parents didn’t know how to be the parents.

34-25) The trouble with a lot that is illegal, is that we have to take someone else’s word that it’s bad for us.

34-24) Pride, an emotional response, connects us to others with similar cultural or personal ties, promotes egoism and group differences such as ethnic and sexual identities, encourages conflict to bolster those beliefs, and interferes with our ability to perceive and accept the similarities we all possess.

34-23) The system of the U.S. government is not a true democracy, but an experiment in democracy.

34-22) We shouldn’t want to treat everyone equally; we should want to treat everyone individually.

34-21) So who the [expletive], from young to [expletive] old, hasn’t [expletive] heard the word [expletive]? What the [expletive]! However, one might be [expletive] hard pressed to [expletive] prove this, since merely [expletive] asking might be a [expletive] felony.

34-20) No matter how eco-friendly a new technology may be, it still carries costs.

34-19) Common sense finds no further place in decision making once we have been slighted.

34-18) Emotions take precedence over logic more often than we might think, or want to believe.

34-17) Every generation has its own version of samizdat.

34-16) We are constantly learning about things we unknowingly did terribly wrong in the past, and I wonder what it is that we don’t recognize we are now doing so miserably that will some day be discovered.

34-15) We may be looking for ways to improve ourselves, only to find ways to improve others.

34-14) To stop the fight the trick is to believe or be convinced how each benefits from mutual cooperation.

34-13) We frequently only make changes when we can no longer get away with what we have been doing.

34-12) First we develop technology that harms our environment, then we use that technology to monitor how much damage we caused, then we attempt to change it with even more modern technology in attempts to return it to its original pristine state.

34-11) We may be omnivores, but we have relatively limited, ever decreasing food options, and even more limited tastes.

34-10) We have so lost our social way that we are looking to robots for developing our children’s social skills.

34-9) Given the ability of a mere few progressive individuals to travel great distances throughout known history, it seems unrealistic to assume that ancient cultures that arrived at similar conclusions never came into contact with one another.

34-8) We are so used to our faults that we don’t notice them, nor be convinced of them.

34-7) The easiest way to distract others from your own faults is to point out theirs or someone else’s.

34-6) Even before we know their consequences we are often willing to accept new things simply because of the desire they create in us.

34-5) Every connection, collection, infection, satisfaction, protection, production, affection, attraction, attention, etc. has to do with finding commonalities; it’s all about trust.

34-4) No matter how much we may technologize, we still seek to socialize.

34-3) Despite all that we learn, our immediate impulses tends to make us fall back to what we thought we knew before.

34-2) Just because there’s no proof doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean we should believe it happened.

34-1) We will often reject logic if it means admitting to our ignorance.

Do you want to tower over all?

Round 33

33-40) Inasmuch as we decry destruction, it is natural to repurpose things to build others.

33-39) As if atrocities should be perceived differently depending on whether they are committed by democracies governed by the rule of law or by contemptible organizations that engage in terrorism.

33-38) We often balk at different explanations by others, preferring those we have already adopted, or simpler ones that we more readily understand, or those, whether or not we understand them, from sources we trust.

33-37) Garlic may help you live longer, but so might looking both ways before crossing the street.

33-36) When you no longer feel you have responsibilities you lose all purpose and cease to exist.

33-35) Since perception trumps intent, almost anything can be construed as sexual harrassment.

33-34) The media like to choose images that enhance the tone of their reporting.

33-33) Truth is not ever likely to find a prominent place on the internet.

33-32) Nobody likes divisions, so we all seek unity and are quite willing to accept it as long as it is under our own banner.

33-31) Being sympathetic is not the same as being unbiased.

33-30) Even though we know that algorythms are imperfect, and often disastrously so, we still place our lives in them.

33-29) Though modern technologies have cured many physical ills, they have also created new and more prevalent ones like cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes.

33-28) We constantly weigh benefits and risks when we made decisions, and more often choose without understanding, or even weighing, the true impact of the risks.

33-27) Given the intricacies of our brains and the diversity of our numbers, expectations that we can easily resolve complex social problems are always overblown.

33-26) Our acute focus on all things present forces us to repeat mistakes made by our ancestors, ignore solutions they learned, and underuse what we have learned since to come to even better solutions.

33-25) Our language has become so complicated over time that most dictionaries only list a markedly reduced number of words, definitions, and, in the least, etymological connections with our past.

33-24) One of the most effective ways to deal with a commotion, short of resolving it, is simply to re-direct attention to, or create, a different one.

33-23) Bans seem most successful when targeting products and services with high production and low consumer costs, and least successful when targeting human behavior.

33-22) Many people, including public health experts, worry that young people see porn as an instruction guide for having sex, but instead of providing them with proper instructions we just keep fruitlessly trying to ban porn.

33-21) You may remember some things you thought you had forgotten, but you won’t remember things that you have truly forgotten.

33-20) We may feel so disconnected from nature that we fail to notice the obvious similarity of our design and functions to those of other organisms.

33-19) History strongly suggests that we will never solve all our ills, to some extent because there are so many humans, however we have always been able to chip away at the ills that are not necessarily the most undesirable, but the most pressing in the moment.

33-18) We may want to believe that providing the best education to the most talented will solve all ills, and it has not, as it is the masses who move our world.

33-17) Rationing education to the most talented means they are forever forced to continue ill-supporting the masses.

33-16) We ration education to the most talented, probably because we lack the will to fund it for those who could use it most.

33-15) We would much rather stick with what we perceive through our rose colored glasses than what the truth might really be.

33-14) As with any discomfort, those relating to new and different ideas are forms of pain, which we try to avoid at all cost.

33-13) Just as our heroes have their dark sides, our villains have their virtues.

33-12) There are no definitive white, yellow, red, brown or black skin colors, but an infinite variation of tints and shades in tones from dark to light.

33-11) Soldiers are heroes, not only traditionally due to bravery in battle, but also because they become the victims of our bellicose nature and all the industries that feed off its trough.

33-10) It is inequitable to punish people more harshly simply to send a message to others who may be contemplating similar infractions.

33-9) Detractors of assimilation forget that we all have a common ancestry.

33-8) What looks like human progress is, as we eventually realize, rarely so for other organisms and our environment, and ultimately detrimental for humans as well.

33-7) We raise monuments to honor what we value today, with certainty that our ideals will endure, betting, against odds, that they will be among the infinitesimally few that will not crumble as our values inevitably shift over time.

33-6) A job is like a monoculture, at first thriving, then easy prey to maladies of all sorts.

33-5) A teeny weeny proportion of coincidences is not a sign of magic if you consider the rest of the time when nothing happened.

33-4) Every generation, or at least the last few that I’ve been around, seems to work hard in differentiating from the previous through all manner of expression, with implications of archaic inferiority and contemporary dominance, notwithstanding what the aging process will do to them as well.

33-3) Though usually quite fearful of the unknown, we don’t often mind playing God when it suits us.

33-2) We never run out of means that stimulate because we always find new ones to replace those to which we have become acclimated and are thus no longer stimulating, or those that others have tried to limit in a seemingly pointless effort to control so as to prevent some from being stimulated.

33-1) Children, once necessary for human survival, seem to have been reduced to ambivalent answers in reaction to the hormonal cravings that persist; trophies and albatrosses of our modern developed world.

Click to climax.

Round 32

32-40) We are generally inclined to value human life by virtue of our fallible perception, rather than by that of whose life we judge, or than by objective means.

32-39) No matter how objective we, or others, claim us to be, that is just never totally so.

32-38) When we preserve the past we also preserve biases that are rooted in it.

32-37) There is no erasure of the past that is more effective than forgetfulness.

32-36) The eyes that saw the past are dead, and our eyes cannot see exactly what they saw, so we recreate, however feebly, how those eyes interpreted the impact of time and place on the chemistry of their senses, and, consequently, the clues they left for us to find.

32-35) Tradition is perpetuated by how important it seems to make us feel.

32-34) Too many details can cause confusion and disregard when they test our level of comfort.

32-33) We like to cherry-pick from narratives those details that fit our pre-conceived notions.

32-32) One of the most prevalent words in scientific papers might just be “may”.

32-31) It doesn’t matter that TV and film plays to our biases and reinforces them; what matters is that we like what we see, we are willing to pay for the privilege, and we won’t let anyone take that away from us.

32-30) A fact is a preferred assumption.

32-29) Over time, most of our ancestors, and some of us as well, decided it looked easier to work for money to pay for food, than to just grow the food.

32-28) Grouping by predilection disunites, by similarities most shared unites.

32-27) We argue that deceptive marketing to children should not be permitted and ignore any duty to prohibit all deceptive marketing.

32-26) It would seem more accurate to rate the comparative value of humans with other animals by a quality such as predation rather than a fleeting one like intelligence.

32-25) We tend to denounce the deaths of women and children in conflicts as if less acceptable or horrendous than that of men.

32-24) Growing up for males usually involves becoming a stronger subject, whereas for females it is a transformation from subject to object. This seems to make sense in evolutionary terms, where males compete to preserve their genetic contribution. What we often neglect to notice is that it places females in a potent position of dominance as long as means of protection exist to offset the typically greater physical strength of males.

32-23) Knowing the chemical process that translates into emotions doesn’t necessarily alter the impact of feeling them.

32-22) We can’t really corrupt the morals of others, but we can provide them with alternate views that they can then use to reinterpret previously learned moral customs.

32-21) With a support system in place, familiarity stands no chance of breeding contempt.

32-20) Asset managers who feel a fiduciary duty to optimise returns for their investors tend do so for the short term, shortchanging returns for the long term.

32-19) The children’s teachers are the adults and the adults’ teachers are the children.

32-18) From the biochemical point of view, everything we do, a series of chemical reactions that intend to advance our own genetic influence, no matter who ultimately benefits from it, is evolutionarily intended to make us feel better about our own selves, so that we will continue doing it.

32-17) The reliability of news reports should always be challenged and examined closely.

32-16) No one feels your pain; they can only imagine it, or compare it with their own, and that’s never enough to emulate it.

32-15) Never before has it been so easy and so hard to disseminate information, with our easy access to media and all the variations of the truth that they expel.

32-14) Once your situation changes, you lose most, if not all, of your previous perspective.

32-13) Killing another person is only criminal when the reason for doing so is regarded as socially acceptable behavior, which is subject to change from time to time.

32-12) The art of behavioral psychology is a convenient, if inaccurate, shortcut for addressing effects of complex biochemical reactions.

32-11) The value of public works is too often seen through an economic eye, rather than a social or ecological one.

32-10) In an ideal world, everything we create could recycle back into our natural environment, and within a reasonable period of time.

32-9) We will gladly acquiesce until we discern it no longer serves to our advantage.

32-8) Shame is among the most powerful tools for compliance, and counter-rhetoric the defense against it.

32-7) The self-imposed punishment of shame is an effective tool often encouraged by not only those who lack knowledge, imagination and compassion, but also by those who wish to stave imposing it on themselves.

32-6) The perception of wasted time on things we don’t value seems to have a more striking effect when we ponder on it later in life than when we’re doing it.

32-5) To try and normalize deviance we like to label and make it stand out instead of dismissing the difference.

32-4) We seek quick progress often incorrectly assuming that unforeseen problems will be easily dealt with as they come along.

32-3) Though we punish ourselves far more than we do anyone else, we allow things to happen to others that we would never tolerate others doing to us.

32-2) We need law enforcement because we are too many and unable to form enough ties of trust.

32-1) To presume that everyone on the other side is evil, is as unrealistic as to presume that everyone on your side is good.

Click if you feel crest-fallen.

Round 31

31-40) Progress is forward movement in something desired and rarely thought through.

31-39) Successful traditional sellers created one-on-one relationships between individuals, while successful online sellers create one-on-one relationships between machines.

31-38) Innovative intangibles create realms of dreams in which reality no longer feels tangible.

31-37) When we look at the costs of maintenance we rarely consider the costs of inconspicuous tangential effects.

31-36) To live in an online ecosystem suggests that offline is akin to death.

31-35) In self preservation, drawing unwanted attention elsewhere is often key, no matter the cost to others.

31-34) Though it is usually mired in stagnation, logic would point to our government as well equipped to be an innovator.

31-33) People don’t receive benefits from government, but through it.

31-32) Being rich makes you influential, but it doesn’t automatically make you smart; and being poor makes you uninfluential, but it doesn’t necessarily make you ignorant.

31-31) We don’t recover from trauma, but merely adapt to its effects.

31-30) As we keep changing the definition of life, our expectations of what is alien still seem so unrealistic that we wouldn’t recognize one among us.

31-29) We have delegated our basic knowledge to machines and pray they will never fail us, for we are lost without them.

31-28) When services become impersonal, they alter the social impact of influence.

31-27) For something to exist does not necessarily mean that something else must have created it, as we can’t assume when, or if previously or always or under what circumstances, it may also have existed.

31-26) More can come from less when we are determined.

31-25) Subjective reality is a prerequisite in forming objective reality.

31-24) Within time and space there can exist multiple objective realities.

31-23) Our children are more autonomous than ever, and have been adjusting more readily to their role in an expanding class of citizens who are both free to do things adults cannot do and prevented from doing things adults can do.

31-22) Only once we have stopped identifying each other by the color of our skin, can we contemplate if we have become a color-blind society.

31-21) We may think rocks to be lifeless, yet we acknowledge them to be not only life giving, but also essential for human life, and we eat them every day.

31-20) That we take such pride and joy at being, or even just feeling, connected to others speaks to the success of having our influence recognized; our mark made, the natural evolutionary impulse to insure the survival of our genetic impact.

31-19) That we believe there is such a thing as nothing suggests that we should expand our senses to recognize that we don’t need to be able to observe things for them to be present.

31-18) Those who feel they see only black and white are blind to the reality that we only see varying shades of greys.

31-17) We are easily deluded into believing that secrecy gives us power, however it more often makes us powerless.

31-16) To resist when subdued is a natural uncontrolled instinct, panic.

31-15) Being asked to control our emotions can feel like being asked to thread ourselves through the eye of a needle.

31-14) Whether it be property, ancestry, ideas, ownership seems very important to us, often to the point where it begs off all discourse.

31-13) We can always justify what we do but not often what others do, and others can justify what they themselves do but not often what we do.

31-12) There’s a reason why small print is small and not readily accessible, and it isn’t for the benefit of the consumer.

31-11) Our economic system relies heavily on marketing to maintain the status quo.

31-10) Western economies lean toward perpetuating a submissive role for women, ascribed minorities, and other economically disadvantaged persons.

31-9) Marketing and politicization seem to usually be synonymous activities.

31-8) Violent abuse of citizens by policing organizations is not likely to abate unless violent enforcement becomes illegal.

31-7) Not so long ago, we might have imagined sitting in a cubicle for eight hours a day as punishment in a jail cell, but never as laboring for our sustenance.

31-6) We can linger in the most horrid of circumstances that life can dole out, and force others to do the same, simply for the possibility of an opportunity to leave something behind, perhaps because it’s in the nature of our evolutionary programming to believe we each have the best ideas worth passing on for the survival of our species.

31-5) If sex crimes precede orgasm, it might behoove us to provide, instead of suppress, activities, for all manner of proclivities, that make it safe, easy, interesting and fast for achieving orgasm.

31-4) When you think yourself alone, let your mind be astounded by the thought that there are many trillions of organisms working severally and collectively within you.

31-3) We have a need to feel right, even when we know we are wrong.

31-2) We have such ill-conceived notions like civilized indicates progress, and progress suggests betterment.

31-1) Everything scientific points to humans faring better in groups, yet we seem disposed to pressure everyone toward achieving individual autonomy.

Lead me to the pinnacle of this banter!

Round 30

30-40) Clothes hamper relationships, hide personalities, and create a craving to see what’s beneath.

30-39) Despite our best efforts to be objective, our immediate reactions still tend to reflect our cognitive biases, which need to be vetted before our mouths or we pass judgment.

30-38) That our entire world is an integral part of each of us is clearly revealed in our DNA.

30-37) We are constantly making inroads to increase longevity but not so much to better the quality of our lives.

30-36) One might wonder if the expansion of knowledge that the internet makes possible is worth the divisions it fosters.

30-35) The internet has given a voice not only to those working for positive change, but also to those working to protect or reverse the status quo, and to advance irrational or anti-social behaviors.

30-34) The human race, seemingly united by the mythic voice of the establishment, builds the internet to reach the access paradise of universal equity, only to be scattered once again by the plethora of previously repressed emergent contrasting voices.

30-33) We may have moved to a more social, interactive, and responsive web, but the voices we choose to relate to are still largely limited to those with whom we agree, bolstering positions we already adopted.

30-32) When we rely on others to interpret what we don’t understand, we like to choose interpreters whose reputations we like and views that are similar to ours, instead of those with reputations for the most scholarly views.

30-31) Learning from betrayals of trust rarely, if ever, means we will not plant similar trusts again.

30-30) Given our knowledge of genetic evolution over billions of years, it seems quite presumptuous to believe that enough has changed in a mere dozen thousands of years to have civilized us.

30-29) When morality enters the room, science is promptly ushered out.

30-28) Most of us know pitifully little about the bodies we inhabit.

30-27) We tend to view our bodies as mere vehicles that need an occasional pit stop for repair at the doctor’s body shop.

30-26) Generally lacking the desire and ability to empathize with the ones who could use it the most, our outliers, we persecute them instead.

30-25) Forgetfulness re-introduces us to the beauty and misery of discovery.

30-24) The pleasure of the exploration often overshadows that of the discovery.

30-23) Personal pronouns are mostly useless, more than anything else serving to preserve sexist ideals.

30-22) We do so many things on impulse that I wonder if that chemistry, rather than that of calculated motivation, is the priming force behind evolutionary change.

30-21) Maintenance lacks the glamour of innovation, so even though it’s usually critical, it seldom gets much attention until the inevitable breakdown.

30-20) If we consider how often we committed the same infraction after repeated punishings we might well be led to question the efficacy of our prison system.

30-19) We might consider being infected in the negative, but quite the contrary when we are the infection.

30-18) The trouble with ancient documents that told a different story is that not only were they fragile and few, but they also had a tendency to be disappeared, especially when they didn’t concur with the predominant persuasion of the day, leaving us without references to disavow the most current telling of history. Today we can simply make history disappear behind the veil of marketing.

30-17) Nothing short of a revolution, not necessarily violent, is likely needed at this stage to make drastic changes that might prevent our species from prematurely fading.

30-16) Historically, the absence of credit to subordinates and technicians assisting scientists with crucial discoveries seems conspicuous.

30-15) The more scientific discoveries we make, and the deeper we delve into them, the more we realize how little we understand about nature’s underlying processes.

30-14) We don’t usually seem to mind lending more weight to opinions that support our views than to opinions that are based on expertise.

30-13) When we are young, we firmly believe that we will do better by our own kids when our turn arrives to be the parents, but the system seems stacked against change happening anytime soon.

30-12) Perfection as we know it differs from how we imagine it, in that it is not a uni-directional state, but a continuous state of change that we know as evolution.

30-11) If God is perfect, then it would stand to reason that we are all perfect because of our belief that we are made in God’s image.

30-10) The primary qualification for a successful politician is being a prolific fundraiser.

30-9) I told you so is probably the most difficult thing to not say.

30-8) We unfairly judge the past by the standards that we hold today.

30-7) Given that we all came from elsewehere, it seems the strangest thing that we have so much difficulty accepting that we are a nation of immigrants.

30-6) The public expects police to trust the very people whom they are conditioned to suspect.

30-5) By their constantly changing nature, the morality of morals should always be questioned.

30-4) We have so distorted the concept of education that to teach someone a lesson means the same as to punish them.

30-3) To the young, the old seem to have always been old; and to the old, the young seem to always be more irresponsible than the old ever were.

30-2) At some point in human history, clothing became a symbol of modesty while retaining its role for status and, of course, for warmth.

30-1) Everyone wants to be the big gun, and most of those who are, only know how to play with it.

This is for the top spot!

Round 29

29-40) The documentary is dead; long live emotional irreality.

29-39) What we tend to call the laws of physics are only guesses based on our observations and, at best, many other guesses that we like to call educated and that are in a constant flux.

29-38) The most recidivist offender of our laws of physics is nature, but, unlike people, we don’t send nature to prison, and, instead, revise our laws to be more in step with what the offender has to teach us.

29-37) We seem to largely have given up on the idea that we can use laws to control people’s behavior, and have been successfully delving deeper into an era of more and better manipulation of emotions to do so.

29-36) We like to believe that the mind controls the body, even though they only work collectively.

29-35) When pondering goals and economics comes to mind, it can be helpful to ask oneself how often money made you happy and how often has it made you sad, and what really is it that made you happiest.

29-34) It doesn’t matter the consequences and how much advice we receive, or from whom, we still like to test, or jump into, the waters to try and prove that our instinct is the best judge.

29-33) We are so flighty, and vastly unfair and unforgiving to others, that we allow a lifetime of goodness to be totally undone by one moment of misconduct.

29-32) Mass media doesn’t just challenge reality, they rewrite it.

29-31) When you first get drunk or high you feel joyous and free, and when you eventually get sober you feel joyous and free.

29-30) Taking up men’s roles in economic leadership positions has a lesser chance of advancing women’s equality than the quashing of economic roles for their fundamental contribution to inequality and misery.

29-29) Hollywood’s folly has given us a new interpretation of the past that we have come to believe as our real history.

29-28) Fake news is often indiscernible from real news likely due to the vast number and mixture of real and self-styled experts proliferating to fill the needs of the ever growing number of outlets to compete by claiming credibility to decipher news for you.

29-27) The news department has become the marketing department, and vice versa.

