Please stay connected by moving with us. In the next week or so, I'm moving my website to a new domain. I'm merging my site with my LinkedIn brand, The Ethics Ninja. Please keep watch and subscribe to continue receiving posts. Or email me at yonasongoldson@gmail.com and I'll subscribe you to my weekly newsletter. Either way, I look forward to keeping in touch ..read more

Turn self-doubt into your next big breakthrough Socrates said that you don't know what you don't know. That's okay, unless you think that pretending that you know enough will protect you from the consequences of ignorance. After that, it's a short step from being a danger to yourself and becoming a threat to others. Not to mention those who might have benefited from the knowledge you willfully suppressed. So why are we afraid of knowledge? I frequently quote my college English Professor, Max Byrd: "I've never understood why people complain about being disillusioned. I would be grateful for th ..read more

The same way you build your muscles in the gym, build psychological strength by exercising free will Did you actually choose to read this? According to some biologists and neuroscientists, free will is an illusion. Nature and nurture conspire to program our response mechanisms so that we think we’re making choices, but we’re really nothing more than organic robots. Do you find that depressing? If so, you’re not alone. Research shows that belief in free will makes us happier, since it imbues us with a sense of purpose and agency. What’s more, belief in free will makes us more ethical. If we do ..read more

The Ethical Lexicon #14: You won't stay ahead of the curve by abandoning the wisdom of experience Which do you find more inspiring: The sun rising over the curvature of the earth seen from 40,000 feet, or the petals of a daisy? Maybe that's entirely the wrong question to ask. Why are we so afflicted with Shiny New Object Syndrome? Research shows that we set higher expectations for what's familiar and are more forgiving when engaging novelty. That's fine when it spurs us to expand our horizons, but it's self-destructive when it creates unjustified discontent with what we already have. Over tim ..read more

The Ethical Lexicon #13: don't put too much faith in (non) experts What do a painter of ancient Greece, recently elected representative George Santos, and subatomic particle decay have in common? That's the topic of this week's column in Fast Company. To paraphrase Syndrome from The Incredibles: "When everyone is an expert, nobody is." Living in the information age, it's easy to convince ourselves that everything is known and knowable. It's a short step from determining that all knowledge and wisdom is within our grasp to concluding that we've already seized hold of it. Reality check: that ma ..read more

The Ethical Lexicon #11: Keeping it real in the era of ChatGPT Do you like fiction? Most of us do. But it’s a strange indulgence. We consume stories that we know aren’t true, easily and willingly suspending our disbelief. And yet, we feel misled and betrayed when purportedly true accounts prove less than truthful. And that is precisely the problem with ChatGPT. What has the potential to be an extraordinarily useful AI tool can simultaneously be employed as a weapon of mass deception. We don’t mind technology doing our jobs, but we want to be able to clearly recognize the line between it and u ..read more

The Ethical Lexicon #8: What to say when you don't know what to say Have you ever been ghosted? You've never ghosted someone else, have you? You know what it feels like. How do people rationalize such demeaning behavior? Rationalization is the first enemy of ethics. Because there’s nothing human beings are better at than thinking our way to reasons that defend even the most indefensible kind of behavior. The best kinds of rationalization contain just enough truth to convince us that they're sound. Add to that our natural predisposition to conflict avoidance and, voila! Ghosting becomes an act ..read more

The Ethical Lexicon #7: "Just chill" is not always the answer Is there really any such thing as good or bad character traits? The answer may not be as simple as you think. An ethics ninja recognizes that there’s a vast difference between good and bad, between yes and no, between black and white. Misdirected generosity can lead to enabling and entitlement. Misapplied compassion can lead to violations of justice. Sometimes we really do need to be cruel to be kind. What about anxiety? Is it always good to be chill, or can tension be not only beneficial but absolutely essential? That’s the topic ..read more

The Ethical Lexicon #6: Reverse the effects of cultural entropy What do Bob Dylan, Michelangelo, and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” have in common? They each offer a critical perspective on how to create a system that reverses the law of entropy by becoming more and more dynamic. Science tells us that the world is perpetually trending toward chaos and disorder. And that applies to business as well as physics. But there are exceptions. As we head into a new year, it’s up to us to create a reality that tends toward positive growth to hold the forces of chaos at bay, both in our personal ..read more

With endless distraction at our fingertips, consider the benefit of being bored Are you bored? That might be a good thing. The latter-day philosopher Martin Heidegger articulated two distinct kinds of boredom. Understanding the difference and interrelationship between the two might be key to utilizing boredom as a springboard to innovation and productivity. On the one hand, the human brain is designed for laziness. Inactivity preserves resources, so some deep-rooted survival instinct inclines us toward zero-expenditure of energy. On the other hand, our soul is designed for growth and aspirati ..read more