Why I changed my mind about courage

Photo by Анна Рыжкова on Pexels
I used to not think much of courage as a virtue. After all, isn't it courageous to drive 50 mph over the speed limit despite being nervous about driving - or to rob a bank despite being next to a police station?Don't soldiers show courage fighting, even when fighting for the more evil side?It takes courage to become a boxer (because you're likely to have your face pummeled by a powerful person), but is that a good trait to encourage?What made me rethink courage was witnessing many cases where p...
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Deepities and deepifuls

Image by Fallon Michael on Unsplash. (I'll leave you to decide if this is a deepity or a deepiful.)
A "deepity" (a term first used by Daniel Dennett) is an ambiguous statement with two meanings: 1. one is profound (but probably false or nonsense) 2. the other meaning is trivial or obvious (but true) These paired meanings can trick our brains into thinking that the idea is both profound and true: we experience the profoundness of one meaning while experiencing the truth of the other meaning. These are phrases that exploit the odd nature of our minds. Some examples are (arguably...
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Eight common, slick-sounding claims that I think are misleading – and their clunky alternatives

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash
Written: November 3, 2018 | Released: July 23, 2021 Here are eight common and slick-sounding claims that I think are misleading, along with a very clunky alternative for each that I think is truer and more useful: "You'll regret the things you didn't do more than the things you did" -> don't try to minimize the amount of regret you'll have - try to maximize the total amount of the things that you value."Opposites attract" -> birds of a feather flock together (in fact, only a few typ...
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