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π Curse of knowledge
The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand. This bias is also called by some authors the curse of expertise, although that term is also used to refer to various other phenomena.
For example, in a classroom setting, teachers have difficulty teaching novices because they cannot put themselves in the position of the student. A brilliant professor might no longer remember the difficulties that a young student encounters when learning a new subject. This curse of knowledge also explains the danger behind thinking about student learning based on what appears best to faculty members, as opposed to what has been verified with students.
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- "Curse of knowledge" | 2017-04-23 | 92 Upvotes 30 Comments
- "Curse of knowledge" | 2012-03-26 | 74 Upvotes 8 Comments
π 1975 Icelandic Women's Strike
On 24 October 1975, Icelandic women went on strike for the day to "demonstrate the indispensable work of women for Icelandβs economy and society" and to "protest wage discrepancy and unfair employment practices". It was then publicized domestically as Women's Day Off (KvennafrΓdagurinn). Participants, led by women's organizations, did not go to their paid jobs and did not do any housework or child-rearing for the whole day. Ninety percent of Iceland's female population participated in the strike. Iceland's parliament passed a law guaranteeing equal pay the following year.
π Accumulation by Dispossession
Accumulation by dispossession is a concept presented by the Marxist geographer David Harvey. It defines neoliberal capitalist policies that result in a centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few by dispossessing the public and private entities of their wealth or land. Such policies are visible in many western nations from the 1970s and to the present day. Harvey argues these policies are guided mainly by four practices: privatization, financialization, management and manipulation of crises, and state redistributions.
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- "Accumulation by Dispossession" | 2025-12-15 | 21 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Polybius (Urban Legend)
Polybius is an urban legend that emerged in early 2000. It has served as inspiration for several free and commercial games by the same name.
The legend describes the game as part of a government-run crowdsourced psychology experiment based in Portland, Oregon, during 1981. Gameplay supposedly produced intense psychoactive and addictive effects in the player. These few publicly staged arcade machines were said to have been visited periodically by men in black for the purpose of data-mining the machines and analyzing these effects. Eventually, all of these Polybius arcade machines allegedly disappeared from the arcade market.
Polybius is also the name of a Greek historian born in Arcadia, who was, coincidentally, known for his assertion that historians should never report what they cannot verify through interviews with witnesses.
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- "Polybius (Urban Legend)" | 2019-04-17 | 48 Upvotes 14 Comments
π Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine
Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine is a 1961 LP featuring the actor Ronald Reagan. In this more than ten-minute recording, Reagan "criticized Social Security for supplanting private savings and warned that subsidized medicine would curtail Americans' freedom" and that "pretty soon your son won't decide when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him." Roger Lowenstein called the LP part of a "stealth program" conducted by the American Medical Association (see Operation Coffee Cup).
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- "Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine" | 2019-10-20 | 14 Upvotes 24 Comments
π Anna Karenina Principle
The Anna Karenina principle states that a deficiency in any one of a number of factors dooms an endeavor to failure. Consequently, a successful endeavor (subject to this principle) is one where every possible deficiency has been avoided.
The name of the principle derives from Leo Tolstoy's book Anna Karenina, which begins:
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
In other words: happy families share a common set of attributes which lead to happiness, while any of a variety of attributes can cause an unhappy family. This concept has been generalized to apply to several fields of study.
In statistics, the term Anna Karenina principle is used to describe significance tests: there are any number of ways in which a dataset may violate the null hypothesis and only one in which all the assumptions are satisfied.
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- "Anna Karenina Principle" | 2019-08-30 | 299 Upvotes 126 Comments
π Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi High Court
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- "Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi High Court" | 2024-10-25 | 712 Upvotes 480 Comments
π Necromanteion of Acheron
The Nekromanteion (Greek: ΞΡκΟΞΏΞΌΞ±Ξ½ΟΞ΅αΏΞΏΞ½) was an ancient Greek temple of necromancy devoted to Hades and Persephone. According to tradition, it was located on the banks of the Acheron river in Epirus, near the ancient city of Ephyra. This site was believed by devotees to be the door to Hades, the realm of the dead. The site is at the meeting point of the Acheron, Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus rivers, believed to flow through and water the kingdom of Hades. The meaning of the names of the rivers has been interpreted to be "joyless", "burning coals" and "lament", respectively.
A site in Mesopotamos, Epirus was proposed as the site of the Necromanteion in 1958, but this identification is now questioned.
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- "Necromanteion of Acheron" | 2024-10-23 | 30 Upvotes 6 Comments
π List of statutory minimum employment leave by country
In the majority of nations, including all industrialised nations except the United States, advances in employee relations have seen the introduction of statutory agreements for minimum employee leave from workβthat is the amount of entitlement to paid vacation and public holidays. Several companies will offer contractually more time, depending on the sector. Companies and the law may also differ as to whether public holidays are counted as part of the minimum leave.
Disparities in national minimums are still subject of debate regarding work-life balance and perceived differences between nations. These numbers usually refer to full-time employment β part-time workers may get a reduced number of days. In most countries, public holidays are paid and usually not considered part of the annual leave. Also, in most countries there are additional paid leave benefits such as parental leave and sick leave that are not listed here.
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- "List of statutory minimum employment leave by country" | 2010-10-03 | 48 Upvotes 52 Comments
π Circulation of Elites
The circulation of elites is a theory of regime change described by Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848β1923).
Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another.
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- "Circulation of Elites" | 2024-05-19 | 14 Upvotes 5 Comments