It’s just a coincidence that they all involve eating:

Putting lime or lemon in a coke – It makes no sense that restaurants assume the customer wants a lemon added to their drink rather than ask. The default should obviously be just the soda. It’s a practical example of Tversky’s conjunction fallacy. It’s much more likely that someone will like just one thing rather than one thing and another.

Adding your own credit card tips – I put the final total amount and leave the tip area blank. Your waiter functions as your cashier and is perfectly capable of doing the math themselves. In fact, that’s partially what you’re tipping them for.

Nachos with beans – The appeal of nachos is based on the interesting contrast between crunchy warm chips and the cool, soft toppings. Beans undermine the purpose of the entire dish. They put an irreversible expiration date on the meal within a matter of minutes and are therefore more appropriate as a request, not a required ingredient.

There are a few others worth observing like turning left on red (in Los Angeles), the carpool lane reverting to the furthermost most left lane in times of no traffic and declining opportunities to “wait” for someone to leave a parking space. Off the top of my head, I don’t think it’s worth struggling to pronounce any foreign word. Just say it how it appears. No one would think it politically correct to criticize the accent of someone from Mexico or France.

What other common practices do we observe that make little sense? There has to be evidence of why dissenting is more logical or convenient, not just that you don’t like it.

Once while Plato entertained guests, Diogenes entered his home and stomped on his carpets. He’s said to have shouted that he was trampling down the pride of Plato. Plato, according the guests, simply replied “Yes, Diogenes, with a pride of another sort.”

I don’t think we need any more blogs that give you career advice, networking tips or chatter incessantly about micro-movements cut off from the big picture. I agree with Seneca when he said we don’t have time to discuss the storms that befell Odysseus when every day we run into our own storms, storms in reality not fiction. Instead each day you should acquire from what you read something that helps you fight fear, stagnation, indulgence or death. If you’re setting out to write something, that should be its purpose.

But to focus on the heavier stuff inherently risks moralizing. And to moralize, like Diogenes, is to risk another kind of prideful error.

The Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

To Philosophize is to Learn How To Die by Montaigne (some good stoic thoughts on death. In Egypt they would carry around a painting of a corpse in a coffin and toast “drink and be merry for you will be just like this when you are dead.”

The Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian (Arrian is the student of transcribed Epictetus’ lectures. His book on Alexander is surprisingly fair)

Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels by Jill Jonnes (it’s a bargain book so it wasn’t a waste but I was hoping for some urban anthropology and this is not it)

Peter the Great by Vasili Klyuchevsky (very dry but interesting)

The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations (his notes for a law lecture are my favorite. tells you how not to be this guy)

The Souls Of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois (worth having a copy of)

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (couldn’t sleep and read most of this on the couch)

I’m using delicious more and writing about each article. I do this for a couple different people’s accounts but you can subscribe to an RSS feed of someone’s links. Here’s mine.

Also, we can talk about it in the comments but I think Obama’s ‘Limbaugh as the voice of the republican party‘ strategy is a huge mistake. He’s the wrong guy to do it to and even if he wasn’t it’s a bad move. Polarity is a defensive tactic so it doesn’t make sense for the party with the momentum to purposely bog themselves down in it. They should be sowing dissension and conflict, not giving them a leader (even if it’s a crazy, loud one). I think it’s an out of touch move that seemed like a no-brainer to a bunch of 90’s Democrats but will end up firming up resistance that wasn’t there previously. Before discussing glance at: Law 42, Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will Scatter and Strategy 17, Defeat them in detail: Divide and conquer.