29-26) In our system it seems ok to threaten democracy just as long as the threat does not come from terrorists.

29-25) For every scientist who has concluded that changes in our behavior must happen now in order to help insure humanity’s future, there are millions of us who clamor to maintain our current path that focuses on economics and convenience.

29-24) We have come to realize that many principles will only advance if they have economic or religious value.

29-23) When we look to the future, we tend to envision economic growth as the most desirable of changes, even as we overlook present and past conditions which suggest that such changes not only have failed to result in greater lasting happiness, but have also brought us more bad ideas than ever before.

29-22) Evil is what others do to us, not what we do to others.

29-21) Identifying someone by race is as unscientific as it is unreasonable and based on what little social pocket we choose someone belongs in.

29-20) I don’t know anyone who is white, yellow, red, brown or black; in skin color all I see is light, medium light, medium dark, dark.

29-19) Universal basic income can unintentionally just be another way of feeding the haves; for the have-nots, a guarantee of food, shelter, and education works better.

29-18) When attacked, we usually go immediately into an automatic defensive mode, rather than into a diagnostic one that might help avoid the charge and resolve the reasons for it.

29-17) Tech overlords are the latest among our extensive list of robber barons and ethos manipulators in the guise of beneficial innovators.

29-16) They exacertate the problem while they accumulate profits, subsequently throw a fraction of those profits into the fix, and everyone thinks they’re heroes.

29-15) When emphasizing questions suggesting affirmation or denial, answers ignore any tendency toward reliability by perceived expectations of approval.

29-14) Creating misconceptions is normal in nature, as is what organisms do to repel them for their own benefit and to obstruct or injure the misconceiver.

29-13) In our usual shortsightedness we create tools then complain when they are used in different ways than we intended.

29-12) The costs that we try to keep low are mostly economic ones, with not much thought to human costs.

29-11) Seeking to topple evolutionary forces in order to change human behavior is like trying to convince everyone, including yourself, that you’re something you clearly are not.

29-10) If nothing good ever happens, then something good never happens.

29-9) As long as we continue to waste we will never appreciate our bounty.

29-8) Even though we know that most plastics are not recycled, to resolve the problem we continue to look for the answer in more of the same; we prefer to save a few cents today and to just not think – or not- about tomorrow until it arrives.

29-7) Every generation’s plans are based on their own circumstances and desires, usually shortchanging those who come after through such myopia.

29-6) We’re never likely to control the internet for our kids because we are already addicted to it.

29-5) We constantly seek ways to justify positions that we hold.

29-4) We seek more frequently to justify positions that we hold than to formulate just positions.

29-3) We like to justify our positions through the art of psychology instead of through the science of evolutionary biology.

29-2) If sports were demonetized, there would be less, if any, arguments as to who is allowed to compete.

29-1) We like to dream that our lives should have been shaped by one if-only after another.

To the penthouse!

Round 28

28-40) One often acts based on presumptions of being the most important human among all our 7.8 billions and the most important of all organisms.

28-39) Incarceration is our response when we either don’t know how or don’t want to help someone who fractures rules.

28-38) Whenever we become, or are made, aware of differences between us and others, we create an adversarial relationship. And whenever it is about similarities, we create alliances.

28-37) We may like to think that sex is motivated by something as superficial as behavior, perhaps because we find it easier to punish behavior than to fix, or accept. the chemical activity in our hypothalamus that drives the behavior.

28-36) Today’s common mantra is to buy yourself something when you want to cheer up.

28-35) Those who place too much trust in science may not want to accept that we simply don’t know enough to draw firm conclusions about most things.

28-34) Women make up the majority of workers in health and other frontline jobs that are essential for our survival, whereas the majority of men work for possessions, frivolities, with positions ripe for replacement by robots.

28-33) For our children we created an age of innocence, during which we shield them from reality, only to bombard them with it immediately upon their attainment of adulthood.

28-32) Over the last twelve thousand centuries or so, it has been taking longer and longer for children to be granted the status of adulthood.

28-31) Just because something from which we may be benefiting might be the cause of the problem, it does not usually cause us to think of ourselves as being part of the problem or the solution.

28-30) Instead of differentiating our cultures, it would do well to focus on what binds them together if we ever want to progress from an assortment of humans to a race of humans.

28-29) That the largest of tech companies continue to use backup systems is the best evidence that we are nowhere near solving threats that create the persistent intrusions into electronic communications.

28-28) Whether we believe humans came into existence about 6,000 years ago as the Bible states, or about 2,000,000 years as the anthropological record states, or that it started about 4 billion years ago as the earliest form of life, it proves that, in common, we do believe we are all of one seed, all related to each other.

28-27) Science is a business, and, as with all others, its products have their share of shoddiness and of disreputable and corrupt personnel.

28-26) No matter how much we may shake up our body through genetic modification, the majority of the trillions of organisms that incorporate us tend to want to follow a slower evolutionary model.

28-25) By continuing to create identities to boast our distinctiveness within society, we continue to move more toward exclusion, separation, and estrangement, and less toward unity of purpose for cooperation that has been instrumental for millennia in favoring our continued existence.

28-24) Only when it comes to our national defense is funding rarely a problem.

28-23) Though changing people’s biases is practically impossible, we possess the ability to teach tolerance to our young for future generations.

28-22) We were dirt poor when I was a child, but we never suffered hunger or lack of shelter, because we always enjoyed the kinship and support of our family and neighbors. Today, by contrast, if you don’t have money you will most likely suffer both hunger and homelessness.

28-21) Commerce has become globalized, but our knowledge and our senses are still mostly localized.

28-20) Science is a business, and as with all others, its ranks have their share of disreputable and corrupt personnel, and its products their share of shoddiness.

28-19) We are were born with only a bond to our mother and the will to live; everything else, mostly useless, comes later.

28-18) All marketing, whether used to sell a product, service, or idea, is based on taking advantage of our cognitive biases that we are probaly not even aware that we possess.

28-17) Economically successful societies realize less benefits from having children, than other less successful groups where there is a need to have additional hands/labor to support them.

28-16) We have yet to evolve from small groups of cooperating individuals to dealing with the vastly increased population, and the groups formed to disunite through a perceived identity are winning over those who try to unite us into the larger group that is humanity. History tells us that it is usually the larger groups that survive and multiply, however groups that may be smaller but develop special tactics for survival will eventually overtake them.

28-15) In many respects, doctors are to barbers as politicians are to snake oil salesmen, but though most doctors are no longer barbers, most politicians are still snake oil salesmen.

28-14) Our need to create alliances is the instinct that plays into the survival and endurance of our species.

28-13) Like bubbles in water that find other bubbles to stick to and form groups in order to survive longer, so does everything we know.

28-12) Most of us like to interpret our past and future through our present state and level of knowledge, forgetting that we had different eyes in the past and disregarding the likelihood that we will have different eyes in the future.

28-11) To help a moral elitist understand the other side, it is useful to help them recognize their own past experiences and painful emotions and helplessness that created their little moral world.

28-10) In the animal kingdom, it seems that only male humans and some other primates abuse their female counterparts. In nature, there’s a cooperative arrangement that doesn’t recognize economics, only conditions for continued procreation.

28-9) I can’t imagine that cavemen would have abused cavewomen, and I can’t even imagine that cavemen fought each other for cavewomen, but I can imagine that they worked cooperatively, and that it was such circumstances that made it possible for so many of us to infest our planet. (The Warrior Gene might have had a different effect, at that point, than it probably does at this time.)

28-8) Somewhere along the line, likely during the agricultural revolution, the male’s traditional role as fertilizer started to change toward a domineering patriarchy, egged on by the plow’s demands on muscle which separated the cooperative roles of male and female. The plow has been fast disappearing, as has been the demand on muscle, and consequently, it seems, the cooperative roles are finally making a comeback.

28-7) When we question things, we often get the answers wrong because we tend to interpret them through our philosophical ponderings instead of the anthropological evidence.

28-6) First and foremost of things we should always keep in mind is that for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.

28-5) Capitalism would not exist if it were not for the losers that it needs to fund the takers.

28-4) To compute the price of war, take the average number of people who are affected by just one throughout their lifetime, then multiply that by the number of reported casualties, of all sides.

28-3) Actors are hired for their skills in depicting others, yet we display strong preferences for not having them depict groups which view being imitated as a form of intimidation, of derision.

28-2) Even when armed with scientific knowledge, we still prefer to plan for our happiness and for our future with our well-worn, well-versed lies.

28-1) We identify through our past, but we live in the next moment, when everything happens.

Let me give you a boost!

Round 27

27-40) Training to use a gun on people is very different from training to use psychology on them.

27-39) The competent teacher helps their students to learn by utilizing their knowledge to relate to new experiences.

27-38) The problem of free speech in our age of disinformation can be traced back to the poor quality of our education.

27-37) Politics uses psychology to gain advantage that is used to to gain cooperation.

27-36) There’s no such thing as business as usual; it constantly evolves.

27-35) We have become so accustomed to clothing styles that we rarely notice the silliness of the details, or the lost reasoning for men and women to dress differently.

27-34) When we say we want the truth, we often only want it if it agrees with what we think it should be.

27-33) If money is the source of all evil, then surely we have the smarts to find an alternative resource, to run our world, that replaces posessions.

27-32) We are all special, which, concurrently, makes none of us special.

27-31) Politics trumps principles any day.

27-30) Always in a rush, we run to the new and leave the tests and fixes for later.

27-29) Life is an exercise in influence.

27-28) When ignorance ends, so does innocence.

27-27) In the internet age, we are able to experience so much more than ever before, but mostly not in person, and mostly through the limited experiences or viewpoints of others, whom we are unable to question.

27-26) Based just on history, one could easily presume that our civilization is just another passing fad in the big picture.

27-25) We talk about the dead having gone on to a better place, however we do everything we can to prevent people from going there, and we feel shame when a family member takes the initiative to go there.

27-24) It has taken over 12,000 years for biases against women to take hold, and only about 100 years for concerted efforts in trying to overcome them.

27-23) Biases will continue to decrease as older people continue to die off, as long as constant attention is being called to them.

27-22) A leadership position of one can easily be fraught with prejudicial judgment, whereas leadership by committee stands a better chance in treating followers equally.

27-21) Advances that decrease poverty always seem to lag behind advances that increase economic advantage.

27-20) Airplanes, what marvelous and horrific tools that we have conjured, sacrificing the occasional catastrophies of lives, health and property, poisoning the air we rely on for life, in return for the mere convenience of speed – humans’ worst addiction.

27-19) I have met many college graduates who are still idiots.

27-18) It’s not enough to provide living wages if the business is unstable; not securely anchored to continue to provide such a wage.

27-17) We use race in scientific research and to call out inequalities even though race identification is a subjective descriptor with no scientific basis.

27-16) And let us not forget those who have given their lives for our sustenance, now and in times past.

27-15) Our fascination with sex and other secretive norms has a lot to do with our unceasing curiosity to see what is deliberately hidden from us. Not satisfied after we have finally “seen”, we are driven to make up new secrets to take their place.

27-14) If three persons of different colors do a particular thing, your cognitive bias will probably cause you to only notice the stereotyped one.

27-13) Among the baffling lies punishment for victimless crime.

27-12) Everyone pretends before others to be different than we really are. We are good at being deceptive. As a matter of fact, all organisms seem to want to appear to others as being different, in order to gain advantage, likely primarily for reproductive purposes. Extending far before and beyond the time when we were best at the mating process, shooting out the desire to pretend constantly, as if to insure against the possibility of a miss.

27-11) We tend to view learning as an ability that one might or might not possess, as opposed to an opportunity to be taught.

27-10) School and real life are not much different when it comes to punishment for infractions. Instead of helping you learn to work through your problems, we place you in detention so you can practice being an unproductive member of society.

27-9) Childhood, a relatively recent concept, is an excuse for adults to abandon children, to their own devices and to the care of others, so parents can pursue economic dreams.

27-8) You don’t know what you’ve got until you lose it, but as time passes, you’ll become accustomed to the new normal and will have largely forgetten what you lost.

27-7) When your initial learning is incorrect and creates certain behaviors, forming a cognitive bias that makes it is easy to fall back on after learning the a better way.

27-6) Contributing to the cultural divide is the use all manner of subjective input into what is expected and believed to be reported objectively, and which places media outlets in a position to influence the public without admitting to do so.

27-5) Fake news is everything and everyone you don’t want to believe, and truth is whatever you want to believe; reality is rarely a factor.

27-4) I lived a full life with so many experiences, and I managed to have forgotten most of them.

27-3) The ability to discern reality is more likely to occur when you are open to new experiences, to listening, and to negotiation.

27-2) Not having a backup plan is akin to courting death.

27-1) Winning is surviving the next minute.

To the summit with you!

Round 26

26-40) Now does not exist; only past and future.

26-39) There must be some evolutionary reason why wisdom increases as our body deteriorates.

26-38) Corporations may try to sway us, but it’s our representatives in government who allow them to do so by setting the rules, or not.

26-37) We often need others to reveal when we’re taking more than we’re giving.

26-36) Humans have always acquired and retained possessions, even down to the cellular level, where they are guarded from theft and breakout by walls, locks, poisons and perks.

26-35) We often like to disregard or render invisible those situations that are opposite our goals.

26-34) Chicken Little lives and thrives on the Internet, discerned as such only by a very few.

26-33) That which becomes embedded over time in our brains, biased or fair, is not easily dislodged.

26-32) For the duration of our lives, our brains subconsciously and automatically create enduring kinships with others who look and act like ourselves and like those with whom we grew up.

26-31) The faster and harder we push people to own up to their biases, the faster and harder will be the return to their old stand once the push slows, is sidestepped, or stops.

26-30) It seems absurd to believe that a one-time training will have much of an impact to extricate cognitive biases that took a lifetime to become anchored in the mind.

26-29) Training is very rarely a one-time event.

26-28) No human can ever claim to have complete knowledge of anything; not least of what is known.

26-27) Our intuition rarely serves us well as we play the odds to get by, until it stops working.

26-26) Everything on our planet may look different, but it is basically a product from the same ingredients.

26-25) We are so engrossed with repairing the now that it’s long past now by the time we fix on a solution, by which time we will already be in need of a new solution.

26-24) The answer to recidivism is not longer prison sentences, but better approaches toward re-assimilation.

26-23) A pollutant can be defined as an unforeseen byproduct of a convenience created for mankind, that we don’t know what to do with.

26-22) The answer to poverty is not money, but equitable access to education and life sustaining resources.

26-21) On the one hand, we trust social media to give us a voice we previously did not have, even as it gives the ones with the loudest voice a platform that they can abuse; while on the other hand the platforms enrich themselves by selling our trust to the highest bidders.

26-20) A good early education is important in forming a responsible personality, which tends to remain stable and difficult to change in adulthood.

26-19) With all the knowledge now available to us, we can be excused for considering the natural world as cold and mechanistic, but not dull.

26-18) Humans are generally unwilling to accept the well established knowledge that predators are essential for the structuring and maintenance of biotic communities of which we are part.

26-17) Plato warned that people are too ignorant and impassioned to make good decisions about our common good, and to leave them to a few, and in our zeal we empowered the powerful in our midst, instead of the wise.

26-16) Words are more easily misunderstood when people don’t know each other.

26-15) As important as it is to remember the 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945, is the importance of remembering all the human beings whom they persecuted and murdered, conservatively estimated at over 17 million, the over 60 million who perished in the conflict as a result of the Nazi aggression, the untold millions who suffered hunger, homelessness, and loss of freedom, the good chance that every one of our families was affected directly or indirectly, and that remembering all this history is crucial to not repeating it.

26-14) Monogamy laws may have come about to stave off jealousy and to encourage ongoing paternal support while the child is growing. The laws may have originated when population numbers were increasing to the point where individual groups could no longer maintain control over their members. The relaxation of laws against adultery may have been the first step, and divorce laws the second, to draw us away from the need for laws to keep us monogamous.

26-13) Attending the most expensive schools does not necessarily equate with getting the best education.

26-12) Everything that happens is physical, so will power can only exist in the abstract.

26-11) Will power is all in your head.

26-10) Prejudice always exists; only its intensity and targets change.

26-9) If we get rid of all the words that someone might deem offensive, our vocabulary will become smaller and our dictionaries larger.

26-8) The success of our modern health system has rewarded business interests the most, and the subjects whose pocketbooks fund them the least.

26-7) It is a rare and highly sought after talent to be able to heed one’s own advice.

26-6) There’s something to be said about the connectedness of the largely agricultural nature of the South and its penchant for conservativism, and of the largely industrial nature of the North and its proclivity for liberalism.

26-5) If our laws limit rights to only men and women, they require us to pass prejudicial judgment on the gender of those whose physicality or mentality don’t neatly fit those categories.

26-4) Hard work may be the reason successful persons say got them there, while unsuccessful ones think it was probably luck.

26-3) We like to expect simple solutions because it’s so easy to forget the complexity of our environment.

26-2) One would think that among the most important qualities of someone who makes our laws is the ability to be objective.

26-1) Commercialism is so prevalent in our lives that even solutions need to be cost-effective.

Yo up there!

Round 25

25-40) We like to imagine, and believe, that we are constantly at a turning point.

25-39) The problems with recycling are plastic.

25-38) A little bit of training can be dangerous.

25-37) It’s one thing to believe in principles and quite another to practice them.

25-36) It is strange that we need trade unions to protect the rights of workers in government institutions that are tasked with protecting the rights of workers.

25-35) Those who believe that politicians have a moral compass are confusing them with people who value ethics over ambition.

25-34) Most of our actions are geared toward feeling desirable to others.

25-33) We have the misguided notion that our beliefs are more important than others’.

25-32) Frequency dulls.

25-31) First groups thrived on small family dependence, then on religious beliefs, followed by government protections, and, of late, on self identified ethnicity.

25-30) When looking to others for solutions, we often prefer ones that are tendered by those who look, and maybe even think, like us.

25-29) We tend to lend more importance to connections by our skin color than by our humanity.

25-28) Men used to sport clean shaven faces and hairy chests, and now they sport clean shaven chests and hairy faces.

25-27) The youthful exhuberance of belief in unity turns sour as one eventually feels forced to pick a side when a need to win seems to become most important.

25-26) We are no slouches when it comes to fighting hard in order to remain stupid.

25-25) The best answers to questions often lead to more questions.

25-24) The unhackable security we claim for quantum computing we also once claimed for technologies that have since been hacked.

25-23) We are more likely to try something that another has tried unsuccessfully than something that another has succeeded after trying.

25-22) Platitudes might motivate saints, but the rest of us do better with threats.

25-21) Children seem to be happiest when running and jumping and chattering up a storm, and by forcing them to remain still and quiet we are supplanting their delight with our angst.

25-20) You don’t know what you’ve got until you lose it, and you won’t grasp this concept until after you’ve lost it.

25-19) No matter what wisdom is passed on to us about experiences to expect, even when we accept it in earnest it admittendly will only feel like wisdom after we are past the experiences.

25-18) Even when we try to walk in another’s shoes, we keep looking for someone else’s to try on.

25-17) When we think we’re punishing someone else we are mostly just punishing ourselves; and when we punish ourselves we are also punishing others.

25-16) It would seem that one doesn’t like to be categorized except when one approves of the assigned category.

25-15) We may think we have control over our lives, but we haven’t even scratched the surface to identify and understand the myriad processes within us that make life, as we know it, possible, and that take it away.

25-14) Death is merely a transfer of life from one organism to another.

25-13) We can accurately splice a strand of DNA but we still can’t get a sheet of toilet paper to tear neatly.

25-12) We usually see the point of no return after we’ve passed it.

25-11) It can be all too easy to mistake intelligence or braggadocio for wisdom.

25-10) Physical limitations may seem the most confining, but we are more confined by our cognitive biases.

25-9) Once placed on a pedestal, we will do whatever it takes to stay there.

25-8) It’s easier to find purpose in the ethereal than in the real, as the former doesn’t tax our logic.

25-7) What we now call strong language we used to call obscene.

25-6) Some of us are willing to believe anything that someone whom we trust tells us.

25-5) Astronomers who scanned more than 10 million star systems may not have found signs of life; but that’s only life as we currently understand it.

25-4) It’s easier to get others behind you if you tap into their raw emotions to try and convince them that they have something to lose without you, rather than that they have something to win with you.

25-3) Groups usually need external threats in order to keep their members united.

25-2) Larger rewards may prioritize our proclivities, as may larger fears.

25-1) America may always have been a myth, however the hope that it always engendered was never a myth.

Here’s to upward mobility!

Round 24

24-40) We may look at violence against women as having economic costs, but it’s economic costs that create conditions that are ripe for the violence.

24-39) We have lost track of the primary reason for human existence as being one of cooperative procreation, and have switched to a competitive pursuit of economic satiety.

24-38) Economic satiety is a condition that does not exist.

24-37) When we think of a pest, we are inclined to only think of the impact of that organism on humans, and disregard the rest.

24-36) The theory goes that the more you make your example suffer, the more likely others will be deterred, so punishment from criminal sentencing, for example, will always feel both harsher than recompense would call for and more disproportionate to the crime committed than might seem logical or appropriate for the crime.

24-35) Law enforcement is in the practice of using public shaming of suspects liberally, despite the presumption of innocence.

24-34) Science is the closest approximation to what we consider the truth, and it is subject to change because it is based on our interpretation of what we are capable of observing.

24-33) We can relate much better to the discomfort our parents gave us than to the comfort we want to give to our own kids.

24-32) To expect a young and healthy person to believe they will become old and unhealthy is quite unlike expecting the old and unhealthy to believe they will become young and healthy again.

24-31) Most of us need others to help us become aware that we were born privileged.

