It’s so easy to depress ourselves by looking at people who have more, do more, travel more, accomplish more than us. But there are many worlds where people have much harder lives than we do. Now, if only we would compare our world to those worlds we might be hugely content.
This is the last in the little series about free will. The first post is here, and the second is here.
The cats’ initial comic about free will was posted in 2019. More recently they read an article by Noah Yuval Harari and were inspired to create this comic.
This is the second in a series of posts about free will. The first post is here.
Do we have free will? Most people like to think we do, but it’s not as clear cut as we’d like to believe. The cats explored this topic back in 2019, and now they explore it again in a series of posts.
People have a need to be heard, to have their opinions matter.
Easter seems like a good time for this comic. Christians have always tried to make sense of why Jesus had to die, and forgiveness seems to be the leading theory.
For another take on Easter, see last year’s Easter comic.
Some people like to think they are rational, but this trait only extends to aspects of their lives where rationality is essential.
Other recent comics about human rationality can be found here, and here. And here’s an older post about being wrong.
There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is…. Whoops. The cats are channeling Thornton Wilder. What they meant to say is that there are two worlds: the rational, and the not-so-rational, the latter being where most of us spend most of our time.
The non-rationality of humans is a fascinating subject, one that the cats most recently discussed here, when talking about Feline Philosophy. Another post that talks about rationality is Being Wrong.
With Georgia recently passing a new law restricting voting rights, the cats thought it was about time to lecture you about voting rights.
America claims to have the longest standing democracy, but it didn’t allow women to vote until 1920. Blacks were officially allowed to vote in 1870 but so many obstacles were placed in their way that their ability to vote didn’t become fully realized until the Voting Rights Act in 1965. In 2010 the Supreme Court allowed unlimited spending by corporations on political campaigns. In 2013 the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, then in 2020 it allowed states to set their own rules for federal elections. Republican states immediately took advantage of this ruling to pass laws restricting voting rights.
If you are interested in this subject, sometimes the best perspective comes from an outsider. Here is an article about America’s flawed democracy. Here’s another article that says American democracy is hanging by a thread. And one that suggests America should start acting like a democracy. And here’s a Wikipedia page that show the democracy index of all the countries.
If you are interested specifically about voter suppression, here’s an article about 7 signs of voter suppression, and here is one listing 61 forms of voter suppression.
This comic was just about voting rights, but other things that contribute to America’s designation of “flawed democracy” include the Electoral College, the over-representation of small states in the Senate, and the unlimited money in elections.
Studies show that book readers live longer.
This comic is based on a study about reading and longevity. You can read about the study here. Some of the dialog in the comic comes from the article.
