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The Psychological Importance of Physical Media

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Humans would have evolved with an investment-reward balance system, where the investment is effort, time, or risk to safety. A primitive human would not have trekked 100 miles through dangerous terrain to acquire one raspberry, because they sought a balance between effort and reward. If you were to put a lot of effort into something, it better be important and grant an equivalent or greater reward. This is why we typically only put lots of effort into important things. (This is "motivational salience".) I've been thinking that maybe this system has the side effect of being a salience indicator: if we put a lot of effort into a task, this may indicate to our subconscious that the task must be important -- otherwise, why would we have put effort into it? And conversely, the less effort we put in, the less important the task seems. How important something is to our subconscious can be illustrated best by examining memory , because your brain remembers things it finds sal
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The Appeal of Espionage Stories

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I believe an underlying appeal of many espionage stories is their ability to validate hidden personal struggles faced by the audience. On a constant basis everyone contends with various conflicts, either with themselves or with others, that are subtle, quiet, and are not easily shared with their peers. For instance you may engage in self-conflict as you cope with insecurity: you know yourself to be a worthy individual logically, but you struggle to truly feel worthy on an emotional level, thus creating a conflict within yourself -- and one that you can't easily discuss with most people around you. You can't tell someone standing next to you in line, "Boy, am I struggling with insecurity today!" That is one of many conflicts you undergo every day that you can't easily share. (In fact, one function of relationships is having someone with whom to share the struggles that are invisible to most people -- but even then, not every conflict is shareable: a con
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The Appeal of Wonder Woman

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To me, Wonder Woman evokes the idea of having faith in others. Her Golden Age origin story is my favorite because of how strongly it depicts the faith she has in mankind. On Paradise Island, Diana is shown the horrors of humanity during World War II, which may well be the darkest period the species has ever faced, with human beings committing some of the most evil acts in history. But the nobility of Steve Trevor, who fights for the side of good, shows her the strength of mankind at the same time. Steve Trevor shows her an example of a good human being and that one indication is enough for her to volunteer to take Steve back home, and to adopt Man's World as her own to protect. Notice the naming of Diana's island: Paradise Island, because it's a place devoid of any strife or hardship. Wonder Woman acts as an angel, sitting in heaven, who looks at humanity even in its ugliest, most evil period, notices one spark of goodness in it, and decides that th
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