24-30) Our government is so inept that it feels the need to maintain secrets from the people whom it represents, and the need to censor information under penalty of harsh punishments.

24-29) Democratization creates hopes of equality that politics alone can’t deliver.

24-28) We blame ignorants for their ignorance, but the blame lies with the enlightened.

24-27) Look for bad in good and for good in bad to try and maintain a healthy balance, as both must exist in order for either to exist.

24-26) The perception of failure others might have of us is easier to ignore when we stick to our guns.

24-25) It’s not uncommon for one to use a show of strength to convince others of one’s logic; as Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”.

24-24) Ignorance fuels fear which fuels ignorance.

24-23) We tend to teach our children how to take orders, instead of how to cooperate; maybe because we never really learned the latter.

24-22) No matter how enlightened we might become about how we want to rear our children, we often fall back, for our comfort, to giving our children the same discomfort that our parents gave us.

24-21) Getting old, or sick, doesn’t usually feel real until after it has happened.

24-20) We look for differences in ourselves to feel a sense of superiority; read reproductive fitness in evolution talk.

24-19) We are so awash in, and enthralled by, bandwagon fallacies that we rarely bother to search for the truth.

24-18) Hollywood has so many candidates for employment in the film industry that the abused prefer silence in return for a job over outspokenness in return for unemployment.

24-17) Depending on which way the wind blows, Hollywood studios are lauded for glamorizing some stereotypical roles and are vilified for others.

24-16) Instead of first seeking to tackle dementia, we are willing to sacrifice ourselves to its rising prevalence through our inept response to it, in return for living longer and with blind faith that science will have it resolved before our turn arrives.

24-15) The affluent invent conveniences while the poor and ignorant suffer the consequences.

24-14) Bans point to our unwillingness to deal with their subject, and protection of norms is always our excuse; as if norms should never be questioned or expected to change.

24-13) Fear is no substitute for support, but it does wonders for the short-term.

24-12) If politics values economics over humanitarianism, then it must be the majority view since politicians are elected by majority.

24-11) Criminal sentences are intended to serve the purposes of deterrence of future crimes and retribution to the offended; the sentencing methodology being determined more by political views than by humanitarian science.

24-10) When lacking involvement that is accompanied by personal loss, most are likely to believe that little, if anything, is worth doing without the promise of monetary payback.

24-9) Retirement is our response either to things we no longer enjoy, or to ultimatums by others who wish to reallocate our economic worth.

24-8) One of our biggest shortcomings is that we do not see ourselves in others.

24-7) We avoid the inconvenience of preparing our meals by subjecting ourselves to the inconvenience of work in order to pay for them to be prepared by others.

24-6) We probably learn more history from romantic film writers than from competent textbook authors.

24-5) Despite the occasional creepy things that we all do, most of us just aren’t all that creepy.

24-4) It is easier to sway politicians with threats that are based on emotional issues rather than on sound intelligence.

24-3) We expect investment in technology and a college education to resolve our problems, however that is more likely to happen through a good primary education, which is needed to prepare them for a college education that will help them create the technology.

24-2) When in pain we wish for death, but when the pain subsides the death wish withers as hope emerges.

24-1) Most would rather face a sentence of life in prison over death, because even though we may have to endure the torture and suffering of prison life in the future, the concept of future offers hope, whereas death does not.

Touch me!

Round 23

23-40) Policing follows our society’s penchant for punishment over treatment and rehabilitation.

23-39) These days, a peaceful demonstration is one that can contain fighting as long as guns are not used.

23-38) Power, a temporary state, is the confluence between the ability to convince yourself and others that you are better than the rest, and the reaction by still others to focus on the need take you down.

23-37) We are much more interested in how to escape our situation than in how to prevent being in it in the first place.

23-36) Legal entrapment uses means that are illegal for everyone else.

23-35) Our system of justice first looks for the easiest targets, then the ones that are unable to defend themselves, then maybe some of the rest that eventually find their way into the unsolved files.

23-34) There really is never a beginning or end, just a continuation.

23-33) Two very important rules: number one is that I’m an idiot, and number two is, if you are ever tempted to think me smart, refer to rule number one.

23-32) Idiots don’t like to be bested by intellectuals, and will even compromise themselves to avoid it.

23-31) If puberty can repair the brain’s stress responses after hardships early in life, it stands to reason that we have evolved to regularly encounter traumas in childhood. What is different today is that we have fewer and less secure parent relationships, than would have been normal throughout most of our evolution to help children recuperate from stressful situations.

23-30) A mockery of justice is our treatment of suspects as if they are guilty until proven innocent.

23-29) Justice does not exist outside our immediate circle; only someone else’s interpretation of it.

23-28) The word fuck has become such an integral part of our colloquial speech, though not yet of the written word, that it no longer seems fair to accuse its users of lacking in the vocabulary of more pertinent adjectives.

23-27) It seems contrary to a democratic form of government, to ascribe power to individual legislative representatives.

23-26) Once deemed a deviate from convention there is no redemption.

23-25) With so many new discoveries changing what scientists believe based on previous discoveries, it’s a wonder that they still have the confidence to believe in the new.

23-24) Missing information about the past which has to do with subjects, such as sexual mores, that have been considered sensitive during the past few hundred years, might simply have been recently eradicated.

23-23) Binding our educational system to age level achievements is a disservice to everyone who learns at a different pace.

23-22) It’s one thing to feel entitled to do with your body as you please when you’re healthy, and quite another to feel the same when your health has declined as a result.

23-21) How different this world would be if we could remember what we went through in our childhood years.

23-20) The idea that anything could be chaotic and unstructured flies in the face of all the well-ordered changes, fast and slow, that regularly happen all around us.

23-19) We forget so much with the passing of time that we even repeat painful things that we promised ourselves we never would.

23-18) We pine about knowing so little of faraway space and the deep sea but have no qualms about knowing nothing of what might be happening in our back yards.

23-17) As children, we are usually taught not to speak with strangers, rather than how to speak with strangers.

23-16) When suppressing knowledge we think we are helping; instead we are dooming the oppressed to all the consequences that such ignorance holds in store.

23-15) Funny thing about truth, it’s not necessarily what is but simply what people believe.

23-14) If-then is the mantra that helps us to see the dawn.

23-13) First we yearned for freedom; we got freedom then we yearned for jobs; we got jobs then we yearned for free time; we got free time then we yearned for love; we got love but then we yearned for freedom.

23-12) No one in existence is free of cognitive biases, a few of which can be damaging if we are not aware of them.

23-11) We have notions about being in control of our environment, or able to take control, of our environment that has taken millions of years to adapt, and given our short period of observation we cannot be certain that changes which we generate or perceive are short- or long-lived.

23-10) We all perceive our own stuff just a bit, and some a lot, differently.

23-9) We can take offense at the slightest things that don’t conform with our beliefs or understandings.

23-8) The modern method of population control consists largely of environmental damage that condemns the poor to disease and early death.

23-7) Instead of developing youth we don’t deem adroit we doom them to mediocrity as we build up the ones we judge capable.

23-6) When we can’t seem to look very far outside ourselves, the empathic tears we shed for others are often the tears of sympathy for ourselves.

23-5) It would be helpful to have better ways to measure and observe change in ourselves, since it usually happens so slowly that we don’t notice it until it’s too late to do anything about those things that we might have averted if we knew they were happening.

23-4) By our sometimes unwitting and often preventable behavior we invite certain other species to enter our lives only to then kill them off.

23-3) We participate in monitored experiments daily, from the foods we eat to the medical advice we utilize to how we support ourselves to the means we use to communicate, and so much more, which results and effects we may not publicly learn about until future generations, if ever.

23-2) Perhaps one of the problems we have in filling basic needs is in our definition of “basic”, which actually includes all kinds of extrinsic things that we have convinced ourselves to need for our survival despite evidence that we do not. Call them temporal conveniences, that we simply don’t want to do without or feel deeply anxious about the possibility of not having them.

23-1) Just as you are beginning to appreciate what has been in front of your eyes for your entire life, your eyesight starts to wane.

Bring me up; I’m drowning down here!

Round 22

22-40) We like to think that we can mitigate a madness by replacing it with another.

22-39) One who submits to another is in fear and seeking protection.

22-38) Concepts can usually use diversification in order to better succeed.

22-37) As one’s affluence increases so does one’s blindness to how the part of society that makes the affluence possible sees them; the king has no clothes.

22-36) Political correctness is one of the arts that make it possible for people to disassociate from friends and acquaintances who are being ostracized, and even to join in the ostracism, despite joint sympathies, in order to avoid being ostracized ourselves.

22-35) There must be good reasons related to human survival in all the distractions from reproduction that we regularly experience.

22-34) Since they occur gradually, most changes go unnoticed.

22-33) Essential workers are often the least paid and most abused, suggesting that slavery is alive and well, and still a big part of what drives our country. The largest employers won’t admit to using and fostering slavery in all but name, point their finger at others, and vow to end what they don’t recognize as being their own abusive practices.

22-32) No matter how many and how often economic policies and theories have been updated, they have yet to work long for anyone but the moneyed.

22-31) Consumerism is akin to exploitation, since it doesn’t happen without it.

22-30) Consumerism is counterintuitive to capitalism.

22-29) One teaspoon of ejaculate per man would just about fill a swimming pools every day.

22-28) Cities are our best attempt to create groups that mimic our ancient relationships with one another when human population was small.

22-27) After all our evolutionary changes over millions of years, we still encourage pathogens to enter our body by doing things like rubbing our eyes, licking our fingers, picking our nose, scratching our wounds, and more, so perhaps there are advantages to doing so that we have not yet figured out.

22-26) Our natural urge to help others is often displaced by the desire to help ourselves.

22-25) Having relegated their time to economic opportunity and their children’s education to the schools, families have largely forgotten how to educate their children.

22-24) Evolution has not had enough time to adapt to the phenomenal growth of the human population since the agricultural revolution, and to modify the small-group mentality that guided our behavior for probably more than hundreds of thousands of years.

22-23) Laws try to make up for our inability to be compassionate.

22-22) Innovation without plans for maintenance runs greater risks of an untimely demise.

22-21) Simply having a law on the books disfavors those who may not know that the law exists, or may not have access to information that it exists.

22-20) You are always interpreting what you observe from the background that shaped your life.

22-19) A middle class white person and the privileges that such a status has endowed them might be able to sympathize with the oppressed, but not to truly empathize with them.

22-18) True empathy is difficult when one’s interpretation has been shaped by a different environment.

22-17) There are not many people who can maintain the viewpoint of an oppressed group to which they belonged once the media makes them famous.

22-16) The best way to gain access to the viewpoints of another group is by embedding oneself with the them.

22-15) If you want to gain someone’s trust, be willing to walk not just a mile, but ten or a thousand, in their shoes.

22-14) Most monuments lose their significance over time, to become mere map markers or artistic directional landmarks, until, all of a sudden, a philosophical crisis catapults them onto the stage of a divisive argument. Perhaps we should consider pop-up monuments for the future.

22-13) By purging our ranks of everyone who makes a mistake we are making the bigger mistake of rejecting the possibility that we can recover after paying our debt to society.

22-12) When we are seen to punish people for their mistakes, we, in effect, encourage hiding mistakes that they will make in the future.

22-11) Human rights are not different for majorities and minorities.

22-10) Anyone who calls something a necessary evil has never been subjected to it.

22-9) We are much better at applying band-aids than at preventing wounds.

22-8) If you think you’re humble, you’re not.

22-7) Those who can afford to get a good education don’t necessarily get one, but they, unlike the have-nots, will at least be taught how to thrive economically using the resources they already possess.

22-6) At the mercy of fewer advertisers that put their money on the political field that fuels their bottom line, media outlets that don’t tow the line don’t get funded.

22-5) I wonder what our civilization will be named after it dies off as did the Roman, Mayan, Mycenaean, and other greats before ours

22-4) Our civilization may fall because it is based too much on solutions that are made possible by their potential for personal gain at the expense of the rest, to be replaced by one not as radical at the onset, but that will probably eventually look like ours.

22-3) The concept of time, and movement within it, is different for all species and organisms, making inferences difficult about what it feels like to walk in any other shoes.

22-2) Most of our interpretations on how other organisms work are based on our own functions, and one might wonder if such comparisons are necessarily valid.

22-1) Passion takes on one form when the issue is personal, and a different form when we have less, or no, attachment to the issue.

Take me back to where I came from!

Round 21

21-40) If you want objective news, dump the adjectives and the opinion writers.

21-39) Absence makes the heart grow fonder, perhaps because time abets forgetfulness and makes us increasingly hopeful that we can change those parts of someone else’s behavior that we don’t like.

21-38) Telemedicine relies on the patient recognizing their own symptoms and misses those which could be detected by the physician in a personal on-site visit.

21-37) More so with every passing generation, the secret language of youth follows us into adulthood, not having been allowed to leave our childhood behind.

21-36) Anything we define in law as a basic right becomes subject to bureaucratic mismanagement.

21-35) Happiness often lies in change, and since there is nothing as constant as change, we should be always happy, however that is not so because we tend to notice mostly big changes and fail to notice the small changes that are happening within and around us all the time.

21-34) The value we place on family members as teachers is priceless, whereas we hardly value school teachers.

21-33) Once having suffered an injustice from a person or institution it is difficult to see justice ever emanating from them.

21-32) Though we regularly encourage others to give up hope, it is forbidden for us to give up hope on ourselves.

21-31) Among many things, globalization has helped us to realize that we have many different voices that we are finding ever difficult to join together.

21-30) Sex can be embarrassing when we keep so many things secret that don’t allow us to openly share and compare notes, creating jealousies about the unknown quality of our prowess, and fears about less access, or less quality access, than others.

21-29) Nudity in a nude crowd can be a cure for sexual embarrassment.

21-28) We live in a state of balance, where every change means that something appears in place of what is moved, whether or not visible to us.

21-27) Nothing has no place in our universe, because nothing, as the word implies, is not something that exists; something exists in everything.

21-26) Politics, not knowledge, drives our educational systems.

21-25) Politicians don’t need to be smart to win; just persuasive.

21-24) When we volunteer to help, we usually prefer our assistance to be based on our own judgment of what is needed.

21-23) Loneliness is the feeling that you don’t have value in the eyes of those whose attention you seek, or the feeling that those whom you seek to be associated with associate you with those you want to avoid.

21-22) Things that encourage history to repeat itself include our tendency to be overconfident in our instincts and ability to create a better future without studying our past.

21-21) Change entails transferring power, which we are all loth to do.

21-20) Talk about the benefits of nuclear energy rarely touches upon the challenges posed by radioactive waste, leaving that problem, as with so many others, to accrue for future generations to avert, resolve, or fall prey to.

21-19) Everyone retrieves essential information from their favorite trusted sources, without really knowing if they are authoritative.

21-18) Morals can be double-edged swords when reason is disregarded for the sake of tradition.

21-17) There will be poverty for as long as our social system is based on economics.

21-16) With all the possibilities in the huge expanse of the universe it’s hard to believe that we would fashion a god who looks like our pitiful species.

21-15) If we are made in God’s image and likeness, God must be a bad looking dude.

21-14) Teaching is an art that not many know how to do well, probably because we choose to interpret it, not based on how it impacts others, but on how it makes us feel about ourselves.

21-13) We re-write history when we interpret the past and judge its peoples using today’s standards.

21-12) One of the lies we teach our children is to ask them questions that we expect they know to answer in a way that we would approve.

21-11) We are more likely to remain quiet than to say something to right a wrong if it means we may lose something in the process.

21-10) Modern wars are confusing in that they don’t seem to have clearly identifiable friends and foes.

21-9) Giving in an inch can feel like giving in a mile, and what may feel to one as giving in a mile can feel to another as giving in an inch.

21-8) Take corrective action not because a person was victimized by a previous action, but because the action is the correct action to take toward everyone in the same condition.

21-7) When you have been told, for most of your life, that something is bad, it’s hard to convince yourself to feel different about it after it is proven to not be bad after all.

21-6) Police officers are expected to be perfect and do only the right thing, and, usually, their less than perfect deeds are only noticed when something goes awfully awry.

21-5) We grant to police officers the discretion to choose whose and what mistakes to forgive or punish, even though we are wary of them acting as judge and jury. On the one hand, they can stand between us and bad laws; on the other hand, they may only do that for those whom they judge worthy.

21-4) Distance makes the heart grow fonder, of the fantasies we can dream up without interference by the immediacy of the dreamed.

21-3) Excitement is greatest in the anticipatory process, when our mind is engrossed in a frenzied feeding feast of endless possibilities.

21-2) By focusing on the distinctiveness of groups of people, instead of what we share in common, we are moving less in the direction that Martin Luther King, Jr. was leading us, and more toward the separatist position of Malcolm-X.

21-1) Equality cannot be achieved when the rules we make for those outside a group are different from those inside.

Up

Round 20

20-40) Making changes based on polling those who have been affected by uneven standards, rather than by insuring that standards are even in the first place, can inadvertently worsen inequality.

20-39) Correct English usage matters, which may be why so many of the uninformed misinterpret what is intended by the battle cry: “Black Lives Matter”.

20-38) Cheap merchandise enriches its makers and impoverishes everybody else.

20-37) Jury awards for pain and suffering have become like prizes in contests.

20-36) The voice of a group does not necessarily reflect all or most voices of the group, but just the most forceful.

20-35) We might be rid of poverty if we could be rid of wealth.

20-34) Legislators are fond of sponsoring new legislation, but not so much of fixing old legislation.

20-33) If everyone was following the laws of the land we would not have racism. The trouble could be in the amount of leeway our society allows each of us, and in the trust we give each other to take only the amount of leeway that we ourselves feel to deserve.

20-32) As a society, we value our children primarily when something happens to them, and what we value the most is property.

20-31) It is common to want others to believe in something that we ourselves don’t, simply because we think that those whom we hold in esteem may believe it.

20-30) Instead of recognizing the long-term benefits from encouraging ridership on public transportation by decreasing fares and increasing service, most municipalities are doing just the opposite.

20-29) I was young all my life until I wasn’t.

20-28) It’s easy to let the cat out of the bag, and only then do we find it wise to lure it back inside.

20-27) Headline writers make short of the truth.

20-26) By giving new meanings to existing words we effectively alter the interpretation of history, past and to come.

20-25) Globalization mostly refers to the usurpation of global resources for one’s own local benefit.

20-24) We are so stuck on gender identification that we are blind to the humanity that transcends gender.

20-23) Movements often fail because they lose momentum; when the anger wanes that fuels the passion.

20-22) The iron hardens rapidly after it is heated and will not achieve the desired shape if it is not continually placed into the fire and struck.

20-21) Expectations without prior validation rarely match up to the consequences.

20-20) Even though we are aware of the failings of individuals, we continue to appoint them to positions of absolute power over us, expecting against experience and high odds that our judgment of them will be different this time.

20-19) With everyone craving to have their voice heard, every new outlet further diffuses the voices, suggesting the possibility that the creation of new outlets is rarely likely to make a noticeable difference in the quality of the voices that most people hear.

20-18) Even in today’s free societies there are things you can’t say, read, see, hear, or question, without the possibility that you will lose your freedom, and with people who will delight in obliterating your achievements and insuring that you are made a pariah.

20-17) Persuasion is often more important to outcomes than veracity.

20-16) The only times we should be using the word race is when referring to a contest or a stream.

20-15) As important as it may be to be blind to color and ethnicity, even more important is to be aware of behaviors that do not conform with rules and that open our eyes to color and ethnicity.

20-14) The trouble with many infractions that involve sensitive subjects is that they are often perceived as waves even when they are just ripples.

20-13) Unjust laws disguise themselves to serve a purpose other than the unjust one, and on close inspection can be found to not have merit.

20-12) We often resist doing more when we have done as much as we want to, despite encouragement or repeated advice for the need to do more.

20-11) Socialism follows the mentality of trust and sharing within and between familial groups, and capitalism follows the mentality of conflict and competition for resources between alien groups.

20-10) Winning and losing are the basic qualities of governing, with cooperation and compromise usually following instead of leading.

20-9) A simple majority might create a win, but a supermajority creates something closer to a winning compromise.

20-8) Secrets beg to be found out, and hiding things prevents us from addressing them, from understanding them, and from helping others to avoid the pitfalls of their unknown.

20-7) When your primary care provider is the only one of their kind whom you know, it is difficult to figure out their level of competency, especially if something goes wrong.

20-6) We have not yet evolved from our small group mentality, even though we act as if we have, inventing ways to create larger groups and elect or appoint leaders whom we do not know, placing our trust – our lives, in fact – in them as if we do.

20-5) I can just imagine how every human quality is mirrored in every organism, in some way or other.

20-4) We might assume that survival of the fittest refers to our short term gains over other species, however the real game is played long term.

20-3) Quarks might be to microbes as they are to us as we are to our planet as it is to our galaxy as it might be to the universe, and reason suggests that smaller and bigger things exist. Who could deny that we are all integral, and that nothing, least of all humans, is less or more important in the big scheme.

20-2) Most parents’ idea of showing support to their older children is to give them unwanted advice.

20-1) Prisons are not as much places where we put people to punish them as they are places where we put people we don’t want to deal with.

Go for the summit!

Round 19

19-40) It’s harder to object when doing so might place you at risk.

19-39) A racist may have a good friend from a discriminated group, yet hold ideals which discriminate against others in that group, citing the rule of exceptions.

19-38) Many people with a cognitive bias are not necessarily aware of it, nor are they necessarily “bad” people but simply be ignorant.

19-37) Even though we know that skin color is not a biological determinant of race, we still act as if it is.

19-36) The odd thing about the social construct which we call race, is that although we want it to disappear, we continue to keep it front and center.

