“If a rule of the form ‘he who takes the benefit must pay the cost’ is at stake, then solving the problem means spotting cheats. People do this well. The mind is not following abstract reason; it is enforcing a social contract.... Given this view of man – a natural trader, ever concerned with social debts and an uncertain future – it is little wonder that human minds are interested in detecting cheats, not pursuing pure logic, and in sampling frequencies rather than making risky one-off guesses.”

The Economist July 4, 1992 [an article on so-called "Wason tests" some of which people solve far better than others though they are logically equivalent]

“Bad memory image of FAT detected”

A computer message I received in late 1993 from an improperly installed CD-ROM program, which then crashed (it’s funny because it’s certainly true of me personally)

In my latest National Post column I say Erin O’Toole’s position on climate change is driven not by what he thinks about global warming but by the fact that he does not think about it.

In my latest Epoch Times column I say Canada’s so-called naval procurement plan is a lot of mirrors and smoke but very little of the latter is from actual useful weapons.

In my latest National Post column I say the inability to vaccinate in a pandemic isn’t isolated, it’s part of an overall crisis of governmental competence made worse by self-satisfaction and complacency.

In my latest Epoch Times column I say the fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs are testing their employees while the state is not testing you teaches a lesson about howmarkets work and governments don’t.

In my latest National Post column I warn that the robots are coming faster than you think and CGI and AI spell big trouble.

“when we scrape away the varnish of wealth, education, class, ethnic origin, parochial loyalties, we discover that however much we’ve changed the shape of man’s physical environment, man himself is still sinful, vain, greedy, ambitious, lustful, self-centered, unrepentant, and requiring of restraint.”

Barry Goldwater With No Apologies (though elsewhere in the book even he said new technologies and ideas might make the world way better in the 21st century)