Believing your lyin’ eyes in the Age Of The Image

similaritier between fiction (Reservoir Dogs scene) and reality (Istanbul terror attack)

PARENTAL ADVISORY: some photos contained in this post may be disturbing for children.   In my last post I highlighted how easy it is to fall in love with a narrative, especially if it paints someone we don’t like as the culprit and/or it gives us the impression of being smarter than others. But in today’s media landscape, when you are bombarded with messages, photos and videos selectively perfected to capture your attention, where fashion models are routinely photoshopped and people merrily tweet and send unverifiable videos from war zones, a new question arises. Can you even trust your own eyes? Truth is elusive. The world is full of deception. Random…

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Why problems are either very easy or very hard

Natural hurdles, human hurdles.   Did you notice? It’s quite uncommon to face medium difficulty problems. In your everyday life you are sometimes tasked to solve issues that seem impossible to come to grips with. There are mysteries that seem way bigger than our puny minds. We often get to comment on issues that on the contrary appear quite easy to deal with, and you are left wondering why people are still struggling with them. But you rarely seem to encounter intermediate level problems. How come?   Let’s put down some examples (I’ll alienate some readers in the process).   Producing a new vaccine requires an excellent research team and years of work, and…

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From abortion to chemtrails, it’s only a small step

OK, let’s complain about idiotic, fake news memes making the rounds on social networks. I bet you too got a good excuse to lose your temper when you faced a scenario like the following one. An excited/indignant friend sharing on Facebook the n-th conspiracy theory/sensational fishy news bite/”anti-establishment” petition. Showing no self-awareness whatsoever. Spewing answers without ever seriously asking questions. Like saying that next week Mars will appear in the sky as big as the Moon, or that Facebook is becoming a pay service, or that you should rail against the Parliament for a new outrageous law that turns out to be imaginary, drafted by a non-existent Representative. That we…

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