Fascinating Obscure Concepts That Are Worth Knowing

July 8, 2025

For years, whenever I've encountered a word for a fascinating concept that my computer's built-in dictionary didn't recognize, I've added it to a collection I keep of "Fascinating Obscure Concepts." Here's the first part of my list of these unusual concepts you may never have encountered before: —LITTLE-KNOWN SELF-IMPROVEMENT CONCEPTS 1) Musterbating: Albert Ellis' term for rigid, self-imposed ideas that many people hold that "I/you/they absolutely must (or should) do X." Rather than seei...

Why can’t society agree on who is a “man,” who is a “woman,” and who is neither? An empirical and philosophical investigation into the metaphysics of gender.

February 7, 2025

by Spencer Greenberg Gender is a central part of many people's identities, and yet a very basic and politically contentious question is still being debated: What IS gender? And what defines whether someone is a "man," a "woman," or neither? This question is especially topical and important now in light of the January 20, 2025, Executive Order from Donald Trump attempting to define what it means to be a man or a woman: After carefully investigating people's usage of "man" an...