Why the organizational equivalent of auto-erotic asphyxiation persists nearly everywhere — Bureaucracies are like cancer: a fundamental biological imperative (growth) runs out of control and ends up killing the organism of which it is a part. Without some form of bureaucracy, no organization can exist; too much bureaucracy and no organization can survive for long. It is a conundrum that very…

Awarding Bad Idea scores for those that truly deserve them — Our modern technological world surrounds us with marvels. In a great many cases, these marvels make our lives easier. Elderly people living in tall buildings don’t need to struggle up and down stairs but can ride instead in elevators. We don’t need to walk great distances anymore, because we can…

How I discovered I was wrong about a certain kind of love — In my long and varied life I’ve found that much human behavior is easily predicted by taking an evolutionary psychology approach. This is hardly surprising, as our behaviors have been shaped as much as (perhaps even more than) our bodies by millions of years of selection pressures that were, for…

Forget the journalistic babble; the facts tell a different story — The generic feel-good narrative promulgated by news media in the West is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has galvanized NATO and resulted in Western nations banding together to send aid to plucky Ukraine so that it can defend itself against the barbaric Russian hordes. Like far too many narratives fabricated…

A combination of geography, weather, and peaceful sanity make Lausanne hard to beat — For some people, life seems to pass quite tranquilly. For others, life can be a roller-coaster. My life has tended toward the roller-coaster side of things, with some amazing highs and some painful lows. When life gets difficult, I like to remind myself that there are good things out there…

If we wish to grow, we must learn to accept loss — We navigate through life as best as we can, but so much is far beyond our control. Although we attempt to paddle in a direction we believe to be advantageous, the tides may take us far from where we imagined we’d end up. …

Not all learning is equal — As Ukraine continues to combat the Russian invasion of its territory, a lot of people are watching and learning. But as is inevitably the case, what is perceived depends to a degree on what one believes, and beliefs are stubborn impediments to change. This article will touch on several important…

How our evolutionary hardwiring cripples us in the modern world — There’s an interesting tension all nations face today. This tension exists whether or not a nation utilizes a system of representative democracy or is a totalitarian regime like those of China and Russia. …

What fascism is, and why we’re all embracing it — Here’s a seemingly simple question: what is the difference between a political Party and a fascist organization? According to Wikipedia, Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of…