19-35) We segregate by social identification that hides behind skin color.

19-34) If it’s true that educated people have less children, then it makes sense to educate everybody so we can control our population and diminish the damage that our uncontrolled growth is causing to our environment.

19-33) Our pass/fail system of education is a sure way to see that we are doing it wrong, as it points to our failure to educate everybody.

19-32) Merely providing the tools of education does not mean that anyone knows what to do with them, and suggests that they will benefit only those who already know how to use them or those who are motivated to learn how to use them.

19-31) Instead of spending on education, we prefer to spend on what happens when people are not educated: poverty, crime, ignorance.

19-30) It would seem presumptuous to believe that our health, predicated by constant activity and dearth of food resources throughout most of our existence, would not be adversely affected by modern conveniences that do not require us to move our bodies, and the ready availability of food much of which differs from what our bodies had been accustomed.

19-29) Tokens of gratitude rarely survive past one’s lifetime, and many not even past the moment they are conferred.

19-28) I wonder if our uneasiness with sex might have come about as a form of natural selection, in a reaction to our population having reached unprecedented gains that, based on our past, might not have seemed sustainable in a foreseeable future.

19-27) Discrimination will continue to stay with us for as long as we continue to feel the consistent need to identify individuals by color or ethnicity.

19-26) When entertaining thoughts about the meaninglessness of the individual we might consider how frequently one person has made or broken our day, or changed the course of history.

19-25) News reports that rely too much on anonymous sources risk being labeled as fake news.

19-24) The media is very selective in when they choose to print what is said and when they choose to check the facts before publishing.

19-23) One might wonder how much of our character is dictated by the mating benefits it confers.

19-22) When testing for outcomes that provide rewards, cheating is often inevitable.

19-21) Any organization that relies on a small number of private donors is likely to eventually becomes subject to those donors’ whims.

19-20) It is common for even the well educated to refer to behaviors as masculine, macho, feminine, and dainty.

19-19) Political correctness in public is not necessarily an indication of how the person really feels or behaves.

19-18) Humans are natural gamblers.

19-17) Hopelessness is an abyss with steep sides that keep you sliding back down each time you try to climb out, sometimes sending you even deeper and farther from the light and air. Most eventually find the ladder, and sometimes it finds you. Sometimes you don’t want to see there’s a ladder, and sometimes you will never see the light nor feel the air again.

19-16) We usually find it more satisfying to fix the blame than to fix the problem.

19-15) So much has to do with where, when, and to whom you are born.

19-14) Music is a drug that alters balance and spatial orientation to create an out of body experience.

19-13) The rich are like the bonobos, which allegedly evolved to peacefulness due to the abundant resources on their side of the Congo river, and the poor are like the chimps, which supposedly evolved to agression due to the limited resources on their side of the river.

19-12) Organized educational systems would do well to include curricula revolving around science based cultural issues.

19-11) We require certain restrictions, like taxes, to get us to contribute toward the common good, as it would not be possible to equalize opportunities in any other way on a mass scale.

19-10) Calls for drastic changes in traditional institutions often fail because most people fear and resist change.

19-9) Even as we condemn police violence, we applaud when they direct it toward those who allegedly commit deplorable crimes.

19-8) We admire and celebrate the sex organs of plants, and we are openly encouraged to experiment and play with them, and to display them proudly, probably because their structure and workings seem, but only superficially, less like those of humans and other animals.

19-7) Everyone offers band-aids because few can stand to suffer the drastic actions necessary to fix things.

19-6) The problem with proactive healthcare is that it requires the common man to seek and discern what should be competent advice, and to place limitations on themselves when healthy and bombed with marketing for happiness through everything unhealthy.

19-5) Look around you, and you’ll discover that many more people cooperate than oppose each other, thus lending to the idea that more people than not can be labeled as good. You may also notice that opposition is sometimes necessary for our own good, so many of the adversarial could also be labeled as good, thus leaving only a very few who might be labeled as vile.

19-4) I wonder how many have pointed out that if we believe God made man in his own image, it stands to reason either both God and man can be evil or neither God nor man can be evil.

19-3) You can become so accustomed to bearing a cross that a little while after it is lifted you can come to miss it.

19-2) A good education has nothing to do with a degree and everything to do with the ability to navigate through life’s choices.

19-1) We like to live in constant retrospect.

Everyone’s going down; be different and go up!

Round 18

18-40) Although we know that a calm follows every storm, we are loath to admit it while the storm is raging.

18-39) An educated guess means there’s a good chance it’s wrong.

18-38) Death is an alien concept to the living.

18-37) At the same time that we are quick to demand the rejection of hate, racism, and intolerance of any kind following an incident that hits close to home, we conveniently forget that we still demand hate, racism, and intolerance of so many who are not so close to home and do not think, behave, or look like us.

18-36) Judicial sentencing has always favored those with possessions.

18-35) Eating a healthy diet does not come naturally in our modern environment, as we need to compensate for our primitive urges.

18-34) To forgive is to let go of the desire to punish.

18-33) It should not come as a surprise that politics is fueled by money and possessions, as is everything else in our lives.

18-32) It seems rather presumptuous to believe that we are the smartest of all organisms, when we really understand neither ourselves nor other organisms, nor what outcome our type of smarts, compared to that of other organisms, will ultimately have on survival.

18-31) The value of one to oneself and others means nothing if one walks alone.

18-30) When we start seeing less value in our own self, we also perceive less value in others.

18-29) The tendency of political parties to divide and compete by ideology goes counter to the ideology of good governance to unite.

18-28) Although the continued practice of African-American Vernacular English goes counter to good practices of assimilation, so is every culture guilty ot trying to keep alive their own traditions.

18-27) Each of us possesses ideas of greatness that would be realized if others would just get out of our way.

18-26) Fear tends to usually win over any ideological convictions we possess.

18-25) A moment in fear can feel like an eternity.

18-24) The monsters of fear that live in our mind are our own, formed and translated through life experiences that are singularly ours.

18-23) The power of persuasion usually runs with power and possessions, though the occasional lunatic may pierce such veil.

18-22) We may believe that people and economies gained great benefit from the globalization ushered in by the Boeing 747, however we rarely recognize the disastrous effects it caused through rapid change to cultures and the environment to which neither we nor they could readily adapt, with far reaching complications that will likely prove the globalization to be a net loss for our planet.

18-21) We find it acceptable to kill individual ideals but not for the individual to kill themself for their ideals.

18-20) We fear population control because we fear the possibility of being perceived as part of the population to be controlled.

18-19) Audiences still want to hear unbiased news, but since most do not consider ourselves biased, the news we prefer to hear is probably as biased as we are.

18-18) We may find it hard to believe that radio and television news readers were once hired for their skill in diction. Today we probably don’t want to believe that they are hired for their on-air personality, intended to attract a larger audience, and for their ability to sway us with opinion that can pass as news.

18-17) Human challenge trials for medical research come with serious ethical concerns, but it is rare that concerns exist with animal trials, especially when the animals don’t bear a close resemblance to humans.

18-16) Life isn’t necessarily cruel; we just tend to remember more of the negative parts of it, because remembering what to fear is more important for survival than remembering what makes us feel good.

18-15) Based on observations of nature, conflict is part of life, part of our main instinct for survival. Yet conflict cannot exist without peace, or no species would remain alive long enough to reproduce.

18-14) It would behoove us to explore the perspective that pass or fail grades should be a mark on the educators’ ability to impart knowledge, and not on the students’ ability or willingness to learn.

18-13) In addition to peer reviews, it would make sense for a group of initial studies to be concurrently made, especially on trending matters that are considered to have significant effects.

18-12) Artificial intelligence and humans both evolve. It’s just that AI does it a lot faster, which would logically make it more adept, and at a faster rate, in creating anomalies that carry the potential for creation as well as destruction. Compared to humans, AI is as fast as rocks are slow.

18-11) Why should only humans be privy to any purported awareness about the existence of a creator; or not?

18-10) If we could search the “brains” of other organisms, we would probably find that each, just like us, “thinks” they’re the dominant species.

18-9) The stick wielded in the past by man to ward off unwanted advanced toward his mate is now wielded by the arm of the law.

18-8) The steel and concrete enclosures, and the natural and poisonous preservatives, only delay when the worms will have at our cold, dead body.

18-7) Altruism and selfishness are not limited to the human species, but apparently are common to many other organisms according to mounting scientific research; perhaps to all. If we could watch rocks long enough, we might see those qualities in them as well.

18-6) In human terms, choice is both the most rewarding and the most punishing of all the qualities we possess. It could possibly be no different for other organisms, though the language barrier would prevents clear communication of this concept.

18-5) For scholarly approximations look to science; for precise opinions look to religion.

18-4) Our amazingly complex minds lead us to seek and find answers, as well as to ignore them.

18-3) That humans are the most intelligent of all organisms is merely a human perception, since we have no way of proving it objectively nor from the perception of other organisms.

18-2) Our tendency is to believe that rules apply mostly to others.

18-1) We’re only mindful of how much toilet paper we use when we’re on our quickly dwindling last roll.

Go up to defy the gravity of this mess!

Round 17

17-40) If everything that we know has changed form over time, it’s only a matter of time before humans follow suit.

17-39) The fact that we, including the universe we know, are made of the same elements, and that we are the product of what has died many times over, should be enough to convince us that we are not different from each other to any consequential degree.

17-38) If we value the education we received or miss that for which we yearned, it feels strange to be taking part in a fight about whether or not everyone has a right to basic minimum education.

17-37) We risk our privacy because it is in our nature to trust each other, and, with the continuing breakup of small family and social groups that formed our species, we are forever seeking other outlets in which to place our trust.

17-36) If survival of the fittest is the law of existence, the fit must recognize who else also needs to thrive in order to remain fit enough for survival. Unfortunately, sometimes we figure out who that is only after we’ve already, directly or indirectly, killed them off.

17-35) Humans might take a lesson from nature in the benefits we can realize through continued diversification, just as with agriculture that, to decrease its vulnerability to pests and disease, benefits from diversifying landscapes away from monoculture.

17-34) The timing in bringing a product to market usually seems to have more to do with whether or not it is likely to sell than whether or not it is likely to benefit its audience.

17-33) If we are expecting technology to repair our world, we might keep in mind that is is our technology that has polluted everything that supports life, including our skies, our water, our food, and our bodies, and that most of the technology we have ever produced lies broken in a zillion pieces, scattered in landfills, throughout our environment, and even in space.

17-32) Although clothing is often recognized as a way to deter our libidinous nature, it can also enhance eroticism by stirring the curious and imaginative nature of the onlooker.

17-31) Most people pretend to be more shy than they really are.

17-30) Even plants commit suicide.

17-29) The way we joke about old people, while we’re still young, means that we lack foresight that we will grow old, and likely decrepit. That many old people don’t think they are old gives further credence to that argument.

17-28) As physicians are finding that more of their time needs to be dedicated to computer entry, it would seem most appropriate to make the appointment longer to account for that task, instead of giving precedence to the income aspect by reducing time with patients.

17-27) Whether one thinks themself very smart or hardly so, overconfidence, a quality of both, makes each equally apt to err.

17-26) When we consider the qualities of someone who is ignorant or uneducated, we usually fail to consider that their smarts simply lie in different things, such as, perhaps, primal instincts.

17-25) Just as our generation thinks itself the wisest and most intelligent thus far, so it would seem has every previous generation going back to the beginning.

17-24) Having lost our close family structure and the means to be self-sustaining within a supportive small group, we have come to rely for our wellbeing on economics that are largely out of our control and that strongly impact our environment, health, education, and safety.

17-23) Complacency comes from a feeling that if lightning hasn’t yet struck then one must be invincible with no longer a need to consider it a threat.

17-22) Traditional views are shaped by the most recent to uphold them before the advent of popularly available means to record them for posterity, or by someone with the power to change the records or to force others to believe them.

17-21) It is in our nature to be curious and lacking in patience, which often lends to delving into seemingly innocent forays that get us into trouble.

17-20) We mostly search for information that backs up our view and discard what doesn’t.

17-19) The best thing about a goal is the road you take to reach it, so enjoy the trip.

17-18) A small-business owner will usually go broke trying to save their business, while a billionaires gets to keep their money as the government or bank will surely bail them out.

17-17) The medical mantra has changed from “do no harm” to “keep the patient alive at all costs, or until the insurance runs out”.

17-16) Medical care for everyone means the rich get a home visit and the poor get to wait endless hours at the emergency room.

17-15) People often choose others for, among other features, faces that remind them of themselves or of people to whom they are close, so it’s no wonder that many choose pet dogs for features that seem familiar.

17-14) If religion is allowed to interfere with politics, it would only be a matter of time before politics interferes with religion.

17-13) Most of us eat our share of insect parts and mouse poop as part of the processed food we consume.

17-12) We rant about problems and expect others to address and fix them. Once we become discouraged and tire of ranting, the attention stops and so do any repairs that might have made it into the pipeline.

17-11) Good medicine is proactive and doesn’t wait to be requested.

17-10) Sometimes we only feel violated and in need of amends when we realize that something done to us is considered illegal, even though we ardently welcomed our initial appeasement of it.

17-09) Often, things only become embarrassing when we become older, or when someone convinces us to feel shame about them.

17-08) The expectation that sexual behavior should not occur outside a loving relationship is contrary to our human animal nature.

17-07) Implicit biases are not limited to skin color and are common to people of all skin colors.

17-06) We humans think of ourselves as the dominant driving force of nature, and overlook our power to unknowingly force nature into driving us out of existence.

17-05) A politician’s primary job is to keep their job.

17-04) The worst question a teacher can ask their pupil is one that can be answered with a Yes or a No.

17-03) Coming from poverty to abundance does not mean you will retain viewpoints from your former self.

17-02) When all has been going well for a while, we tend to use our resources nilly willy, losing sight of what a rainy day really looks like, and how we might have saved some resources for one.

17-01) In our modern success story we have largely forgotten how to provide for our daily needs without assistance.

Not going down any further?

Round 16

16-40) We have become so commercialized that we find ourselves needing what we merely desire.

16-39) We are crisis-focused, acting primarily when things go badly, as we generally lack foresight; when things go well we don’t adequately see much, if any, need to prepare for when things might go badly, especially if they have not gone badly before.

16-38) Moral values, and their enforcement, help to funnel procreation toward a genetic pool preferred by the majority.

16-37) Everything that we do comes down to basically manipulating our environment by reacting to reactions, toward the primary goal of human reproduction and the survival of our species. Not all pieces fit that goal, but then they don’t have to, as long as the majority does.

16-36) We prefer to overlook all the evidence that points to our being mere biological organisms, in favor of placing ourselves on a lofty pedestal of difference from other organisms through that which we call consciousness, for which good evidence is severely lacking.

16-35) We can find purported experts to back just about any view, including what we prefer to believe in.

16-34) Social order breaks down easily when we don’t feel close to other people, and difficult to feel being part of a group.

16-33) Desperation happens at the moment one realizes that the time when one finally feels enlightened and understands things, it is too late to do anything about them.

16-32) Morals are difficult to explain with reasoning, as whatever logic that originally formed them got lost to habit that eventually transformed into tradition and often eventually enforced in law; making morals difficult to change or even to question openly, which is deterred by promises of ostracism and punishment.

16-31) Even though it is we who make the choice to purchase foreign goods at cheap prices and, in the process, put our workers out of a job and make millionaires of the ones who are conveying the goods to us, it is easier to blame the foreigners who produce those goods for taking advantage of our greed.

16-30) There being no universally accepted age of consent, it follows that it is set on moral grounds, and not on any plausible scientific basis.

16-29) One problem with private utilities is that continuation of their services to the public is based on maintaining profits, and not on the public’s needs.

16-28) It’s easier to believe that redemption comes from suffering than from pleasure, because we tend to get a lot more of the former than of the latter.

16-27) Social distancing has been very familiar to many of the old and, except by a catastrophe, could not be easily experienced by most young.

16-26) Suffering and pleasure are opposite manifestations of stress that need each other to survive.

16-25) Most people are happy to entertain compromises, as long as they expect to get their way in the end.

16-24) That stuff happens between birth and death to all organisms doesn’t alter the presumption that we humans must only exist to reproduce.

16-23) Putting a price on pain and suffering is just another measure for securing legal vindication.

16-22) Assimilation is not always possible when something about you, that is not under your control, like skin color, draws attention to your presumed group identity.

16-21) Failing, or not desiring, to assimilate, in favor of maintaining an identity that you deem special, is a sure way to draw attention to yourself.

16-20) Keep drawing attention to yourself and you’ll always be a target.

16-19) If you look closely, you’ll usually notice the eyeliner under men’s eyes in television and film. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t help but to look for the rouge, the lipstick, and other cosmetics that we are accustomed to only seeing on women. If badly applied, we are more likely to notice it on men, because we expect them to look lifelike, as men don’t commonly wear makeup.

16-18) I would love to see a couple in bed on a television show where the sheet is pulled up over the man’s breasts and not over the woman’s, instead of the other way around as usually portrayed.

16-17) Even though we have a deep mistrust for politicians, we readily turn to them in times of emergency.

16-16) If you’re looking for real joy and angst, look to the youngest and oldest among us.

16-15) There is comfort in being with others who think, act, and speak like you. Change is resisted because it risks the acute anxiety of being separated from the group and finding oneself alone.

16-14) Who knew it could be so hard to get a concise and truthful answer about how soap does what it does.

16-13) News reports citing studies often sound like they are citing truths; never mind supporting and opposing studies.

16-12) Conveniences made it easy for us to forget basics, opened the door for charlatans to exploit our new weakness and empty our wallets, and left us clueless when the convenienced disappeared.

16-11) We treat death like it’s something to be avoided at all costs, and often suffer needlessly and savagely in order to merely delay the inevitable.

16-10) Longevity, as an end to itself, is a shortsighted proposition.

16-9) Darwin wrote that “natural selection will never produce in a being anything injurious to itself”, however that doesn’t seem to consider suicide as a form of self-sacrifice, which also occurs in animals other than humans.

16-8) Men kill themselves at much greater rates than women, pointing to one more feature that suggests female superiority.

16-7) I wonder if there is any way to prove that pressure from women caused men to create the Third Industrial Revolution, and perhaps even the Agricultural Revolution.

16-6) Males evolved larger and stronger bodies likely to be able to compete for the right to mate, but the difference has been waning, probably because brain has largely replaced brawn in such competition.

16-5) Politicians generally look to put politics aside when they stand to benefit; which is another way of saying when they have too much to lose.

16-4) Humans are made up of oodles more microbial genes than human ones. They populate us before we take our first breath, and don’t leave us until after we die. It would stand to reason that, rather than this being just a symbiotic relationship, we are substantially reliant on them for our survival.

16-3) When we say we value life, our actions indicate that we value merely keeping things alive at any cost.

16-2) Every generation works to prevent the recurrence of tragedies they experienced, however, based on recurrences, we’re not very good at learning from the past, so we usually apply only the shortsighted solutions with which we’re comfortable.

16-1) We continue to flaunt and accentuate our sex differences in ways that make it difficult to realize and celebrate our human similarities.

Give up to the fickle finger of fate!

Round 15

15-40) Loneliness is writing what no one else will read, thinking what no one else will hear, seeing what no one else will see the same way, doing what no one else will benefit from.

15-39) Punishment is a form of abuse.

15-38) When social groups are small, discipline more often follows an educational approach, rather than a punitive one.

15-37) Abusive behavior is subject to social definition within the mores of the time, as are who is an abuser and who is a victim, and also who gets treated with inhumane punishment and who gets treated with sympathy.

15-36) Never do what you can empower others to do.

15-35) While we complain about women being used as sex objects we laud media performances that use women as sex objects to woo us.

15-34) Classical style music pervades movies, televisions shows, and more, yet it seems most people aren’t even aware, or don’t think well, of classical music.

15-33) The people who are best equipped to take money out of politics are those who are the most afraid of losing it.

15-32) When we suddenly feel disconnected from a group we retreat in panic into defensive behaviors.

15-31) Resistance to women’s rights laws is due less from too many men resisting than from too many women resisting.

15-30) Women have not recently won new rights; they have broken restrictions placed on rights they always had.

15-29) Men have evolved a smaller and simpler penis than many other species because, it is theorized, of monogamous mating and domestication.

15-28) The latest “this is it” always feels like the one and only solution. Until the next “this is it”.

15-27) In an age when we yearn to identify ourselves within groups, we tend to segregate ourselves from other groups, to more readily feel offended by other groups, to persecute those who don’t belong to our group, and to forget that we are part of one big group, the human race.

15-26) Racism happens not from your decision about which group you decide to belong to, but the group in which the racist places you. So it’s mostly about how a person sees another than by how that other sees themself.

15-25) Over the last century or two we have farmed out our children’s daycare, education, and companionship to schools and businesses.

15-24) As long as we have possessions it’s very hard to perceive the possibility of being old and destitute until it happens.

15-23) Since we generally interpret what’s happening around us through the news, it would make sense for journalists to be especially skilled in language and communications; which is not evident in most of the current cast.

15-22) We all look for the humanity in what we do; we just have different interpretations for what it is.

15-21) There must be good reason why the lifespan of plants can run to thousands of years, and why the animal lifespan seems limited to less than a hundred.

15-20) In the billions of years it has taken to bring humans to the few thousands of years when we recognize intelligence, we expect to find extraterrestrials in a similar extremely narrow window of time, notwithstanding what myriad genetic mutations might have promoted, or that they might not have survived cataclysmic destructions like our earth has experienced and might experience again before long.

15-19) We are likely foolish to expect that artificial solutions will always fix natural problems.

