People watch sci-fi movies and get excited by the crazy ideas presented. Some of them even go on to become scientists or inventors, and many have helped bring the world inventions that mimic what they once saw in movies. In a way, these people are making a specific vision of the future happen, but some…
Author: Gregory Myers
After the fact, people often wonder how dictators like Stalin or Hitler come to power, or how cult leaders like Jim Jones manage to gain influence over so many people. We want to believe most people are reasonable and think logically and critically, but both of these things can easily be overridden by a clever,…
Infrasound — sounds below audible human hearing, especially those close enough to still affect us on some level due to the vibrations — have recently started to become of great interest to researchers. The world has changed and now there are many artificial sources of infrasound, which gives much greater need to understand the phenomenon…
Many Americans are incredibly fond of Japanese culture, and dream one day of living and working in Japan. However, the truth is that what many of them think of as “Japanese culture” may not be an entirely accurate picture. Now, this doesn’t mean someone who has learned a lot of the language and customs and…
As the old saying goes, history is written by the winners. That’s as true today as ever. Despite the fact that the media has been much more comprehensive in the past 100 years or so, many people are unaware of abuses committed by the groups that most people consider to be the “good guys.” Much…
Aliens from outer space have long captured our imaginations, and there are countless conspiracy theorists with wild ideas, as well as countless History Channel theories that range from interesting to completely ridiculous. However, some theorists are convinced that we are looking in the wrong place for aliens. They don’t think that we’re likely to find…
When it comes to technology, we are living in amazing times. We have practically instant communication with people all over the globe, anyone can record anything with a device in their pocket and play it back later, we have a wealth of high tech entertainment options, transportation is a breeze compared to the days of…
The internet is chock full of articles telling you how you can “hack” your brain, or unlock your mind with one or two simple tricks, and suddenly be like a savant character from a movie. These articles do most people a disservice as they dangle a shiny object in front of them that sounds really…
The Ancient Aztecs — although they called themselves the Mexica — were renowned for their vast stores of gold, their advanced society, their military skill and brutality, and also their incredibly bloodthirsty and regular mass sacrifices to their vicious gods. They were known for enslaving vast quantities of people and sacrificing most of them. However,…
Most people think of slavery and child labor as a thing of the past, but unfortunately, some estimates believe there are more slaves than ever before, and the problem with child labor has gotten worse, not better. Now, there was quite a bit of child labor going back millennia, but the difference for so long…
Today, we like to think of ourselves as at the highest point ever in human technological advancement, and certainly on some levels we seem to have done better than in the past — such as transportation methods like airplanes. However, many technologies that today we imagine those in the past simply had to live without…
There are many different estimates as to how many people are actually living in some type of slavery today — as it is often called by many different names — but most estimates put the number in the tens of millions. Regardless of the count, most people believe that if anything, any slaves within the…
The United States government was built by the founders with many, many layers in order to ensure a better union. By having so many checks and balances and separation of powers, anyone who tried to pull a hostile takeover of the government, or turn it into something less democratic, would find an incredible amount of…
The War of 1812 was the first real major declared war in (independent) American history, and nearly brought the country to its knees due to mostly its own doing, but it is hardly talked about or remembered in American history the way so many other wars are. What is remembered and regularly told tends to…
Disney is known for being one of the most family-friendly companies you could imagine, and spends an incredible amount of money to maintain that illusion and appear as one of the most squeaky clean companies in the world. Disney is the company that bought Star Wars, and immediately banned the appearance of smoking in films…
The American Revolution and the founding fathers are practically deified in modern America and many of the greatest figures from the period have been made into almost demigods of American myth and legend. However, the truth is that much of the reasoning for the revolution wasn’t as pure as the history books make it out…
The average person has real fears they have to deal with every day, or at least every week, about their job, their bills, their family, and everything else going on in their lives. These people tend to think very little about the ultimate fate of death that awaits all living things, as they have very…
Some people worry about the amount of dominance that Facebook has in our personal lives, and the fact that both Google and Facebook really don’t seem to care about privacy. Some worry that Walmart and other corporations have far too much power over our buying choices. However, people may want to put Amazon under a…
Celebrities are a big thing in the world, especially in the United States, and enjoy a status almost akin to a sort of royalty. This has led many people to lend to celebrities a false sense of authority, and soon they start considering their favorite entertainer an expert on a subject that the entertainer is,…
Dreaming is the both one of the most commonplace — and one of the most bizarre — things in the world. Every night, while asleep, we vividly hallucinate impossible things and then remember little to none of it in the morning. When we do remember, it makes almost zero sense and its incomprehensibility makes it…
In some ways Americans and British people would seem very similar at first glance. We look very similar, wear similar clothes, share the same language, and have some shared historical connections (including one that America is celebrating today). However, beyond just the fact that we use a lot of different words to mean the same…
Dictators sometimes have no choice in their evil schemes but to get violent, start calling in the troops, and use methods that create calls for condemnation all over the world. However, most leaders and their ministers of propaganda would rather find a way to trick you into going along with their way of thinking before…
Sci-fi movies tend to create some of the most ridiculous worlds and scenarios imaginable, but that’s what we love about them. We get to see things that perhaps have some basis in a potential future someday, and stir our imaginations greatly, but are far beyond our current grasp. Unfortunately, since it is science fiction and…
Back in the day, it used to be harder to be a big fan of anything that wasn’t sports, or something similar, as people would make fun of you for being a geek. Today, it is quite accepted to be incredibly obsessive about almost any facet of popular culture, even if liking it or being…