The Art of Rhetoric: How Articulate People Cover Up Their Bad Ideas

There are innumerable ways to persuade others of an argument or point of view that don’t rely on solid reasoning and logic but instead employ persuasion tactics, either wittingly or unwittingly. This is rhetoric: the art of persuasion. Many arguments can have the appearance of being correct, but under scrutiny, the flaws start to appear.…

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The Mistake of Viewing Psychedelics as a Panacea for Mental Distress

As much as psychedelics hold great promise in alleviating all kinds of psychological distress, they are not a mental health panacea, which they are sometimes touted to be. Based on positive media stories surrounding psychedelic research and anecdotal reports of people being forever cured of chronic, severe mental illnesses, it’s easy to get the impression…

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Fad Diets and Capitalism: The Dark Underbelly of the Weight Loss Industry

While you might imagine the weight loss industry is a force for good in society, helping millions to shed excess weight and achieve better health, there is also a dark side to this industry. The global weight loss and weight management industry was valued at $192.2bn and is projected to be worth $295.3bn by 2027.…

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Asteroid Mining and Capitalism in Space

Asteroid mining is the exploitation of raw materials from asteroids and bringing these resources back to Earth. With an exponentially rising global population, precious resources are quickly becoming depleted. Luckily, asteroids contain many materials that we need and so mining them could set us on the path to a sustainable future. There are, however, some…

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How Neoliberalism Has Shaped the Pursuit of Knowledge

In his highly influential book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009), the late Mark Fisher expounded the concept of ‘capitalist realism’, which refers to “the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.”…

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