In reading all of these dilemmas, I was thinking of personal experiences that applied to almost every one. The Volunteer Dilemma comes up pretty frequently for me, and I am generally willing to step up, but only if I think that I can do a good job in whatever is needed. I also will not step up if I feel like I am always the one stepping up and bearing an unfair burden. In the Battle of the Sexes, I am typically pretty flexible in general; I don’t care what we do (go to a restaurant, watch a movie), but I want it to be something of quality. If the other person wants to eat Mexican food or watch a comedy, I’m fine with that, but it has to be a good Mexican restaurant or a good comedy.

I liked this article because it takes normative concepts and applies them to a specific, real-world scenario. It also challenges conventional wisdom and common practice. Sections 7, 8, and 9 in particular were interesting because they outlined a potential way to implement a prescription drug system that respected the right to self-medication and immediately addressed the two most obvious objections to that proposal. In Section 8 and 9, the author points out that people have the right to do things that are risky, but that does not mean that the government should be able to prevent them from doing it. She also points out that concerns about mixing dangerous drugs and potential addiction to pharmaceuticals are far greater than the actual incidence of those things, similar to the murder-suicide questions from Mindbugs. We think people would mix drugs and get addicted because of media coverage and pop culture, but the author correctly points out that many people illegally using pharmaceuticals are doing so for legitimate medical reasons.

I especially enjoyed the readings on outsmarting mindbugs, partially because I am a solutions-oriented person. Once I knew about the mindbugs and implicit biases, I wanted to know how to counteract them. My main remaining questions are which method will work best to counter mindbugs, and how can we test it? I think it would depend on the person. I usually understand solutions through their quantitative effect, so the numerical way might be the best way to counter my mindbugs, but others may find that active countering qualitatively would be more effective, or bypassing them altogether.

I took two tests and both results were about what I expected. I do think that one of the issues with these tests is that it is easy to figure out how they work. It is hard to intentionally let your subconscious make the decision, and while I understand that answering quickly helps with that, I still did not get a definitive result. In both instances, my results showed I was slightly predisposed towards what I expected, but I actually feel strongly towards what I expected. I think knowing too much about the test I was taking took some of the effectiveness away, as I really focused on getting the right answers.

The different types of lies in Shades of Truth were fascinating to me, especially how they can relate to voting. I am very passionate about politics, and as a result, I sometimes ask friends and family about their political beliefs and for whom they voted or plan to vote. Just like with exit polling, especially in such a polarized political climate, this can result in a fair amount of lies. Take, for example, someone who voted for Trump, who is perceived as a distasteful person by many, especially liberals. If that Trump voter had a liberal family, he might lie. It might be a gray lie, when he’s trying to spare himself the discomfort of having that conversation with his family. It might also be a blue lie, when he believes he is not the stereotypical “Trump voter,” but rather hated the other candidate and was forced to vote for Trump.