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Is living forever or having a greatly extended lifespan desirable?
The average life expectancy in developed countries is at best 80 years. Advances in technology may inhibit or even reverse aging, to open up the possibility of living extraordinarily long times. However, would this actually be a good thing for society, or even for the long-living individual?
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Packbat
2 days ago
gave their opinion.
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JGWeissman
on 06 Mar 2010
gave their opinion.
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Benja
on 08 Feb 2010
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Is optimism rational?
Optimism is an attitude where a person believes things will generally turn out well, often with the assumption that the mindset is self-fulfilling. In contrast, realists (often viewed by optimists as pessimists) tend to believe that the optimists' wishful thinking leads to broken expectations and bad consequences.
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Lisa
on 01 Feb 2010
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Benja
on 25 Jan 2010
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Is self-deception a fault?
Many philosophers and psychologists embrace self-knowledge as a life quest, recommending its benefits to others. In popular culture, it is epitomized by Dr Phil's famous self-help catch phrase: "Get Real!". However, the belief that lying to ourselves is detrimental to our well being is far from ubiquitous. In fact, some experts believe that self-deception is necessary for a healthy mind.
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Benja
on 10 Jan 2010
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Is the Myers-Briggs personality test meaningful?
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a popular questionnaire-based test for modelling personality, adapted from the works of the influential psychologist Carl Jung. It's used extensively both casually and in the business world, but many professional psychologists challenge the scientific merit of the test.
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Benja
3 days ago
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Are our enemies innately evil?
It's easy to label our enemies "evil", as if they must know what they're doing is wrong, but decide to do it anyway. However, the alternative view is that our enemies have moral justifications for their actions, and believe in their righteousness just as much as we do.
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Benja
4 days ago
added the opinion of:
and
4 days ago
gave their opinion.
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Joe
4 days ago
gave their opinion.
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Is free will an illusion?
The belief that we control our decisions is seemingly undermined by the fact that the future is an inevitable consequence of the past. When we put our foot on a car's accelerator, we know that this causes chemical combustion in the car, and that the car has no choice but to go faster. Similarly, the putting of our foot on the accelerator was also caused by chemical combustion - one in our own brains. For this reason, many philosophers and scientists regard free will as illusionary.
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JGWeissman
on 08 Mar 2010
added the opinion of:
and
on 06 Mar 2010
gave their opinion.
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Is revenge OK?
Revenge is similar to justice, except that the intent is personal rather than impartial, and is often in excess of fair retaliation.
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Benja
on 20 Dec 2009
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