MilleniALMANAC

Spreading excitement about great research and ideas. Trying to figure out how this all works, why it works that way, and how to build something better.

How Does Someone Become a Narcissist?

Are narcissists born or made? Colloquially, narcissism often refers to the pursuit of personal gratification through the admiration of others, often for pretty superficial or vain reasons. Narcissism becomes a pathology when it disrupts relationships, work, financial affairs, or other parts of your life. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, then, is defined as “mental condition in which…

by MilleniAlmanac

Are Some Animals ‘More Conscious’ than Others?

In recent years, debates about animal consciousness have moved on from the question of whether any non- human animals are conscious to the questions of which animals are conscious and what form their conscious experiences take. How can we make sense of variation in consciousness across the animal kingdom? Animal consciousness research rests on the…

by MilleniAlmanac

Will Trump’s COVID Diagnosis Change the Outcome of the Election?

In case you somehow haven’t heard, on Friday morning, President Trump tweeted that he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID. Like everything else at this point, Trump’s COVID diagnosis has been politicized, leaving one big question on everyone’s mind: how might this impact the election? Here are all the angles: Campaigning and Fundraising:…

by MilleniAlmanac

What Happens if a Presidential Nominee Drops Out? No One Knows!

So who thought it was a good idea to have the two oldest nominees running for President while a super infectious virus that disproportionately incapacitates and kills older people rips through society? I think we tend to use the word “unprecendented” too often, and often when it’s unwarranted or hyperbolic, but this is truly unprecedented.…

Why Do Humans Experience Time Elastically?

Why does time fly when we’re having fun? Our sense of time may be the most basic foundation for all of our experience, but it’s an unsteady and subjective one, expanding and contracting, speeding up and slowing down. Emotions, music, everything in our surroundings, and shifts in our attention, all have the power to change…

How Congress Lobotomized Itself: 25 Years After the Death of OTA

On September 28, 1995, Amo Houghton stood on the floor of the House of Representatives and delivered what is probably the most heartbreakingly beautiful eulogy ever written about a technical government agency. Amo Houghton was a Republic Representative from New York, a former marine who served in World War II, and a devout Christian. He…

Size Does Matter: The Case for American Population Explosion

In his new book One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger, Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias identifies one of the few areas left where there is broad bipartisan agreement: China is challenging the U.S.’s place in the world and “America should aspire to be the greatest nation on Earth.” His solution, however, is not so…

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