Engaging Life with Courage and Intelligence
A post with a historical reference
This short video introduces 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 in 1973, but…
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…
This video depicts a modern issue concerning smartphone addiction. It compares lab experiments with our primate cousins to human “experiments” with human children. Here is the direct address for this video: https://youtu.be/VO1uRMTZB_E
We have misinformation and disinformation; the difference is that the first is simply an innocent mistake, while the second is a deliberate act to deceive, manipulate, or harm. Although not widely used, we also have mismanagement and dismanagement. We’ve all worked in organizations mismanaged by unprepared or lazy managers—dismanagement parallels disinformation. Dismanagement is the deliberate…
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…
There is an interesting correlation between the familial roots of U.S. Presidents and their behavior as presidents. Even in the beginning, the families of the first six presidents had been in colonial America for several generations. It is probably no coincidence that the rule is that American presidents have to be natural-born citizens. Of course,…
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…
When we live in an absurd world…we create absurd videos. This is the web address for the @HistoryIn1865 playlist @HistoryIn1865 Playlist