Social

Arguments must be convincing and, in order to convince, they must be valid—the minimum requirement of persuasion.

Tim Urban knows that you're reading this article instead of dealing with that project for which the clock is ticking relentlessly towards the deadline. But Tim Urban understands you. The blogger who founded the long-form platform Wait But Why gave a TED presentation on procrastination a few years ago, and most of us will recognise ourselves in it.

Every day, we are surrounded by the resilience of developing characters and it’s almost impossible not to be touched by their beauty and fragility.

If you can’t get motivated, you aren’t alone. The people at Therapy Central recognise that many of us struggle with feelings of “nothing gets me going”, “I don’t care about anything” or “I just don’t care about getting out of bed”.  In these situations, keeping motivated can be a chore.

Problem gambling in Australia and New Zealand is an issue seldom talked about, but we ignore it at our peril.

Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. – C.S. Lewis

I used to think I was a patient person. Then I became a dad.

In the age of the internet and the “global village,” an irrational fear taking hold in a small American town can easily go viral, reaching and affecting us all. Once online, news—whether true or false—can have a corrosive effect, leading us to feel cynical about the future and to hold low expectations for our leaders.

"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

By 2030, epidemics will be eradicated; life, rejuvenated by injections, giving lifespans of 150 years; and cars almost obsolete with aeroplane ownership common. These were the 1930 predictions of FE Smith, a British politician and friend of Winston Churchill.

The world of the homeless is the darker side of our world. It is inhabited by vagrants, drug addicts, and the powerless. This world has its own rules, customs, pleasures, and pains, but lacks meaning and peace. And those who enter this world struggle to leave it.

“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” (George Bernard Shaw)

The generation born with the tablet and the smartphone in its arms, but which ends up being exploited by big data cultivators and controlled by radicalization and polarization, can become the generation that implements anti-democratic movements.

Hope can be palpable and elusive at the same time, both reasonable and independent of logic. Yet this independence from logic is not synonymous with indifference to reason, but a victory over it. Hope has its own logic, one that changes lives for the better.

Natural disasters, financial crises, pandemics, wars and social unrest—each striking society in increasingly rapid succession—serve as stark reminders of our vulnerability.