15-18) Military and police officers don’t find empathy to be a useful emotion, as they are trained to expect surprises by those who look friendly but wish them harm.

15-17) The job of saving lives often eventually turns to doubts about compensatory commensurateness.

15-16) We start out with lofty ideals, and eventually most of us fall prey to the lure of opportunistic advantages of one sort or another, that compromise what we thought we stood for.

15-15) Our environment would benefit greatly if the billions who are not starving would simply eat less.

15-14) Whether or not we are religious, we truly want to believe that the dead appreciate the tributes we pay them.

15-13) Most who have lost their religion continue to find comfort in its rituals.

15-12) Religions are never static. Like all organizations, they begrudgingly bend to the will of those who support it.

15-11) A free college education means less than nothing to students whose primary and secondary schools did not have the resources to prepare them for college.

15-10) We celebrate our ability to live longer, to replace knees, corneas, hearts, and so many other parts, unless we are among the feeble and old who have been corraled into impersonal compounds for their kind.

15-9) It may not be possible for a family to survive without someone bringing home a paycheck, but if the quality of life is not worthwhile, the paycheck doesn’t matter.

15-8) People often loathe what they cannot have, and their jealousy toward those who have it brings them to desire their punishment. Eventually this reasoning is forgotten, and the behavior is perpetuated in new morals that forbid and call out the haves for punishment.

15-7) It took a long time for the tool revolution to be followed by the agricultural revolution, much less time until the industrial revolution, and a blink of an eye until the technological revolution. (However one might suppose that technology is just part of industrialism; a slightly different way of using industrial inventions.) The logic would be that what comes next will be quicker than lightning, in archaeological time.

15-6) Therapies work when they succeed in convincing you that you have accepted, are not bothered by, and have found value in, being the fuck-up that you are.

15-5) If we believe that something is doable without first having tested it, we are more likely to expect others to live up to this standard, and to liberally mete out punishment to those who don’t.

15-4) Ignorance and intolerance about drug use long ago popularized the assumption that abuse of drugs is due to character defects, and formed the cognitive bias that survives today and prevents us from solving the biological puzzle that creates the need to use drugs.

15-3) If we are able to look through space back in time, it would stand to reason that we should also be able to look forward into time.

15-2) Proponents of Pro-Choice feel that the Pro-Life movement is hostile to women by favoring babies over women, and proponents of Pro-Life feel that the Pro-Choice movement is hostile to babies by favoring women over babies.

15-1) One misguided solution to relieve loneliness in seniors is to give them robots.

Moving on up!

Round 14

14-40) Just as many animals are quick to mark territories, that were previously marked by others, with their own scent, so are humans quick to make our mark over any previously made by others, with expectations that ours will be the only one that endures.

14-39) Politicians aren’t getting worse or more egotistical; technology has just made it easier to see behind their masks.

14-38) Our expectations that politicians rule from the brain goes against the way that, in general, we humans rule from the heart.

14-37) Instead of continually trying, and failing, to change attitudes of police performing searches of vehicles, shown to be biased against people of color, we fail to notice that a more likely fix is to stop searches or change the manner in which, or the place where, they are performed.

14-36) However beneficial corporations might be in providing services that government does not, the whims of the investors dictate the terms to the benefactors.

14-35) Paying for school choice has changed from choosing to fund schools for everyone in the public interest, to choosing to fund schools for corporate interests.

14-34) Friends insist on helping when assistance is resisted.

14-33) You can walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, but it won’t feel the same unless you also adopt their bunions, corns, etc.

14-32) In the big picture, the memory we use every day is really only short term, whether that be a split second or until our last breath. Our long term memory resides in the genes of all living things (and probably in all things that we don’t generally consider as living). Long term memory is passed on from one generation to the next, it is not easily erased, it is difficult, if not impossible, to access, and it won’t be governed by our desire to conquer it.

14-31) Affirmative action is the quick-and-dirty way to help us escape our cognitive biases, in the hope that the biases will eventually disappear.

14-30) Artificial intelligence is only called such because we humans think that only our own is genuine.

14-29) Mundane research is our term for the type that isn’t likely to make the investigator rich.

14-28) The end of the world was predicted more times than we can probably imagine, each time seeming more urgent than any time before.

14-27) Big business defines customer service as the art of placation at the customer’s expense.

14-26) Creatures of other species probably don’t understand humans as much as humans don’t understand them.

14-25) If we get used to seeing each other naked all the time we stand to lose our prurience.

14-24) What is paradise to some is hell to others.

14-23) When you’re in paradise too long it can start to feel like hell.

14-22) When you’re in hell too long, you can get so used to it that hell can seem like paradise and paradise like hell.

14-21) It is fair to say that we have all been guilty of wanting to commit a crime at one time or another.

14-20) Without the discretionary powers of the police, most of us would have a criminal record or might even be in jail.

14-19) No matter how much some try to revert our behavior to how it was in times past, it will never happen because we have already been affected by all the changes that have happened since.

14-18) STD’s are among nature’s ways of keeping our species in check.

14-17) Shame is something we hide behind, and encourage others to feel, when we ourselves don’t know how, or don’t want, to deal with a situation.

14-16) ‘That will never happen to me’ won’t be real until it happens, and ‘I could do that’ won’t be real until you do it.

14-15) As long as cheap processed foods continue to be sold, there will continue to be a market for them.

14-14) It’s mostly the old who worry about dying without leaving a legacy; about not receiving recognition for their value to society during their lifetime.

14-13) There seem to be plenty of clues that suggest our society was matriarchal, then taking many thousands of years for men to evolve larger and stronger bodies than women’s, and to become ensconced in roles that would eventually make them feel superior, like an experiment gone wild. However surreal, our current expectations seem to suggest that we will accept nothing less than to undo those evolutionary changes all at once.

14-12) Fantasies often rely on fleeting memories of moments in time that, by their very nature, simply cannot be re-imagined the same way twice.

14-11) To counter objections to government sponsored programs that favor particular groups it is helpful to delineate how government action has actually favored capitalist or market outcomes at the expense of those whom the government-sponsored programs are said to favor, without making those favored feel they were wrong in their views.

14-10) It is a lie that man is born free, as genetics have long before taken hold.

14-9) The death of one superstar catapults many newcomers into visibility.

14-8) Being old and closer to death does not necessarily create an urgency to plan for it.

14-7) Probably everything we do creates both collateral benefits and damage.

14-6) News reports often lend greater importance to events than warranted, as when the actions of one, or a small group of individuals, stir the public’s passion and make an inconsequential event seem like a significant movement; but thry’re good for the bottom line.

14-5) When one’s values are threatened, the potential of experiencing pain from their loss makes avoiding dialogue more likely, so that defence of those values becomes unnecessary.

14-4) So many of our solutions are based on simply moving something from a problem place to a place without problems, forgetting that behavior learned in the problem place is not easily forgotten.

14-3) When things go well we tend to take the credit and to disregard contributions to our success by others. When things don’t we tend to focus on blame, to place it elsewhere, and to disregard any contribution we may have made to our failure.

14-2) It’s easier to remember a hyperbole than an understatement.

14-1) Despite claims of ethnicity and culture to support racial descriptives, we lump everyone under Black or White based primarily on outward appearance.

Everybody wants to be at the top!

Round 13

13-40) In evolution, time creates opportunities.

13-39) Just as with the mosquito, which eradicated millions of humans through the ages, it is always wise to pay attention to the small things that we tend to easily overlook.

13-38) Where access and availability to natural resources may once have limited human fertility and expansion, today’s false promise of access and availability is masked in many places where expansion is occurring.

13-37) Most people still think that soap and water actually kills germs, but it’s not that simple.

13-36) Honesty is largely driven by the desire to avoid the discomfort of the stress that goes with trying to be dishonest.

13-35) Despite our convictions that we could not possibly do some things that we abhor, it doesn’t take much to get used to doing them.

13-34) Our perceptions are often guided by how well others communicate their own perceptions to us and by how well we interpret those perceptions.

13-33) Scientists argue that emotions are not solely relegated to humans, and that there is evidence that points to the possibility that it occurs in invertebrates as well, however we will probably only accept this when we can see it.

13-32) Depression, the desperate convincing feeling of exclusion.

13-31) In sting operations our government has free rein to commit the crime of soliciting people who they think are likely to commit crimes, to comit them, and I wonder how many would never have committed their crime had they not been so solicited.

13-30) In addiction, once the uncomfortable symptoms pipe down, all is forgotten except the desire for more.

13-29) It’s much harder to prevent kids from doing things than it is to get them to do something else.

13-28) Criminals are often seen only within the dimension of what they were accused of doing, failing to take into account all that led to it, including the historical part that we ourselves played in creating the circumstances around the person.

13-27) We don’t seem to mind most things that happens in business as long as what we desire becomes cheaper to acquire. When we lose our jobs because of such choices we look for someone other than ourselves else to blame.

13-26) We give Congress carte blanche to spend billions on the military, yet we balk at spending millions for social programs. We view defensive strategies with a blind confidence that they will solve all our ills, despite what history tells us about their relative inefficacy and waste.

13-25) Our poor kids are fodder for the front lines, while our rich kids go to West Point and rarely see the front lines.

13-24) We value warmongering so much that military personnel can retire with full benefits in their 40’s and 50’s, yet people working in the dredges all their lives often get only Social Security and many get nothing at all.

13-23) We have a long, continuing history of effectively stealing raw materials from places all around the world. We excuse our actions by saying we pay for their extraction, but the payments are made only to satisfy those in power or control. What we don’t pay for is the effect of the extraction on those who live there, and on the environmental waste that will affect generations afterwards. Governments continue to abet our practices despite their mandates to benefit everyone they govern, because those in control fear losing their personal gains and with the excuse that if they don’t continue to take advantage, someone else will.

13-22) Most people turn to God when they are in trouble, and not when things are going well. It’s invaluable therapy to have a God who listens when no one else will, and when we are not really interested in feedback. A God who will forgive you when no one else will.

13-21) I can’t imagine a worse punishment for a child than his parent’s disappointment.

13-20) One of the things that tells me I’m not depressed is the occasional giggle that rocks my chest.

13-19) It may seem as strange that some ultra-wealthy prefer to pay more taxes as that some ultra-poor prefer to rebuff possessions and assistance.

13-18) Everyone is heard; most as far as their lungs carry, some as far as their publishings grab attention, a few as far as someone else happens to overhear them, a very few as far as the attention that their money can buy, and fewer still as far as their wrecklessness takes them.

13-17) Placating constituents is likely the best way to get re-elected to political office. On the plus side, maintaining the status quo can keep politicians from making mistakes, while on the negative side it keeps them from searching for and implementing different solutions to problems.

13-16) Media writers, producers, directors and actors are not especially adept in psychological theory or study, and they’re in their businesses to make money. So what continues to be portrayed in the media mostly consists of traditional displays intended to gain the public’s support, not usually to present objectivity. You can’t sell your newspaper or tickets to your movie if people don’t like your content or don’t agree with it.

13-15) People are rarely satisfied with their position, no matter their status.

13-14) When we think we’re making things better, we’re probably often kidding ourselves in believing that change is always for the better.

13-13) We love to put up fences, yet we hate to even consider that all fences leak, require repairs, and eventually break down and disappear.

13-12) Though we are ever more confident about heading farther out into space, the systems to take us there keep getting more complicated and reliant on specialized modules, each of which keeps increasing the potential for catastrophic failure.

13-11) Wikipedia provides lots of helpful information, however reliability is in the eyes of the often inexperienced authors.

13-10) We create prejudices by cataloging and publicizing differences between groups without advancing ways to understand and appreciate those differences.

13-9) Symptoms are diseases.

13-8) Modern scientists never stop saying that they don’t fully understand, and they likely never will.

13-7) When we can’t seem to win we seek categorical differences, create a category that befits us, then collect the gold medal.

13-6) Every so often we delve into something we deem to be new as the next permanent resident in our lives and cultures. Eventually some permanence remains, but the rest is scattered to the waves as we delve into something we deem to be new as the next permanent resident in our lives and cultures.

13-5) Despite globalization and extensive advances in education and communication, our understanding of fellow humans beyond our group or border remains dismal. We insist on carrying a mental block that precludes us from interpreting our neighbors, near and far, except through our own cultural concepts, even though our concepts are proven wrong time and again.

13-4) The best way to battle racism is to focus the battle on a common enemy.

13-3) We have no qualms about using drugs and technology to increase our longevity, for it feels good to have something to think positively about, and it would feel bad to have to think about unintended or even anticipated negative consequences, which we can deal with if (wishful thinking) or when (likely) they bite us on the nose.

13-2) We are constantly building new, improved tools of war, only to later find them being used against us.

13-1) Intermarriage becomes the great equalizer in the racial debate.

Let’s take it up a notch!

Round 12

12-40) The moral compass in humans is usually subject to manipulations and abuse, however we still think it is this compass that makes us superior to animals. You know where you stand with animals, however with humans you never know if you’re going to be saved or slaughtered.

12-39) Cartoon characters continue to be given voices that sound like our pre-conceived expectations of ethnicity and skin-color.

12-38) As the fertility rate keeps dropping worldwide, it seems mother nature has been hard at work trying to restrain the growth of its human invaders. The question is whether or not humans will be too quick with our final blows; though mother nature will apparently just adapt and carry on, no matter what we throw at it, that’s not an option for us humans.

12-37) Since I’ve experienced being burnt by a flame, the concept of “a burning feeling” in medical descriptions is odd, since to me it only evokes the concept of intense pain and a natural urge to be removed from it.

12-36) When perpetrated with stupidity, ignorance, and impulse, crime is often fairly easy to spot and prosecute. When perpetrated with intelligence and patience, it is easy to overlook, as is the case when the ones in charge of rooting it out are benefiting from it.

12-35) Though there are times when memories of what was learned by rote, force, or coercion are later recalled to our benefit, it can’t compare to the enjoyably learned memories that form our lifelong passions. Good teachers motivate by stirring up something inside us that makes us want to work to learn.

12-34) Quiet can be so vastly different from place to place and from time to time. In the city I always hear a background hum, even at its most quiet after a new blanket of snow has fallen. In the country, quiet depends on whether I’m surrounded by trees or fields, where leaves, birds, insects, and the wind define it, or my distance from a road, highway, or railroad with their own distinct grumbles and susurrations.

12-33) It is troubling that so many companies dealing in health and educational services are motivated and dissuaded by profit.

12-32) We may not be able to stop our children from finding sex on the internet, but if we didn’t have so many hang-ups in talking about sex with them, we could help them understand about sexual relations, body variations, and abusive behavior, and help them both to identify extortion and other confidence tricks and to find healthier outlets for their curiosities and desires.

12-31) When government doesn’t provide the answers, they eventually come from private industry, but only after it has felt a sting or threat to its bottom line.

12-30) Some young people want to display their hunting and protective prowess by joining the military. All that’s left to teach them is fishing and gathering, to make them into humans of the pre-agricultural revolution.

12-29) It would seem downright self-defeating for a virus or bacterium to kill its host, since it needs it for survival. Yet sometimes that’s exactly what happens. Sometimes humans’ actions make them too strong for us to control. Similarly, humans are constantly inventing new and different ways to become stronger than means which are available to control us. And sometimes we are also killed by our internal defense mechanisms which over-ramp beyond what is probably needed to calm the invader and fix the damage, and seem similar to be what humans often do in response to aggression; attacking our own beyond what’s necessary.

12-28) Every organism feels pain. Chemical reactions occur in all organisms in response to stress, and we simply lack imagination in considering what parallels other organisms experience with what we feel as pain. Or pleasure.

12-27) Once we settle on something because of its convenience, it’s hard to return to old ways or to try new ones. It’s hard to let go even knowing that it’s hurting us and those we love.

12-26) Many must always suffer to those who deny change before anyone can gain new rights.

12-25) Just watching or listening to something or someone we like or agree with can feel like being part of a group who feels like we do. No need for anyone but us to think so.

12-24) Some say that technology will make war more humane, as if war could ever be considered humane.

12-23) It’s no wonder many are turning away from the typical politician, who looks and sounds prim and proper, only for their dirty laundry to later be aired by others. Perhaps we find it more palatable to trust someone who simply hangs their dirty linen on the line for everyone to see.

12-22) If the Earth was formed by elements that came from elsewhere in the universe, it would seem logical that, given the massive size of the universe, other planets would have been similarly formed in relation to an energy environment similar to the sun, and that life as we think of it would also exist elsewhere. Perhaps the most striking difference between us and them might be in where in time such life exists; for all we know, it might be thousands or millions or more years older than us, and thus unrecognizable.

12-21) We like to believe in hierarchy, and if I was a believer, I’d start with a God at the top, then I’d want to identify someone – other than me, of course – to be at the bottom.

12-20) Though we work hard to stamp out insects and bacteria, it is they who, in a manner of speaking, have the last laugh after we die.

12-19) Watching birds sitting on high-voltage wires atop the city’s poles I can’t help but wonder how electromagnetic pulses under their feet might be affecting them.

12-18) It’s easy to push a particular agenda on someone else, and much harder, if we are even willing, to adopt it in one’s own habits.

12-17) All kinds of organizations do things to keep people from dying. Better, instead, that they would work to help people keep healthy while they are living.

12-16) Our government borrows money from the rich, instead of taxing them, and pays them interest to boot.

12-15) Carrots contain more genes than humans. So do nematodes. Yet they don’t seem as complex organisms as humans.

12-14) Police officers used to be recognized by their blue uniforms and batons, however today it’s easy to confuse them with military officers by their camouflage khakis, helmets, armored vehicles, and assault guns.

12-13) Anyone who has made a public argument is not likely to easily give in to contradictory statements, fearing, in the least, risk of reputation.

12-12) We have figured out how to produce massive quantities of solar cells, but we have yet to figure out how to effectively dispose or recycle the toxic waste, that they will become after their expected useful life ends, in 1-2 dozen years, for an acceptable cost. It will likely only become acceptable after there’s enough damage to our health to create clamor, and then we will have no other choice.

12-11) Politicians may denounce government abuse and sound dismayed at how it could happen, when it was they who laid the groundwork in the first place.

12-10) Many who object to birth control don’t see the relationship between a larger family and a lack of resources to sustain them. They only see what they perceive as a controllable urge to have sexual relations, and what they identify as willpower and their perception that we truly possess it.

12-9) It’s not reason that usually moves us to act, but passion.

12-8) In school you learn about the past and how to better yourself and deal with the present world. Not so much about what’s going to happen to you once you’re over the prime of your life, once your body and mind starts to change in ways you’re not likely to understand until you get there.

12-7) It is amusing how firm dates that arachaeologists use to separate prehistoric events predispose us to think that suddently everything changed on that date.

12-6) We don’t teach our soldiers to kill “people”, but to eradicat the “enemy”. We teach them that the enemy is not a person like themselves, but a concept unlike themselves. And if the soldier fails to kill as directed, he can be punished with death by those he is directed to kill, or with loss of freedom by his compatriots.

12-5) As young children we are usually shielded from access to other social groups, manifesting later in life as an inability to understand or empathize with them, and leaving us with the prejudice that we then try so hard to get over.

12-4) When we observe someone behaving in a subservient manner that we think masks ulterior motives, especially if they are ethnically different, our suspicion prevents us from treating them fairly.

12-3) At one time or another, we are all monsters. Perhaps not in how we view ourselves, but in how others view us. When we feel that we are, we hide that which makes us thus.

12-2) Every generation has its war, probably because we’re not very good at learning lessons from history.

12-1) Rankings are often misleading, especially when differences in rank are so minute as to be as good as meaningless.

What’s up ducky?

Round 11

11-40) River of the Year awards never seem to be bestowed on waterways that go through poor localities.

11-39) Poverty can be measured by levels of education, access to healthcare, to a job, and to healthy foods. Instead, we prefer to measure things by levels of affluence.

11-38) I reckon most people would be loath to admit that their mastery of our language is substantially less than optimal, and to believe that others should understand what one means based on what one says.

11-37) Reach them while they’re young; miss this period, and you may have lost them. One of the problems of our educational system is that we don’t agree on what to reach them with.

11-36) The familiarity of our habits and our high degree of comfort within them, prevent us from delving into what formed them and what else they affect.

11-35) The problem with many alternate solutions isn’t necessarily that we are not aware of their existence, it’s our resistance to changing ourselves from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.

11-34) Modern man cannot conceive of his own death as a natural cause, and uses any available method to prolong his life, notwithstanding the pain and suffering from the side effects.

11-33) There are trillions of microbes in our intestine, and only less than 8 billion human beings. Each time we take an antibiotic, we kill off more microbes than we have killed people in all wars.

11-32) Our ideas of manhood and womanhood are as old fashioned as our ideas that men are hunters and women are child-rearers. However in the history of humanity those ideas are very new.

11-31) That men must be strong and women tender disparages the untold benefits of men’s tenderness and women’s strength.

11-30) The notion that mostly men are largely guilty of sexism flies against the face of Victorian fashions that we continue to encourage.

11-29) We laud the differences between the sexes even as we ply for laws that rail against differences.

11-28) When a crime is committed against someone with African-American origins, it’s called racism. When against groups with different origins it’s called a hate crime.

11-27) It’s very difficult for a big machine to run smoothly when repairs are done piecemeal where we see leaking oil.

11-26) We once could not fathom something as small as a bacterium, and we may yet see things even smaller than what we can see today, yet we will probably still not be any closer to understanding what we see.

11-25) We are endorsing the taking advantage of their youthful innocence as we allow our government to market opportunities to get them our young to join the military, while effectively hiding the chances that they will suffer from the aftermath of fighting, and the limited care and inadequate attention that they can look forward to afterwards.

