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Imagine you walk by your neighbor’s house, and as you glance into the window, you think you notice them doing something truly vile, like making counterfeit money, building a death ray, or eating Limburger on purpose. Being a good citizen, you are sure to warn everyone. Suppose their reputation plummets, but later you realize what you said wasn’t true. Whether you saw something on their TV instead of them or whether forgot your glasses that day, the damage is done. You might as well pluck a chicken, cast the feathers to the wind, and then try to gather them all… Read more: Social Superspreaders: What to do amidst floods of misinformation

Dinner is over, my tummy is full, and my mind is empty. I sit down in my blue chair and pull out my phone, opening the regular app, which greets me by name and offers me my drug of choice. A wooden sound accompanies the first move of the chess puzzle, which prompts my toddler (aka Bean, The Bean, Little Bean, Tummy Bean) to run over from wherever he was to feast his eyes on my screen. “Puzzles chest?” he implores. “Can I play puzzles chest with you?” I laugh and pull up a learning puzzle so he doesn’t get… Read more: The Bean’s Gambit

Why do you share what you share? Homework time, go and look at the last 5-10 things you shared on Facebook and really come up with why you did it. I’ll do it too; it’s only fair. The Everlasting Squabblestarter This might be one of my favorite videos from one of my favorite YouTube creators, but if you can’t spare 8 minutes to watch it, I’ll try to sum it up here, as well as the paper which inspired it. If you’ve watched it, feel free to skip down to So What. What makes online content viral? …was the subject… Read more: It’s All the Rage

In my last post, I casually brought up masks as an example of a contentious issue, and since I claim this little project is about fostering productive dialogue, I guess that means I have to bat leadoff. So, I will give you my opinion about masks. Please be gentle. Given the current state of affairs, I almost scrapped this post for being too trite, but since many of us are going out now, and some of us may be going out to protests, demonstrations, outdoor prayer gatherings, and other things, I do think this is still an important topic to… Read more: So, should I wear a mask?

“Wear your mask! You’re putting others at risk!” “No! They don’t do anything! You’re infringing on my rights!” I hope I didn’t just make you all mad (sorry, love you), but I’d say the chances are pretty high that one of those two resonated with you, and quite strongly in many cases. But why is that? The answer is obvious! And if you don’t agree, you’re a blithering idiot! Wait, I did it again. Sorry, I’m new at this… Why don’t you try watching this instead? I didn’t come here to talk about masks, but imagine yourself watching to people… Read more: What’s Underneath the Mask?