The Tocayo Technique to remember the name of a person you just met

August 7, 2018

Photo by Nikola Johnny Mirkovic on Unsplash

Written: August 7, 2018 | Released: July 30, 2021 Do you struggle to remember people's names after you meet them? Do you have a penchant for weird tricks? If you answered "yes" to those questions, you're a great candidate to use my three-part weird trick to remember people's names. I call it the "Tocayo Technique." I find it very effective, though unfortunately, I still don't have a habit of using it as often as I should. Step 1: Intention - before the person tells you their n...

Distinguishing Evil and Insanity: The Role of Intentions in Ethics

July 29, 2009

(Note: this is an essay I wrote many years ago that I still mostly agree with. It probably was what led to me eventually coming up with the idea of Philosophical Disorders.) After a little reflection, it is clear that the morality of a person who carries out an action doesn't just depend on the action itself but rather depends on the state of mind of the person who performs it. This holds for pretty much every commonly used definition of morality. Suppose, for example, that I was tricke...