11-24) We love to watch them get the bad guys in the movies. We’re okay with their underhanded and often unethical or illegal methods because we want them to get the bad guys. When they make a mistake and it turns out they tortured an innocent party, we’re ready to forgive them. Because it’s just a movie, and nobody gets hurt. When any of that happens in real life, and someone else is the target, we’re quick to avert our eyes. When it happens to us, we’re bitching angry at the police brutality to which no one pays attention.

11-23) When we think we have grasped the meaning of history, often we have only learned that which fuels our end game, and have ignored the rest.

11-22) Democracy seems to be only a phase in the life of governance. Before long, one group becomes stronger in getting its way, and that leads toward supremacy of its ideals over others. That makes it easier for tyranny to take hold, and to again stir up groups demanding democracy. Eventually the circle is moved to the reforms which democtratize, and which again give groups the power to sway governance their way. And the circle continues.

11-21) When powerful companies are faced with those who will stand between them and their profits, there is not much they won’t do to remove them.

11-20) Simply telling us that a species’ numbers place them close to extinction doesn’t help us to understand their important role in the circle of life, and the effect on our own.

11-19) It’s hard to control the behavior of any population as it grows larger, especially when it reproduces quickly, whether microbial or anything larger.

11-18) But of course we are drawn to the negative aspect of everything, because that’s what makes the adrenalin flow through our natural fight-or-flight stimulus. Everyone knows that it’s easier to get someone’s attention and stir their emotions if you poke them with a stick.

11-17) Authenticity seems to be largely fiction, or at least so changeable, or changing, over time that earlier versions seem like fiction.

11-16) We talk about not slowing growth in our economy, but never about its adverse effects. We did not foresee effects such as increased economic disparities and carbon pollution, and we likely are missing insight into effects that will result in more misfortunes; that is, until after they occur.

11-15) When we punish others, we also punish ourselves, though we don’t usually realize it until much later, always too late to undo the suffering we caused.

11-14) Big changes hardly, if ever, happen voluntarily. We mistrust each other enough to warrant believing that most will not change, and that those who would be willing to change would thus suffer inordinately.

11-13) Arms sales soar, yet we fail to see how these arms tend to fall into the “wrong” hands and continue to contribute to unrest, terrorism, and wars.

11-12) There might be something comparable to be said about our willingness to kill animals that don’t evoke images of a pet and an embryo that doesn’t evoke images of a human.

11-11) After abortion was legalized, did it encourage more women to have them, or did it save more women from death through illegal ones?

11-10) What many consider to be man’s superiority over women can only find the scantiest of evidence in the briefest of blips in the history of humans.

11-9) We have chosen, through our democratic system, to elect our leaders largely through the popular vote, which relies on the power of those who think the most alike; the power of the masses. Even though it can lead to disasters, we carry the expectation that we can always fix things later.

11-8) We have a tough time distinguishing between symptoms and the actual cause of anything.

11-7) The problem with stopping any behavior is the inability to have averted it before it started. Once tried, especially without untoward consequences, it’s just too easy to repeat.

11-6) If you’re looking for kindness, hold a door open for another, or wait for another to hold a door open for you.

11-5) Even as we learn more about how much our genes control our behavior, nevertheless we hold strong the idea that our actions are guided by self control and self discipline, or willpower.

11-4) Punishment for actions not sanctioned by governing society may only have durable effects if the punished are removed from the gene pool more often than not.

11-3) Though we generally accept that males are the strongest, we feel the need to create categories that allow others to feel strongest.

11-2) Everything that is free becomes monetized, scrutinized, censored, regulated, blocked, and fought over as its popularity increases.

11-1) Lower socoeconomic classes are most likely to harbor color prejudices, because they are the likeliest of economic competitors and the easiest to identify.

Climb every mountain; climb all these words!

Round 10

10-40) If a person with one drop of African blood could identify as Black, then a person with one drop of European blood could identify as White.

10-39) Even though they apply to skin color, Black or White illogically denote membership of particular cultural, economic, and social groups.

10-38) The comedies that have taken over the air waves are mean, and a far cry from what comedies used to be. In effect, they’re not comedies at all, but tragedies.

10-37) Affirmative action programs are in place because we find ourselves unable to not discriminate. Implicit biases, and internal and external pressure to act in concert with one’s social group, are likely the primary causes of such inability.

10-36) There was no focus on “race” until the 18th century. Then we mostly started seeing white, red, yellow, and black, then contracting to white, yellow, and black, and now focusing mainly on white and black. The next step is likely to bring our focus to only one color, black, since we are all its descendants. And if there’s only one, we’ll probably stop focusing on “race” altogether.

10-35) Hospitals (and we) lavish star doctors who save but a few notables with high salaries and notariety, as we understaff hospitals with nurses, who actually have the greatest impact on, and probably save the most, patients’ lives. Anyone who has been in hospital surely expected only occasional care by the doctor, but constant care by the nurse, and wondered “where is the nurse” when you needed one.

10-34) China didn’t take away American jobs. Americans did, through our desire for profits and possessions.

10-33) Authenticity may be one of the most valued characteristics in our society, but it can also get you in a lot of big doo-doo when others don’t share your authentic values.

10-32) Online mantra: Post while the iron is hot; evaluate later only if you get burnt.

10-31) Disorders are deviations defined by where we decide to draw the line of normal.

10-30) Feeling worthless is the worst torture; a living death.

10-29) After over a half century of human space exploration, scientists know so much about how the body behaves in space, yet not nearly enough, as they keep finding new adverse effects. I wonder what they will find next.

10-28) How would you fare if your vision suddenly deteriorated, you couldn’t chew, and couldn’t hear very well? Even though these decays have a tremendous negative effect on our happiness in life and on future health prospects, most health insurance does not adequately cover eye exams, eyeglasses, dental exams, cleanings and repairs, and hearing aids.

10-27) As baby boomers have overly benefited from our social support systems, they have made certain, with their political and cultural dominance, and without curtailing their own perks and stature, that younger generations will not receive the same support.

10-26) Without followers there can be no leaders.

10-25) Everything that is liberal was conservative once, and everything that is conservative was liberal once. And will be again.

10-24) It is difficult to remain in harmony, or discord, since the norm is change and change is constant.

10-23) There is power in being oppressed, if only the power of worth that we all strive to possess, which gives us argument to overpower those who hold different kinds of power.

10-22) We’ve done such a good job in ceasing to call certain people Yellow, and now we can work on ceasing to call other people Black, Brown, and White.

10-21) If we stopped using terms like Race and Black and White, people who identify strongly with such terms would suddenly lose their identity. Plenty would lose their job, their calling, their goals, their faith. So it would seem that those terms are not likely to disappear anytime soon.

10-20) We will not give up race, because we’ll always need a way to establish ourselves as a group in conflict with others. Perhaps at least until we totally assimilate, which doesn’t seem likely to happen.

10-19) Globalization might help us to assimilate more readily, so that identifying onself within a race shouldl become virtually impossible. Alas, it will be tough to give up that one difference that so facilely puts us in conflict with one another.

10-18) It is in human nature to remain silent about those who do improper or illegal things if they are likely to further your cause. As much as we abhor it when it’s not in our best interests, the Fifth Amendment gives us permission, or at least a free ride.

10-17) Religious belief by people who are well off probably has more to do with nostalgia than with faith.

10-16) The ability of teachers should be called into question when their quest to educate includes exclusion to punish children whose behavior they don’t know how else to deal with.

10-15) When I think about the little we know of how memories are formed, I think of how elementary the most complex computer program is by comparison.

10-14) Once vested in a particular project or way of thinking, one is less apt to be open to alternatives.

10-13) In the presence of stimuli, temptation for instant gratification is really strong. In the absence of stimuli, temptation to feel self control feels really strong.

10-12) When we feel judged is when our tendency to react is most powerful; after all, it seems natural to strike when the iron gets hot.

10-11) I can’t get to my reasoning when I’m depressed, and I can’t get to my depression when I’m reasoning.

10-10) Blind faith lends one thing so well like nothing else: sense of purpose. It is the strongest motivator for everything you do and could ever encounter. As long as you keep the faith.

10-09) Justice is, for too many, just a big fat settlement check.

10-08) Creative types may be able to imagine someone else’s point of view, but, unaccompanied by knowledge from that point of view, it is only an imaginary one.

10-07) Once a friend does something wrong and it means your association with them puts you at risk of being seen in a bad light, it’s too easy, and often unjust to both them and you, to just drop ’em like a hot potato.

10-06) Organic growing and processing of vegetables not only treats the earth responsibly, but, as we have been learning more about how similarly plants and animals behave, it also treats the veggies humanely.

10-05) You may hear the public relations arm tell you the company listens to your complaints, but the customer service arm is often deaf.

10-04) Less women in the workplace doesn’t necessarily represent exclusion. Some prefer the more rewarding jobs in raising a family than the dog-eat-dog jobs in business.

10-03) Politicians are rarely the best candidates for public office, because their wins are for popularity contests, and not for the most practical, useful, or appropriate ideas and policies.

10-02) Lack of enthusiasm for campaigning on popularity is often enough to keep a viable candidate from winning an office.

10-01) The word “race” has been incorrectly understood for so long as relating to biological differences between people, that it would seem necessary to change it in order for the concept to be correctly and universally understood as a social construct.

Up, up and away!

Round 9

9-40) When we say “put him in jail so he won’t do that to anyone else anymore”, we are choosing “out of sight, out of mind”. We do it all the time. Finding a solution is hard work. We don’t value the work it takes to reach the teaching moment. Forget that. Marginalize the sucker, get him out of my hair, and let me get on with my own life.

9-39) Social media gives voice to many more than ever before. But the voices sound more like epithets than conversation, and they exclude everyone who lacks the technology, especially the marginalized poor and uneducated, and the old whose voices have been dimmed.

9-38) When you’re young, you may believe advice (like that sunscreen will help you prevent cancer) but won’t follow because it’s either inconvenient or because your youthful health prevents you from believing that it will apply to you. Now add how often scientific “knowledge” changes (such as the uncertainties surrounding sunscreen safety) and skepticism becomes one more reason to disregard advice.

9-37) For what I expect was most of humans’ existence we have eaten animals and plants because of their ready availability and easily identifiable sources of nutrition. Now that we have found many to be harmful to us, and have largely exhausted or polluted those sources in many parts of the world, we are finally beginning to turn toward our future source of sustenance, what we have heretofore feared and misunderstood: bugs, the creepy superfood.

9-36) We keep censoring more and more content that we deem offensive. If we continue on this path, with so much in our history that has the potential to offend, we will completely erase the past from our records, forgetting everything we don’t want to repeat, and in the process making it possible for us to repeat it through ignorance.

9-35) The only difference between sports in the Roman Coliseum and today’s stadiums is that people don’t get physically harmed, maimed, or die as often. We still demand blood, just not as much.

9-34) The question, “Is it sexist if a male candidate attacks a female candidate as ‘angry’?”, overlooks the more critical impropriety of “attack”, whether originating from or directed at male or female.

9-33) Twitter, our anarchistic governance of choice for the 21st century.

9-32) A mere accusation of sexual abuse can raise the accuser to celebrity status and ruin the life of the accused, even as both may be members of a privileged class known to routinely sidestep sexual norms.

9-31) Getting out the vote responsibly requires helping the voter to acquire knowledge about the candidates, not just sending them to the polls to push buttons or pull levers. (Didn’t have time to research; whoa who are all these people; hey I recognize that name; has same first name as someone I like; looks like a nice person; that other guy looks so mean on TV; same nationality as me; that one talks down to people like me; same party as me ; maybe I’ll just kick the old bums out; it’s telling me I can pick a couple more; eenie meenie mynie mo; I’m glad nobody’s watching how I do this; well at least I came out to vote!)

9-30) When the truth won’t set you free, you’re better off keeping your mouth shut.

9-29) One advantage of having a variety of governing bodies (e.g., federal, state, municipal) is that power must be shared and thus avoids the usually abusive dictatorial powers. One disadvantage is that little gets done as each exerts its power to point the finger at another; but perhaps that’s not so bad, since it slows down their screw-ups.

9-28) The awesome nature of the most beautiful scenery, as with everything, fades with time into the background.

9-27) Mother nature doesn’t give us rights. The only rights we have are those we give to each other, human to human. Nature would label them simply as survival tactics.

9-26) Most consider our species superior to everything around us, figuring we are masters of our world. Yet simple observations tell us such notions are absolutely false. In effect, we’re constantly warding off attacks from other organisms and from our environment, and though we come out on top of some fights, we always lose the final one. Like it or not, mother nature recycles everything, including us, in its own good time.

9-25) Modern governments may be quite advanced technologically, yet so behind in human sciences that they still find it imperative to kill with impunity those who pose a threat to them.

9-24) It certainly is infinitely easier to pull a trigger or push a button than to work things out.

9-23) By allowing philanthropists to fund charitable causes, our government can pay less. Though, in turn, we may be paying less in taxes, we pay more for the goods and services that make the philanthropists rich. And whereas we have some control over how equitably our government re-distributes our taxes, philanthropists dole out their profits at their own whim, and charities can be highly selective and localized.

9-22) Often we demand transparency from those who disagree with us even though we are unwilling to ourselves be transparent to them. We want to see another’s hand and complain when they look at, or demand to see, ours.

9-21) Our genes have evolved to make much of our life processes automatic, and the burgeoning of our species suggests that we don’t need to know a lot about what our genes do, and that our brain developed for figuring out how to replicate and hunt for food to feed the genes.

9-20) The connection between biology and behavior is pretty clear, yet all too often we still treat them separately.

9-19) It is easier and more rewarding to seek happiness in the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors involved in individual steps while working toward a goal, than solely in the achievement of the goal itself.

9-18) I was allowed to be on a jury, once. I have a feeling that all the other times I was interviewed, the attorneys didn’t like the idea that my judgment might rely on fairness instead of emotions they could make me feel during the trial proceedings.

9-17) When we think about renewable resources, we often expect them to be self renewing, requiring no helping hand from us.

9-16) Drugs are amazingly diverse in their effects, for they make people healthy and sick, destitute and rich both legal and illegal, they send some to jail and others to collect the Nobel.

9-15) The only true faith is one’s own.

9-14) Beauty is a perception that is created by certain chemical changes in our body. As with everything that we get on a regular basis, over time those chemicals create less and less changes, so that eventually beauty gets toned down and can even turn into ugliness.

9-13) Not every microbe is a germ.

9-12) The definition of inappropriate touching differs from one culture to another, and from one time period to another.

9-11) Non-violent forms of sexual relations, or sexual behaviors, only carry consequences of shame and legal prosecution because of cultural mores.

9-10) Shame loses its power once faced with compassion.

9-09) We punish those who cause others to feel shame and elevate those who perpetuate the notion that one ought to feel shame.

9-08) Our belief in fate often disregards the cause-and-effect details.

9-07) Probably the biggest hurdle to accepting climate change is our inability to be convinced how every little thing we do affects our earth. In short, we refuse to believe the butterfly effect exists.

9-06) We won’t achieve justice until we replace punishment with benevolence.

9-05) An opposite action is created every time we create something new.

9-04) It’s going to take a long time to get rid of “race” because of the symbiotic relationship between those who benefit from its social segregation and those whose livelihoods rely on reporting it; mindless of those who suffer because them both.

9-03) Beauty is not static; it is dynamic.

9-02) We are hardly aware of all that is physically happening within us until something goes awry, and even then our awareness is limited to only a few symptoms.

9-01) Punishment and rehabilitation are not the same thing, and neither produces the other.

Carry me home, sweet chariot!

Round 8

8-40) We misguidedly view talking about sex with our children as “having the conversation”, when it should, instead, be just as normal as talking about the weather.

8-39) There is nothing as constant as change, and it mostly happens without our even being aware.

8-38) Under the guise of working toward common ground, we usually focus on how best to maintain or strengthen our own positions.

8-37) It is the nation of consumers that makes possible the wealth of many.

8-36) Procrastination is a great stress reliever, as long as you don’t think about what it is that you’re putting off.

8-35) We allow ourselves to believe that voluntary handouts from the haves, and not re-distributions by government, will be enough to feed the poor and soothe their pain.

8-34) Suffering happens in the present, not in the future.

8-33) So much architectural design accentuates elegance or trends and ignores function.

8-32) The ability to remember details has a lot to do with one’s ability to make competent decisions.

8-31) It’s often quite acceptable to insinuate and use descriptives that allude to unacceptable words, but anathema, if not downright illegal, to use the words they describe.

8-30) War movies show what goes in but not what goes out. They never show the amazing logistical workings that ensure the colossal quantity of feces and stupendous volume of urine get properly disposed, considering that each soldier probably poops between 1/4 and 1 lb and urinates between 1/2 and 2 qts daily.

8-29) Within our bubble of a relatively comfortable lifestyle, it can feel unbearable to think of those in plight, and easier to just ignore them. If we are aware of them, we think, then so are others who will surely deal with the problem.

8-28) It doesn’t seem to matter that economics and strong sexual desires have kept prostitution alive and thriving throughout our history, and that every effort to make it extinct has failed.

8-27) There will always be catastrophes with anything potentially dangerous that we deploy for the sake of progress. Those favoring deployment either stand to benefit financially, or view the short term benefits with rose colored glasses, not adequately heeding lessons from history about long term potentialities.

8-26) Tackle the condition, not the attitude!

8-25) In conversation, many of us frequently inject the names God and Christ. “Oh my God”. “God you’re gorgeous”. “God help you if I find out that…”. “Oh for Christ’s sake”. Now say them again using Allah, or Yahweh, or Elohim, or Krishna, etc.

8-24) We live too long for our own good.

8-23) I only see color, politics, religion separating us from a distance. Up close, passions, fears, hopes are all the same.

8-22) When one side wins a political race by a fraction of a percent, or even by ten or twenty percent of the vote, it feels legally enabled – or worse, mandated – to bully the other side. Majority rule isn’t exactly very democratic.

8-21) We tear down the statues, ban the books, delegitimize speech, fight off and hide from sight all the things we don’t understand or fear. We do it to maintain some degree of control that we think helps us to feel safe and snug in our little cubby holes; but only for the moment, as history has a tendency to go round in circles. It would be interesting to see how differently we might re-live this moment in time at some point in the future, or how differently we lived it this time from some point past.

8-20) When it comes down to brass tacks, it doesn’t matter how things are; it matters how I feel.

8-19) One person was shot in L.A. and half the country is up in arms. One hundred men, women, and children were killed in a bomb attack in Iraq and nobody seems to notice.

8-18) The technology of the Internet has demonstrated its ability to both empower and destroy, and we turn away from the reality of its major failures in favor of the short term gains with which it empowers us.

8-17) Just as with the fallacious predictions that computers would save paper, probably every innovation has come with its own burdens.

8-16) We like to put the cart before the horse because the rewards are in the cart.

8-15) With all the fuss we have made about simple language contracts, we don’t seem to have a problem with online contracts, or agreements, which run on and on and on, and which hardly anyone reads, nor probably understands. Close inspection has, often enough, invited interpretations of permissions masked to grant overuse, misuse, or abuse of privacy, and only the big fish are tackled for the occasional light spanking.

8-14) Though our bodies have become accustomed to, and reliant upon, utilizing minerals that are millions of years old, we have added elements derived from fossils, like nanoplastics, which our bodies have never before utilized.

8-13) Wrong ideas can persist for a long time despite contrary evidence.

8-12) The industrial revolution was intended to make workers more productive. One of its byproducts is heat, which, as it turns out, makes workers less productive.

8-11) We are a violent species. We freely use violent language in everyday speech. We get off on fights in sports, fights on television, fights in the movies, fighting songs, and we glorify our warriors. We fight off diseases, prejudices. We fight for rights and justice.

8-10) Charitable organizations are no longer satisfied with voluntary donations they receive on the basis of their worthiness. They are now big business, hire public relations firms, and guilt you into opening your wallet to them.

8-09) As long as holding political office continues to be a job, a politicians’ job will continue to be as doing everything in their power to retain office, rather than to benefit the people they represent.

8-08) The concepts of good and evil are constantly subject to change based on changes in our economic situation.

8-07) Fearing for our heads, we are unwilling to pop our heads above the foxhole until ordered to do so, or until enough others have done so and we feel safe following suit.

8-06) By taking advantage of low wages in third world countries, we have encouraged them to make the same mistakes that we ourselves made.

8-05) There are few pleasures that compare with the feeling of having helped someone to overcome obstacles.

8-04) I had a lot more confidence in others when I was more confident of my own abilities.

8-03) We still believe that “imperfections” can be bred out of a population.

8-02) Someone with a lifelong prejudice cannot be expected to totally change in response to encroachment on the ideals which shaped them.

8-01) By contrast, someone who steals a hundred-or-so dollars from a grocery store is sent to prison, while someone who steals millions from a Wall Street firm may not be convicted at all, or is sent to a minimum security facility.

I wanna take you higher!

Round 7

7-40) People with power often think that what they believe in is in the right, and that any one or any law that doesn’t agree with them is in the wrong.

7-39) Without history, what counts as always is limited to someone’s own lifetime convictions.

7-38) Winning at politics has nothing to do with being truthful and everything to do with being persuasive.

7-37) When Shakespeare wrote, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”, he did not foresee that they would first divert the discussion, and then replace the wise men.

7-36) Just about everything once deemed illegal has become legal, and many other things that were legal have become illegal, clearly evidenced of late by the wave of jail fill-ups.

7-35) Doctors were probably more competent in the past, given that there were fewer known conditions and remedies. Consider that today, with tens of thousands of prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines, for example, it is simply impossible for a doctor to make a diagnosis with an absolute degree of certainty. Chew over just one drug, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, a common antibiotic, which has over 100 possible side effects, from mild to life threatening that a doctor would need to know in order to not make mistakes.

