Although I'm an atheist, I do believe it is true that attitudes like religion - a less rigid attitude about spirituality - might be the underlying reason for a correlation with happiness. Also, comprehensive overviews would likely show a correlation between high levels of religiosity and low levels of country development coupled with low suicide rates. Religion seems to be the "opiate of the masses," and it is effective, but the bigger picture would show that by-country religiosity correlates with social dysfunction and low degrees of social welfare. Although this piece attempts to be balanced, and is likely accurate, it is too narrowly focused.
In response to an Ender's Game discussion (Goodreads), with a link from Reddit, I posted the following: Much of the Reddit stream seems to focus on military tactics, or the lack thereof, used by the Ender, but who reads Ender and thinks it about military tactics, except the 20-year old grunt that started the thread? For a book written in the 80's, then edited in the early 90's, it seems more prophetic, with its use of game immersion, remote military operations and portable computing. Then when you think about the use of children in military games, one can think somewhat more deeply about sociopolitical indoctrination. The series itself becomes a broader exploration of empathy and foreign culture. The criticism seems more like the problem of a man with a hammer, who thinks every problem is solved by hammering, but even worse, every problem is about hammering. An additional post, regarding suspension of disbelief: Some people commented on the suspension of disbelie...
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