August 22 marks the birthday of both the first Geneva Convention (1864) and science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) (more...)

Today marks the birthday of Sergey Brin of Google fame and the first public presentation of William Burroughs’ calculating machine in 1888. (more...)

August 20, 1890: Birthday of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. (more...)

It is too often assumed that hoarding commodities in a crisis is irrational and that everyone would be better off if nobody was hoarding things. But there are arguments to the contrary. (more...)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) created the Social Contract theory, which aims to explain how governments derive their power from the will of the citizens. (more...)

On March 28, 585 BC, Thales of Miletus was supposed to have observed an eclipse of the Sun. A short history of the difficulty of knowing the date. (more...)

Ruut Veenhoven, Dutch sociologist, distinguishes four different types of happiness: 1. objective vs subjective quality of life and 2. chances vs outcomes. (more...)

Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek (August 19, 1921 - October 24, 1991). (more...)

Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) was a British philosopher, primarily concerned with the nature of the mind and the role of philosophy in the world. (more...)

Happiness researchers are faced with the question how to reliably measure happiness in surveys. We present three approaches discussed by economist Daniel Kahneman. (more...)

In this post, we discuss some points that one must keep in mind when designing a happiness survey. (more...)

Can we be mistaken about our own happiness? Proponents of subjective happiness measures would say no: one is as happy as one feels. (more...)

Surveillance, instead of forcing citizens to behave more ethically, in reality undermines the essence of morality. According to Immanuel Kant as well as the Bible, the free human choice is the basis for all moral behaviour. (more...)

Aristotle distinguishes four causes which determine the nature and purpose of every thing: the “material”, the “formal”, the “efficient” and the “final” or “teleological” causes. (more...)

The Gross National Happiness Index of the Kingdom of Bhutan was the first large-scale attempt to measure the level of happiness of a whole country’s population. But does it work? (more...)