7-34) Results from short term behavioral experiments might suffer from the honeymoon effect, where everything is peachy keen for a while when it still feels new. Then unaided behavior simply reverts to its old self, or a version close enough to it, knocking the results to hell.

7-33) It is well known that the maxim of any organization in government is that no one can do the best they can.

7-32) To deliver a funny joke is the art of the unexpected.

7-31) It was climate change that created wetter conditions and the vegetative corridors which allowed for Homo sapiens to migrate and spread, and take over the world. However we’re now moving past the soaking point.

7-30) When government agencies respond “No Comment”, it’s as if they consider themselves apart from the public, and not servants to the public.

7-29) Why do the right thing now, when you can always apologize later if anyone finds out.

7-28) It’s easy to discourage complaints. All you have to do is make it harder for people to register them.

7-27) If we create a new regulation in response to every outrage of public opinion, we will eventually outlaw everything.

7-26) I wonder if Easter Islanders worshiped gods represented by the statues they partly buried in their fields because they thought the gods created the fertile fields that grew around them, not realizing that it was not any supernatural nature, but the phosphorous in the stones.

7-25) As government agencies continue to replace jobs with mechanical and electronic alternatives, I wonder if they are really saving taxpayer money or merely shifting costs, and making matters miserable for those who lose their jobs.

7-24) Though I have no doubt that biases based on skin color have serious adverse effects, my fear is that by narrowly focusing on skin color we might be overlooking important factors and overly blaming the wrong ones, and that by doing so we may be making the issues more difficult to resolve.

7-23) Ants rescue, heal, and bring wounded soldiers back to their nest, and queen ants and other insects bury their dead. Perhaps a day will come soon when we will appreciate how alike we are to all other organisms.

7-22) Just as in the case of the usual few people who usually spoil the party for everybody, one can say the same for bacteria, viruses, fungi, all organisms, actually.

7-21) Whether we get our facts from a news outlet or a comedy show, the performance informs/entertains you with what conforms to your morals and ethics. If you don’t like what you see, you can just switch the channel until you find your cheerleader.

7-20) Once you become comfortable in a particular behavioral environment, it’s really hard to consider altering it, even if it is particularly harmful to you or others.

7-19) A small community was once able to police itself through its leadership, but with our large community it is not clear where the leadership lies, so we listen to the loudest voices, hoping their call is the right one.

7-18) It’s okay to marginalize cars, but it’s not okay for pedestrians and bicyclists to marginalize the people driving the cars. It’s just not safe.

7-17) Humans kissing might be compared to how most birds have sex, commonly called the cloacal kiss. Rubbing cloacas together could be how predecessors of humans had sex before reproductive, urinary and digestive orifices separated and males grew a penis, which, though rare, still occurs to this day, and is called a cloacal malformation. Cloacal kissing presumably moved to the face once lips in humans became more similar in shape and texture to cloacas.

7-16) We might take how we treat large corporations when they break the law, and apply it to all persons accused of crimes. That is, instead of focusing mostly on punishment, we can focus on social and economic retribution for victims and education for perpetrators toward preventing future events.

7-15) We often blame the victim for a crime and punish them because it’s easier than taking responsibility for protecting the person before they became a victim.

7-14) Every job starts to become monotonous after the honeymoon period. Being good at one’s job entails not only creating new challenges to solve, but having the tools and opportunities to do so. Whether chairman of the bank Board or line worker at the auto factory, every job essentially works the same in our psyche.

7-14) One of the things that tells me I’m not depressed is the occasional giggle that rocks my chest.

7-13) Humans are just another invasive species. As resources necessary for its survival and reproduction become difficult to obtain, invasive species begin to die out. As our numbers increase, it seems our species will run its invasive course as well, back to a sustainable number when we will no longer have much relevance on the environment. Surely the survivors will have learned from the experience, and, like species that we call invasive which are not totally eradicated, we will use that knowledge to again invade our environment.

7-12) We are happiest when we receive feedback that tells us we influenced someone to adopt our views. That happiness is our motivation to continue our attempts to influence evolution. Once we realize we no longer have such influence, our motivation to live dies.

7-11) Some of my temptations are weird, like to show off at the doctor’s office in order to suggest that I’m not as unhealthy as I think he might figure out on his own.

7-10) As long as one sex (male or female) wants to hold on to a particular role (professional or personal), one is always going to want to dominate that role at the expense of the other, often evidenced by sexual harassment in attempts to denigrate the other.

7-09) Animals, plants and minerals are not so different from each other; each simply represents a different stage of our combined existence. We consumer minerals, plants, and other animals, we give some back while living, and give back the rest after we die.

7-08) Based on the way organisms have been observed to reproduce within evidentiary history, it would follow that at some point in the way, way, way distant past there was only one infinitesimally small organism.

7-07) We may be living in the most peaceful times ever, but we humans are still a particularly violent species.

7-06) To consumers, good customer service means consistent business policies intended to benefit them all the time. To business, it means being able to resolve complaints when they are made.

7-05) I would question the sincerity of form letters signed Sincerely.

7-04) One might be correct in assuming that low-cut blouses, exceedingly long hair, high-heel shoes, make-up, short dresses, and most pants styles for women all seem to fall under the definition of sexist stereotypes that are rarely denounced.

7-03) It often only takes one action to move someone from “good” to “bad”, but not the other way around.

7-02) We have are naturally swayed toward believing there’s a supernatural, even when we are sure we don’t.

7-01) Cells that maximize their own vigor, and out-compete surrounding cells that are useful to the surrounding mechanism, are called cancerous. People who do that are called successful.

Are we oging up or what?

Round 6

6-40) Statistics based on self reporting can only objectively represent statistics about changes over time about self reporting.

6-39) Poor people don’t make politics and don’t change laws; it takes a lot of money for someone to be able to do both.

6-38) We expect our police to be missionaries armed with lethal force.

6-37) We created a class of poor people by simply becoming better off.

6-36) Limiting constitutional protections to only our citizens suggests that we only care about the wellbeing of people who are born here, and of people born elsewhere who swear their allegiance to maintain adversarial relationships with anyone not born here or who has not similarly sworn allegiance.

6-35) With power comes the constant illusion that someone is trying to wrest it from you.

6-34) It’s easy to mistrust someone to whom you’ve been a benefactor when they give you adverse advice instead of gratitude.

6-33) Even films that involve the abuse of women are written by men, who keep getting it wrong.

6-32) Just as vaccines keep you from getting sick by injecting something potentially dangerous in your body, every near-miss, everything that brings your body or mind closer to an extreme makes you stronger, better able to fend off future attacks, better able to pass the next test, get the next job, or find the next mate. Better able to achieve another level in the evolutionary process. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

6-31) We act mostly on impulse, which is informed by training that includes self control, knowledge, experience, and social norms.

6-30) From an early age, the men in my life trained me to believe that women are subservient to men, however it was always evident that it just isn’t so. In areas where men long maintained control, and wanted to keep it, women have been relegated to subservient roles, but that bubble also has been popped.

6-29) Outliers in our schools are made to suffer ostracism, forcing them further out, instead of introducing them to inclusion that brings them back to the fold.

6-28) Being a vegetarian simply because of sympathies toward animals overlooks the realities in the circle of life.

6-27) When I see an image in my mind, and then focus on visualizing it with more detail, I lose the image.

6-26) Big business is profiting from continuing to bring us oil, gas, coal; not only to keep warm, but also to make things that we didn’t know we needed and don’t know how to dispose of.

6-25) Species don’t evolve alone, but in unison.

6-24) In the long run, it doesn’t really matter if we lose one or a million species as we now know them, because evolution will simply continue. However it does matter if we don’t want our own species to get lost as well, because evolution caused us to survive together, not separately, and drastic change is certain if we remove species that have been complementary to our’s success.

6-23) The main outcomes of civilization have been to increase our numbers, the amount of time we live before we die, the number of ways we kill, and the quantity we can kill in one shot.

6-22) I didn’t realize how much my physical appearance had changed with age until I met with old friends whom I had not seen in years.

6-21) Fish are aware of water the same way we are of air, usually only when we’re pulled out from it.

6-20) We keep discovering things that are both larger and smaller than ever.

6-19) When you’re young and you hear about ailments of the old, you can’t relate, because you’re healthy. Though superficially sympathetic, most people only understand once they themselves get those ailments.

6-18) Call it pathetic when a person of means looks solely for economic returns from monetary investments. Or when a young person feels convinced that making money is the ultimate goal in life.

6-17) Medicine is an art; art based on scientific knowledge with a twist of opinion. A doctor is an artist, possessing anywhere from a meager to a comprehensive understanding of medical science known thus far, who expressing the art in their particular form of an interpretation. Just as there are both gifted and inept artists who wield a brush or a viola, there are gifted and inept doctors, and no easy way for the common person to tell who is which.

6-16) We are loath to take our own medicine even as we expect others to take theirs without protest.

6-15) Gradually, our view of immigration has changed from an opportunity for freedom and advancement, to the economic value potential of the immigrant to the host nation.

6-14) Rules create pathways in our behavior, but they are constantly being revised as we progress through experiences, and changes in our behavior follow without our even noticing.

6-13) We view cooking and agriculture as purely human phenomena that changed our course, but we really don’t know if something similar may also have happened with other organisms.

6-12) It is largely how we deal with punishment – the righting of wrongs – that separates us. And it is how we interpret what is a wrong that places us within groups/communities, whose like-mindedness gives us that feeling of belonging that stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain and reduces the fear of expulsion, of the helplessness of feeling alone.

6-11) We are so accustomed to fake-ness in advertising that we don’t even notice fake-ness when it happens in the news.

6-10) I would like to think that my ethics (those which I believe in, and not necessarily practice) are based on everything having equal value. But I know better.

6-09) Everything happens for a reason. When we believe that we have the ability to identify that reason, we are hugely disappointed when it turns out to be inadequate; which seems to be most of the time.

6-08) At the beginning of any exposure to someone speaking, I seem more likely to listen when the speaker talks like me, or like groups of people I was taught to admire from an early age. I also seem more likely to downplay what is said by people I was taught to be less smart or more different than me.

6-07) It is easier for us to think other animals have emotions simply because their makeup is closer to our own. Not so easy to consider it in other organisms, like plants and rocks, which are so different from ourselves.

6-06) Promotions can be very motivational and productive, provided that the worker is able to meet the initiatives required in the new job. Prior to promotions, testing the ability of workers to meet their new responsibilities can prove invaluable, which doesn’t happen when promotions are based solely on tenure.

6-05) Making something less accessible obviously works in helping us control urges, desires, behavior, however they also work to make breaches more radical.

6-04) Holding on to one’s side for fear that the other side will get to make decisions on what to do about the issue can relate to a lack of knowledge about the issue that translates to a lack of ability or desire to believe that the other side has any validity.

6-03) When we consume organic matter, we make recycling faster and probably easier than when we consumer inorganics, which tend to take longer to recycle.

6-02) What we think of as being dead is simply being in an altered state, which at some point will likely again form part of something that we consider as being alive.

6-01) Implicit biases related to color are often inclusive of issues related to poverty. Since poverty is not represented by strong voices, however, it rarely gets the attention it deserves. Consequently, we are more likely to conclude that biases against people of color relate only to their skin color, for example, than to their economic condition. In many cases, the bias might disappear altogether when issues involve the rich instead of the poor.

Anyone going up?

Round 5

5-40) Everything that was still exists, but just in a different form.

5-39) Not everyone steals because they’re greedy. Some steal so they can eat, and we send them to jail, then release them, and, still unable to make a living, they steal so they can eat, and we send them to jail, then release them, and, still unable to make a living, they steal so they can eat, and…

5-38) Being excluded is punishment, and our fear of exclusion helps us to bond socially.

5-37) Our natural human direction seems to always be toward conflict.

5-36) It is less work to silence dissension than to invite conversation.

5-35) With enough exposure, most of us can probably be desensitized to just about anything.

5-34) First it was only rich people could afford to fly. Now most people can afford to fly, but only the rich can afford to get to the front of the line without waiting.

5-33) So much of the news that we absorb is reporting on actions of one or a small minority, however it tends to present the issues represented as the predominant attitude, or, right or wrong, as the most important issue that we should focus on.

5-32) No matter how rich or how poor, we always feel poor, and better than others.

5-31) Any small act of kindness generates a palpable feeling of wellbeing, a surge in energy.

5-30) Alone, one doesn’t have much reason to motivate oneself to prioritize the more productive behaviors, over the non- or less-productive ones, when the former require work and the latter require nothing.

5-29) The degree to which we are able to decrease our fear of our expectations, and to increase of our sense of desirability to behave in a particular fashion, is what we describe as an unacceptable degree of addiction.

5-28) I’d venture to say that most people who talk about race haven’t got a clue. It’s become something of a self-serving tagline, more to attract attention than to deal with the issue. Because they haven’t got a clue.

5-27) Educational institutions rely too much on marketing, and too little on educational outcomes, to attract students.

5-26) Even though we know we are, we don’t want to even admit it to ourselves. And woe to anyone who would accuse us of being it. What a merciless, unfeeling person to think that of us. Strike them from the friend list. Feel sorry. Forget.

5-25) Religion may well save the world if, perhaps, its leadership uses its power to save the Amazon basin through the people who live there, for few parts of the world are as important to the future of the planet.

5-24) Everything goes better with fat, for without it our digestive system can’t absorb many vitamins and minerals from other foods.

5-23) Very often things feel new, or like they have never changed, until seen through the eyes of history.

5-22) Deep down inside we know that politicians do stupid things like the rest of us, however we will only condemn them if they get caught.

5-21) Our minds automatically correct defects from our senses. Visual distortion, for example, may not be perceivable until we look at an image in two dimensions, like a photograph. And distortion in our thoughts may not be clearly visible to us until we can examine them in two dimensions, as in when they appear in print.

5-20) The ability to re-position our thoughts on our behavior, our reaction to responses we receive, and the extent to which we can successfully re-position ourselves to receive the best responses, seems a good determinant of success.

5-19) It’s easier to focus on the fantasies of what might have been, than to deal with what is.

5-18) Still putting the cart before the horse, we look for ways to forestall disease and live longer and leave the details of the ensuing effects for later.

5-17) We’re plunging so fast in internet technology that we fail to protect in favor of making profits. We are always a few steps back from the hackers, and it doesn’t seem like this is likely to change anytime soon. And it’s quite clear that our government is keeping their knowledge, technology, and backdoors secret in order to spy on us, instead of using it to make the internet and its technology safe.

5-16) It always amazes me when a realization forms in my mind that I don’t know as much as I may think, or that I know of something very little, if at all. About the occasional thing, or about everything? Disheartening, despite knowing that I have lots of company in that boat.

5-15) We have rules on how to kill each other in an acceptable fashion. Anyone who kills in a different manner is himself killed as punishment for breaking the rules of killing.

5-14) We tend to either kill or shy away from that which we don’t understand.

5-13) I want someone to tell me what to do so I can feel I fit in. But then I don’t really want to hear it, because I want people to think I’m different.

5-12) Judges are put in office mostly through how much money they can raise for their campaign, and the campaign staff they can afford to hire. And that’s done to prevent an appointment system, which carries the perception that the vote is being taken away from the people.

5-11) The beauty of any crisis is that it’s always followed by a different crisis to capture our attention, so we’re only ever looking for new solutions.

5-10) Some of the worst phrases: “That’s a great question” “So…” “That said” “Take-away” “Come away with”

5-09) Whether it’s medical treatment or our children’s behavior, it’s always easier to treat the symptoms. The problem is that the symptoms keep returning, because the cause is still there.

5-08) We tell police it’s ok to hurt people and expect them to act like little angels.

5-07) We tend to prefer top-down management because it provides the “manager” with opportunities to score more and larger shots of pleasure enhancers, but the downside is that the top-down manager has to be on constant search for opportunities. The bottom-up manager only needs to work hard at the onset, and even though the shots of pleasure may not be as large, he is not on a constant search.

5-06) The human species is far from being the master of everything. Even a dog has a better chance of surviving a small cut without outside help. If anything, we are masters of destruction.

5-05) Use it or lose it. Apparently if you overuse it you can also lose it.

5-04) Fear anticipation. What has yet to happen really cranks it up.

5-03) The definition of abuse expresses an action carried from subject to object and covers a very wide range from misuse to injury. It is not necessarily an objective term because it is subject to mores, which tend to change frequently.

5-02) A Nobel prize can be won for theoretical work, i.e., for guesswork that sounds good to the like minded.

5-01) Just as we domesticate certain animals and not others, so probably did we domesticate the colonies of symbiotic bacteria that live within us. (Or they domesticated us.)

Let me give you a hand up!

Round 4

4-40) By preferring the survival of not just the fittest, but of everyone, not to mention our increasing preference for beauty over fitness, we might be dooming our entire species.

4-30) The trouble with historical recitation is that it presents, starting after the agricultural revolution, farming and childbearing as women’s roles in support of their men, whereas it would be more logical that all others play the supporting roles to the women. Men hunted, traded, performed diplomatic functions, and fought, all in support of the women who made it possible for them to eat, to get pleasure from sex, and to procreate the species. Without food and babies there’s no history.

4-38) It may seem like father is the boss in most households, but don’t kid yourself, it’s mother who calls the shots.

4-37) Some people’s attachments are secure, others are ambivalent or avoidant, mine is disorganized: I seek attention and then resist it.

4-36) The first time you’re on pins and needles, constantly looking over your shoulder. The second time you look only a few times, overcome with a congratulatory glee to be over the hurdle. The third time you gloat. And from then you’re on easy street. You’ve gotten away with it.

4-35) The trouble with science is not just that old facts become myth every time there’s a new breakthrough, but that we’re presented with new facts as if there’s no chance they’ll become myth. I’m with Alan Alda on this one; people need being helped to realize that there’s no such thing as a fact that doesn’t change. Our quandary is that scientists are best equipped to educate, but it will take priests to get people to believe them. Oh well!

4-34) Though I always see it in children, it’s a rarity to see runners spring off their feet; they mostly plop-and-push-off, plop-and-push-off. Children love to jump. If you stop and look, you’ll notice they run and jump all of the time. I always loved to jump. When I entered high school, just a couple inches over five feet, never before touched a basketball before, I always played center and they called me Wilt-the-stilt. When, not long after, I started running distance for pleasure with heart, what I enjoyed most were short runs, or, rather, long leaps, like a gazelle; a couple steps to pick up speed, spring off one foot, linger in mid-air before landing on the other, then spring off toward heaven again, and again. The lingering made me feel like I was flying. I loved to jump, and still do when my bones and joints cooperate. Wouldn’t everybody love to jump? I bet if they learned how to replace their plopping with springing, they would reach a new level of enjoyment from their running.

4-33) Women will never be happy with their lot. Neither will men. It’s just human nature. All of nature; even rocks. What’s in play are evolutionary forces that cause us to constantly seek the betterment that is bound to be on the other side of the fence. Happiness is just a relative state, found mostly during the seeking, or exploring, portion of the betterment sought. Once reached, its satiative state gradually decreases, and the desire for pleasure presses us to look toward a new state of betterment. A rock goes through changes too, even if at so, so slow a pace as to not be noticeable, so it, too, must feel something akin to what we call happiness on the way to the next sought-after state.

4-32) Everything we think and do seems to give preferential treatment to whatever provides that shot of adrenaline, be it pleasure or pain, physical or mental (if there’s really a difference between these last two).

4-31) That our brain guides us in the thinking sense is way oversimplifying the concept of how the chemicals in our bodies do the guiding. What we experience consciously is the result of an immense number of series of chemical interactions. There are series that cause us to to think we’re thinking, series that cause us to act, and series to react. And your perception that this is bullcrap is similarly caused.

4-30) News outlets often sway the public’s perception away from objective evaluation and toward subjective interpretation. Though they may claim objectivity, they often confer emotion by using poor grammar and colloquial terms when presenting issues, and reporters in many sound recordings also use voice tones that convey feelings such as antagonism and disgust.

4-29) I feel my lungs laboring furiously and my larynx straining without sound, tears streaming from my eyes in frustration, and my target keeps getting father away. I try to force a leg, or just a foot, to move, but no matter how hard I try, I remain immobile in my nightmare.

4-28) I woke up from an annoying dream, fell back asleep only to reawaken from the same dream, fell asleep again, woke from the same dream, and on it went, I want to say a dozen times, but I’m sure it was at least a half dozen that the cycle repeated itself within not more than a couple troubling hours.

4-27) I never thought I’d be old. I was young for so long. In my youth it was inconceivable. In middle age it felt so far off. Later it was a thought to be avoided, as if it would never happen if I didn’t bring it to mind.

4-26) Darwin wrote that “natural selection will never produce in a being anything injurious to itself”, however that doesn’t seem to consider suicide as a form of self-sacrifice, which also occurs in animals other than humans.

4-25) Repeat something often enough and it stops being daunting, mysterious, unfathomable. Beliefs, theories, facts become unquestioned statements that beg to be left alone.

4-24) It’s so easy for me to feel sorry for others from afar. I can project my own feelings into them and thus control my perception of their suffering through the amount of attention I give them. What remains out of sight, remains out of mind.

4-23) “Boo!” “You scared me!” “No, I only startled you.” And the fear leapt away.

4-22) I was brought up on little white lies. It was a way of helping others by telling them what they wanted to hear. It is also a quality which I detested most in others.

4-21) I’m watching TV, a character of a barefoot elderly lady is clearly about to trip and fall onto the hard stone steps, I shirk with a brief convulsion in my stomach, my hand moves to cover my eyes, and a pain-like grunt escapes from my throat.

