Engaging Life with Courage and Intelligence
This short video is the last in a series about how Americans react to obvious, provable deception, lies, and gaslighting by politicians and others. This video summarizes the many mind games we all play on others and ourselves. While these games are hardwired into our brains, they can become debilitating and ruinous if we, individually…
This short video is the fourth in a series of videos about how Americans react to obvious, provable deception, lies, and gaslighting by politicians. The quotation attributed to the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan was “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” This belief might have been false…
This video discusses the downward spiral of people who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. They tend to avoid researching and thinking about issues. Instead, they latch on to simplistic and often wrongheaded explanations and solutions. Moreover, they usually find others who have followed the same path and trust questionable authorities over mainstream authorities. In the…
The current administration preaches the gospel of isolationism and placing America’s self-serving short-term interests above all else. It is an inward-leaning nationalism that downplays alliances and global norms in favor of short-term U.S. advantage. It favors flashy short-term bilateral deals over stable, long-term multilateral commitments. This video challenges the myth that short-term, bilateral attacks on…
Disinformation engineers and their wealthy overlords target “easy” voters in the arena we now call democracy. After democracy is supplanted by authoritarian control, their need to persuade and convince will be unnecessary. They will be like the throwaway politicians from Trump’s first term (e.g., Jeff Sessions and Michael Pence). How do these victims not see…
” Seven” does not refer to Trump’s seventh wife; he has had only three. The number seven refers to bankruptcies. As far as we know, he has experienced SIX, mostly at casinos. So, the man who rules the penny-conscious Republican Party is quietly creating his SEVENTH bankruptcy; this will be his crowning achievement! It should…
With the twin themes of history and truth matters, this video explores the coming crisis posed by the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on American society. However, America has a strong tradition of resistance to collective action, which often leads to dysfunction and chaos. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, America tries everything else before doing the…
The flip-flopping TACO President is back in force. The TACO bell has rung. He will impose 1500% tariffs on countries he doesn’t like. Then, a few days later, we discovered he actually imposed 1.5% tariffs. Didn’t this man take basic arithmetic in school? The next day, he raised the tariffs to 15%. The following week,…
In the tradition of truth and history, this video examines the psychological connection between a boy with an out-of-control ego and his impact on the course of history. Abe Lincoln and Mark Twain introduce the video by asking why America suddenly wants to take over the peaceful and cooperative land of Greenland. Direct web address…
Ideologies and beliefs offer certainty. Reality offers consequences. In moments of stability, fixed belief systems can appear wise and efficient. But history shows a recurring pattern: when conditions change suddenly, ideology often fails — and reality takes over. In this Truth Matters episode, we examine three defining crises: 1) The Great Depression (1932), when economic…