Christianity acts this way thanks to its separation of humanity into the saved and the damned, and its genuinely altruistic belief in the need to globally maximise the number of the former, and minimise the latter. The psychological basis for this belief, and Christianity’s application of it, made it much…

Depends on what we mean by this! If we ask about literal history books, then it’s trivially true. Nations wishing to mould their kids to a more patriotic state of mind, for example, almost all do this to some degree or other. Inconvenient and distasteful truths and past events that…

My father sometimes likes to go to a very particular club to unwind with a drink and catch up with his old buddies. Sometimes he takes me along with him, because he knows that I find the place fascinating. And it is fascinating. The main room of the clubhouse is…

Restored from Quora, these are some of my very vague and scattershot thoughts on the nature of genius, human talent and its place in history. It is in response to the question: ‘Which Historical Figures were likely to have been profoundly gifted, but not recognised as such?’ I wouldn’t normally…

As happens too often on Quora, I responded to a silly question. It annoyed me, so I had to debunk it, perhaps against my better judgement. …

This was originally published as an answer to the question on Quora: “Does the Chinese government value those who blindly follow authority like sheep, rather than those who critically think for themselves?’: Of course it does. But then again, which government system doesn’t? All national authorities want obedient, compliant citizenries…

4 Stars. I saw Dune a couple of days ago with my girlfriend, with very high expectations. I loved the book, and the trailers were completely thrilling. When the critics began posting rave reviews, I started to get really excited. …