4-20) Changes in language and vocabulary can be useful and fun, however it can be very confusing for many people, including older people and foreigners.

4-19) Using good vocabulary and grammar is necessary and important for our mutual understanding of facts and opinions. Communicating with a small vocabulary and poor grammar allows misunderstandings and differences to alight from individual interpretations.

4-18) We ask people who feel better suited to punishing those with whom they disagree, to punish rather than to protect them.

4-17) Today I can’t imagine what it’s truly like to be at the receiving end of prejudicial treatment, even though I’ve experienced my share as an immigrant.

4-16) When I’m stressed about something that only impacts me, I freeze. When it involves others, I take action. Advice for relieving it suggests I should get out of my comfort zone, but just thinking about that causes me stress, as that would mean experiencing discomfort, which I’m trying to avoid and is the cause of my stress in the first place.

4-15) As candidates for President start appearing earlier and earlier, it becomes evident that wisdom is not a quality that pervades candidacies. In its stead is bravado and “political correctness”, and what seems to keep them in the race is more their ability to raise money for their “war chests” rather than anything else.

4-14) “Racism” is a cheap definition of what ails us, because it’s easier to see the world as black and white, than as poor and rich.

4-13) We follow some leaders not because they benefit all of us, but because they benefit us specifically.

4-12) Ballpoint pens were very expensive when I was a young schoolboy. Our fingers carried the marks left by our inexpensive quill pens, and our lips were often as stained as our fingertips; a touch of saliva to the tip of the quill helped prolong our ink supply. We probably wore black-apron school uniforms because they hid all those ink stains so well.

4-11) It’s so easy to forget that whatever the trade or profession, it’s going to be filled with the idiots as well as the geniuses, with the foolish as well as the wise, with the unsympathetic as well as the charitable, with the egocentric as well as the altruistic, with the opportunistic as well as the immaterial. Police officer, cashier, scientist, trash picker, doctor, street cleaner, priest. No one is immune.

4-10) Was I in the last generation to enjoy prancing on sparkling white sand beaches, drinking from clear mountain streams, and getting to the airport within a half hour of flight time without missing the plane? Has every recent generation enjoyed the last of something or other that it felt privileged to possess or witness?

4-09) Odd how that I never use to give any thought to the possibility that other organisms might have feelings like those that humans possess. I never thought, for example, about the fish suffocating in my basket, the mother cat pining after her removed kittens, the hunted animals waiting to die from their wounds, or even the still-living stepped-on insects.

4-08) It is easy for the self-righteous to view their stance as caring.

4-07) You cannot wage war on biases without waging war on the people who are biased.

4-06) We’re still chasing bigots with sticks and words, like the primitives we are. We have yet to learn how to solve problems by delving more deeply into not only their causes, but also by the history of solutions we have tried in the past.

4-05) Even honeybee queens have rebellious kids.

4-04) Education is supposed to prepare children for later life, however all too often schools see their primary roles as getting the children to pass exams.

4-03) When people are in power there, strong psychological reasons entice them to retain it at all costs.

4-02) Probably the biggest mistake we made in policing occurred in the 60’s and 70’s, when the responsibility for dealing with people before they commit a crime fell on them.

4-01) The problem with our leaders is that they are politicians.

It’s still a long way to the top!

Round 3

3-40) It’s impossible to understand another’s pain because the actual experience is missing. The closest we can come to understanding it is through personal interaction with those who experienced it.

3-39) Everyone hates to repudiate a stance or another person who is a member of their own group.

3-38) The disparate economic effect of an interest rate decrease: $1,000,000 x .25% = $2,500; $100 x .25% = 25 cents.

3-37) The only people cops trust is little kids.

3-36) Instead of approaching reproaches with calm objectivity we immediately fall upon defensive devices, often standing on the offence to thwart the possibility of what we consider to be further attacks.

3-35) We usually object to having our choices shaped without our request, even when they point to a rational direction.

3-34) Disparities between “blacks” and “whites” that show up in statistical evidence are usually related to wealth and poverty. So we blame discrimination and ramp up affirmative action policies, but we don’t address the disparities that create wealth and poverty.

3-33) Movements that try to suppress free speech remind me of my parents’ attitude toward sex: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. It’s simply a case of denial.

3-32) I was 16 when my father first broached the subject of sex, but I was too embarassed to hear him out, and he seemed too relieved in not having to continue. But by then the damage had been done by my parents’ tortuous view of sex, which was communicated to me through silence and avoidance.

3-31) Keep telling people that another group is oppressed, and they use it as an excuse to keep them oppressed, so they can feel they’re worth more than somebody else. Keep telling people they’re oppressed, and they begin to believe it, and to use it as an excuse to give up.

3-30) Democracy does not power the Internet; capitalism does. Finding reliable information on the Internet feels like grasping at straws, as search engines favor website that best compete for attention rather than for the reliability of their information. What’s more, reliable information is often inaccessible when it resides behind paywalls.

3-29) Can there really exist individuals as good sources of influence for the masses? Doesn’t such influence bring power, and with it corruption? On a small community scale, it is easy to have such good sources, without the influence and corruption, because it is easier for the small group to police itself.

3-28) Let’s deal with problems one at a time. Easier yet, let’s allow others to re-focus our attention before the problem we’re trying to deal with gets us down.

3-27) I often receive mailings, from seemingly respected organizations, requesting donations that are masked as surveys. The nature of the questions make it seem obvious that they’re not really interested in my opinion, and I wonder if any effort at all is made to tabulate responses; the multi-page format would probably require the intervention of people, the expense for which would be difficult to warrant.

3-26) Only a revolution will make a difference after ruling elements have gone past the point where they will no longer tolerate dissent.

3-25) The desire for assimilation is very strong in immigrants. There is less of a desire to stand out and more to meld. The cultural appeal of one’s immigrant ancestors usually similarly diminishes, and often dies before long. However African American cultural awareness is growing. Whereas most immigrants largely assimilate quickly, African Americans have been prevented from doing so through discrimination from racism and through separateness through poverty.

3-24) I’m not quite clear on how we can make very big distinctions between male and female genders. The more I learn, the more it seems that we’re all just female spin-offs.

3-23) It should be obvious that whoever controls the development of the egg basically controls the survival of our species.

3-22) The main way to decrease implicit biases is through the death of those who hold them.

3-21) Those who call themselves religious only use religion when it validates their own beliefs. Lacking punishing inquisitions, many simply change it when another feels like it fits better into their lifestyle.

3-20) Form is often deemed more important than content, most especially for those who have a vested interest in it.

3-19) It’s so easy to experience a sense of bitterness when no longer able to do certain things. Sadly, this means often lashing out at other people, and they don’t understand, because they’re not in your shoes.

3-18) We are so driven by immediate personal gain that we have no eye nor ear for lessons from the past to remind us of the losses we will surely incur as a result of our greed.

3-17) Though we fight for the “right to be forgotten”, the thing we still seem to want most is to be remembered.

3-16) I think it’s lousy that many people teach their kids to be proud of their color. Though I appreciate the good intentions, it works more to exacerbate relations and extend implicit biases between people based on skin color. Instead, it makes more sense for people to teach their kids to be proud of their culture.

3-15) The good, the bad, and the ugly are never really so cut-and-dry.

3-14) Someone who doesn’t believe in evil is likely to accept some evil if confronted with a choice between the possibility for life with a little evil and no life at all.

3-13) Proponents of a free college education should reset their priorities to funding, instead, education that precedes any chance that college will be in the children’s future.

3-12) We should feel shame (or at least our own stupidity) in expecting people who thrive on campaign financing, and the political favors it requires, to be saints.

3-11) When I was a young boy, my dad often sent me with a quarter to buy a pack of cigarettes for him at the corner store. All quarters of the time combined made a mint for the tobacco companies. Today, the cigarette companies are still making bucketfuls, and government entities are making even more. I can’t deny that the high prices have discouraged a lot of consumers, yet we need to acknowledge that people who can least afford to are the ones footing the bill. So one would think that the high taxes would, in the least, be used to help people quit, or to help them afford treatment for tobacco related ailments. But that would be too logical, as politicians are more interested in raking in the tax money only to further their favorite programs.

3-10) In the big scope of things, how much does it matter that we might have come closer to knowing the size of a proton (less than a trillionth of a millimeter in radius)?

3-09) India spends billions to go to the moon while its citizens starve.

3-08) It’s really hard to judge others by the same standards that I expect others to judge me. Though I utilize the concept of tolerance in different ways with others than I do with myself, I just can’t figure out how to change that.

3-07) Deciding to die and deciding to live longer through the intercession of others are both sacrifices; the first of oneself, the latter of the collective.

3-06) Keep telling people that another group is oppressed, and they use it as an excuse to keep them oppressed, so they can feel they’re worth more than somebody else. Keep telling people they’re oppressed, and they begin to believe it, and to use it as an excuse to give up.

3-05) It’s not forgive and forget; it’s forget and forgive. As a memory of a hurt fades, its impact softens, and forgiveness is easier to bestow and to accept having bestowed it. By contrast, digital records make forgiveness difficult to practice, as their easy retrieval keeps memories of hurts fresh.Fear is found in anticipation. Even in torture, what has already been done is known and no longer fearful, but what has yet to happen really cranks up the fear factor. When people hear about the rise of one group, they automatically fear it will mean a decline in their own.

3-04) The biggest problems in creating change include 1) the inability to convey ideas to enough people, 2) the inability of many people to understand the same message, and 3) the inability to keep the conversation on path.

3-03) Anyone who has ever been deeply wronged by someone representing a group will usually feel great antipathy for such group and all members who belong to it. That’s something a member of such group would not understand.

3-02) Many years back, when the expectation was that the male was always to make the first move, the female could seem less sexy if she moved first.

3-01) Nuclear (energy, research), oil (energy, commodities), possessions (money, stuff), power (business, politics). We want things so right-now based on how much we think they’re worth, that we don’t care how much we’re paying, we don’t care about adverse effects, and we’re uninterested about any future impact. We only give a darn when we feel that we have less than others, when something missing feels like we rightly should have.

This way to the top, dude!

Round 2

2-40) I was taught that the gold pot at the end of the rainbow was akin to the happiness I would realize once I reached a goal. Life has taught me that happiness is much easier to find in the tracking of the rainbow in pursuit of the pot, and that the gold is often a disappointment.

2-39) One of my favorite and most enlightening of reads: Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society by Nicholas A Christakis.

2-38) Sometimes when I see people kiss I feel the gentle pressure of their touching lips as if they were my own.

2-37) A public demonstration doesn’t usually change the politics of things, however it does help to cement an individual’s sense of righteousness, right or wrong, and belonging.

2-36) It’s mostly the rich and the powerful (i.e., those attached to the rich) who effect change. From time to time, a radical (or a few) throw a monkey wrench into things and cause change, though mostly temporary.

2-35) The beautiful thing about broadcast entertainment, and the most damaging thing about it, is that it doesn’t mimic real life, and generally causes its audience to feel inadequate, unfulfilled and unable to fulfill itself. Unlike in real life, writers have the luxury of editing.

2-34) I was allowed to be on a jury, once. I have a feeling that all the other times I was interviewed they didn’t like the idea that I might rely on fairness instead of relying on whatever emotions the attorneys could make me feel.

2-33) Mental treatment is just another form of punishment.

2-32) Fear of their own extinction or loss of power prevents politicians from fostering legislation that works.

2-31) Math represents a limited version of reality, yet we heavily rely on math through our computers to make life choices.

2-30) How strange that a country that advertises a welcome to all upon its shores would limit constitutional protections to only its citizens, in effect renouncing basic rights to the arriving non-citizens.

2-29) We create poor people’s situations by simply being better off.

2-28) The poor don’t make politics; it takes a lot of money to become a politician.

2-27) Rosa Parks said, “Each person must live their life as a model for others”, however it’s pretty hard for a poor person to live the model life of a rich one.

2-26) Forgetfulness can be a good thing, especially when what is forgotten is an implicit bias.

2-25) A secretive government protects itself to a much greater degree than it protects the populace it serves.

2-24) Control is normal. Everyone needs to feel in control over others. Everyone needs to feel they’re on top.

2-23) Depression is like an accident that happens to you without the obvious broken bones or bleeding chin that automatically brings succor. … Alas, too often neither you nor anyone else notices your sepsis in the darkness as you cower in pain until it’s too late, and bit by bit life flitters away in tears and loneliness.

2-22) Fear of failure leads to things that are more certain to succeed, however not necessarily to advances.

2-21) The brawny may naturally find it easier to engage their brawn before engaging their brain.

2-20) Instead of asking people to protect those with whom they disagree, we ask that they punish them.

2-19) It takes a very strong person to admit they’re wrong. Once in a position of power, admitting wrong feels like a loss of power, and it’s easier to pose excuses for acts committed, to try and shift blame elsewhere, or to take advantage of our short attention spans by changing the conversation.

2-18) Living with someone else encouraged me to push myself, and it also helped me get nudged to not put off responsibilities. It created both a sense of feelgood and an aggravation. Now alone and without nudges, the aggravation predominates, as chores keep getting postponed.

2-17) The rich and powerful are in the best position to generate enough havoc that causes change.

2-16) Allergies seem to be caused not only by changes in our bodies, our lifestyles, and the environment in which we live, but also by changes to what we consume that are caused by natural and artificial changes, such as where and how we grow plants affects what they absorb and what we then absorb when we eat them.

2-15) It’s so easy for me to feel sorry for others from afar. I can project my own feelings into them and can thus control their suffering through the amount of attention I give them. Out of sight, out of mind.

2-14) A single action can alter a person’s character, when we suddenly realize that acting otherwise would cause us to be cast out of a group.

2-13) It seems odd to me that we think we have found the smallest element, when all through our history we have been saying this same thing.

2-12) We are not so different from each other; just at different stages of existence, from moments to eons.

2-11) With the minute understanding that we possess about how our body works, I think we are way too optimistic about the miracle value of any drug.

2-10) Drugs are such a crock. They make legal and illegal millionaires, they make people healthy and sick, they fill jails and penthouses.

2-09) Ruminative regrets. They’re constant. Easily brought on by something I see, hear, feel, smell that has any connection to the event or feeling.

2-08) Defective is a term we apply liberally – one person’s junk is another’s treasure.

2-07) 49.9 v 48.2. So many elections seem to be won by slim majorities, indicating wide divisions in how we think.

2-06) I read somewhere that leadership requires at least one follower, the first being the most crucial.

2-05) The only true faith is one’s own.

2-04) In order to appreciate something, it seems very important that we experience the opposite. John Steinbeck put this in the words, “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness”.

2-03) Beauty is a perception that makes us feel good about something, which perception manifests itself in changes it generates in our bodies that we deem positive.

2-02) Why do so many people attach so much importance to ascertaining whether or not the earth is 4.5 billion years old, or if the universe is 14?

2-01) I grew up with non-normal Barbie-looking characters on TV who played the parts of the good guys, and all the mean people were either ugly, or who only at first looked normal and then turned ugly. It’s just one more example of an implicit bias that taxes my judgment to this day. … Now, however, it pleases me when TV characters defy the models that had been imprinted in my brain.

Up, Adam. Up!

Round 1

1-40) Replacing sex-oriented communal toilet rooms with individual rooms would maximize an individual’s privacy, and allay our concerns about what label to put on the door and on the individual using it.

1-39) In order to forgive yourself, you first have to admit to yourself that you blew it. And even if you knew that you were causing damage at the time, you had no idea how much you would regret it in the future.

1-38) Political scientists have documented the ways in which money influences politics and increases economic inequality, however no one seems to be able to take this knowledge one step further.

1-37) Why do we think that emotions are separate from preprogrammed instincts, instead of simply slower intensities of instincts?

1-36) Viruses are more like rocks than like, what we think of as, living things. Yet we don’t give rocks the respect that we give viruses.

1-35) The beauty of any crisis is that it’s always followed by a different crisis to take attention from the previous one. Always looking for a new solution without ever resolving any.

1-34) It seems pretty obvious that each individual figures the species will survive only if he does. How so, then, that we do our utmost to prevent others from suiciding, since their death would mean more resources left for the survivors? Or are we so afraid of our own death that we are put off by the possible willingness of others to allow us to die?

1-33) We are aware of more suffering around us thanks to globalization and advances in communication, and feel more pain than in the past, when groups were smaller and better able to allay such pain. Today we are using substances, like alcohol and opiates, earlier in life and in greater quantities, to take the place of those smaller support groups.

1-32) Everybody’s ego must get stoked. Your talent in stoking someone else’s usually determines if you’ll get what you want from them.

1-31) In the mind of the cop who arrested you, you are, without a doubt, absolutely guilty of whatever it is that they think you did.

1-30) Strong identification with victimhood too often trumps the rights of the purported victimizers.

1-29) Old people who are alone get sicker and die earlier than others; because of consequences resulting from the lack of encouragement we need in order to make many decisions, and the fear the outcome from decisions that we make alone.

1-28) Psychology and physiology are not disparate processes. It’s not the case of a spiritual ether that causes brain waves, but the chemicals that make up the physical ether.

1-27) Starting out with nothing, we eventually return to nothing. We earn during our working lives and wind up giving everything back in old age, becoming destitute in the process.

1-26) A single act of financial reparation is not enough to address the original sins of slavery. What’s needed is an approach that deals with the long term, as in providing everyone with a minimum income to overcome poverty, and with educational opportunities to equalize their potential to compete for jobs.

1-25) Taxing makes the product more expensive and acts as a deterrent, however many consumers eventually go back to their old habits over time as the shock of the price increase wears off and the desire to own kicks back into high gear.

1-24) I try to help people whether they want it or not; I feel like I have to fix everything; I think it makes me a good guy, but in others’ eyes it just makes me a pain in the ass; No one is asking for my help; Eventually I am viewed as an unwelcome burden.

1-23) Humans seem to be the only species that tries to hide, deny, and decry sex. Perhaps we have evolved to the point where it is best we start dying off to save our species and our planet from ourselves. The hiding, denying, and decrying such a natural instinct as sex all but insure that we will get diseases and acts of violence and revenge that will kill us.

1-22) Online, news outlets push popularity to drive the dialog, by highlighting “most read”, “most popular”, and catchy opinion stories. This allows important issues to get lost simply because readers may not immediately realize their consequence.

1-21) Progress is change as a forward or onward movement. Change is progress when it is a gradual betterment.

1-20) When we’re unable, or unwilling, to fix underlying factors that relate to discrimination, we go for the “easy fix” (not a fix at all, actually) of discriminating openly.

1-19) Though there is strong support for science in government, allowing for more science might deter the fear mongering opinionating that gets politicians elected. It follows, therefore, that it is not to the politicians’ behest to allow more science to enter government.

1-18) Uncorroborated scientific claims often appear in news reports as if they were proven facts. When debunked, the public’s doubts about scientific claims extend to corroborated ones as well.

1-17) I miss movie theaters, where screen and sound commandeer the attention of the mere observer, and all the artists’ little nuances suddenly become available for one’s mind to notice, absorb, and enjoy.

1-16) At various times I’ve been identified as Caucasian, Asian, Arab, Indian, and Hispanic, and today, finally, I was identified as African American.

1-15) Overall, decisions to return wallets were motivated less by thoughts of the wallet’s owner than by not wanting to feel like a thief. (study)

1-14) Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. But he still needs to eat while he’s learning how to fish.

1-13) With all the scientific and social knowledge available today, it is not a far-fetched idea to define a racist as anyone who uses race in their discourse.

1-12) Most people’s concept of business: Do whatever it takes to benefit yourself, those you care about, and those on whom you rely to bring you resources and power, and forget everybody and everything else.

1-11) So I’ve been thinking it doesn’t seem so wrong to game large corporations and rich people. I mean, if they were playing “fair”, they wouldn’t get so fat, now would they?! Government is clearly on their side; read tax breaks. So there’s nothing and no one left to protect the little guy, which seems to make it fair to play them at their own game.

1-10) We might well consider tech as the next “agricultural” revolution, instead of just another part of the more recent industrial revolution.

1-09) I worked most of my life in business with the belief that my customers were doing me a favor by frequenting my establishment and purchasing its goods and services. I seem to have been, and still am, in the minority.

1-08) I open a bank account and I get a notice that I’m “approved”. I apply for membership and I am “accepted”. As if they’re doing ME a favor.

1-07) Legalized gambling: the Stock Market

1-06) Caring for worldly possessions and relationships ceases when death/annihilation is imminent.

1-05) One of the quandaries of suicide is that you won’t be around to enjoy the relief that you seek.

1-04) As candidates for President start appearing earlier and earlier, it becomes evident that wisdom is not a quality that pervades. In its stead is bravado and “political correctness”. What seems to keep them in the race is more their ability to raise money for their “war chests” rather than anything else.

1-03) Busing was a cheap attempt to improve academic achievement in place of a more expensive, and expansive, solution that would have staffed and funded schools equitably and provided the missing health and social services to poorer neighborhoods.

1-02) If I isolate myself I cannot be influenced and my actions become owned by me. It would follow that I should not feel indebted, nor feel any need to blame.

1-01) Ultimately, I realize that nothing that I have written here will really affect anyone or anything. Nonetheless, I do so much enjoy visiting my dream land, where my words help make a positive difference in the lives of others.

Well, you can’t very well stay down here!

What I have written above are my reactions to what I have heard, read, or thought. If you notice anything astute here, it would be presumptuous of me to believe that I am the first to think or pen such things, however I did not knowingly plagiarize anyone or anything.

Either what I think is vastly undervalued
or I’m vastly overvaluing the way I think.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. Leonardo di Vinci