IRR = Interesting Reads on Reddit

[original post date = 13 october 2017]

Behavioral experiments show women are more generous than men. Female and male brains process social behavior differently. For women, prosocial behavior triggers a stronger reward signal, while male reward systems respond more strongly to selfish behavior, finds new study in Nature Human Behaviour. • r/psychology

Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety? • r/psychology

Boy Scouts will admit girls and allow them to earn Eagle Scout rank • r/news
Partner to that: Girl Scouts slam Boy Scouts' decision to accept girls: 'The Boy Scouts' house is on fire' • r/news
My own commentary: Girl Scouts has been told to shape up for years. If they don't want to get with the times, then let Boy Scouts take all the girls who actually want to do fun outdoorsy stuff!

Satanist takes abortion rights case to the Missouri Supreme Court • r/news
This one is interesting because it is using "my right due to my religion [to have an abortion]" and actually getting somewhere with it. When the [anti-]abortion laws are pretty heavily steeped in Christian-specific beliefs, this is a really innovative way to combat that.

TIL Two guys used their dead friends ashes as fishing bait and caught the worlds biggest Carp • r/todayilearned
TIL = "Today I learned"

People significantly overestimate how noticeable their embarrassing behaviors are to others • r/psychology

TIL that in 1254 Möngke Khan, grandson of Genghis, hosted a religious debate between Christian, Muslim and Buddhist theologians. The debate ended with the Buddhists sitting silently as the Christian and Muslim debaters sang loudly at each other. Then they all got drunk. • r/todayilearned

The banks and credit unions most recommended by commenters on PF • r/personalfinance
/r/personalfinance (AKA "PF" ) is an educational subreddit for... well, personal finance. This (and the comments) are great to look at for good banks (and/or credit unions) to be a member of.

Why is 'being born in the wrong gender' or homosexuality a thing? Is it just a weird quirk in some people's brains or was there ever an evolutionary advantage? Why do things like it it exists if it's not overall helpful in human beings? • r/NoStupidQuestions
Partner to that (sort of) : Reasons for Post-Op Depression following Lower Surgeries • r/maletime
Reasons why trans people (FtMs specifically) may have Depression after receiving bottom surgery (e.g. getting a penis)

TIL Scientists put slime mold onto a model of a map of Tokyo, with food representing urban centers. After a day, it created a network almost identical to Tokyo’s actual rail network. Human designers created that network to be as efficient as possible; slime mold did the same, but without a brain • r/todayilearned

Why you should really start doing more things alone: People consistently underestimate how much they will enjoy seeing a show, going to a museum, visiting a theater, or eating at a restaurant alone. • r/psychology

Saudi Arabia accidentally prints textbook showing Yoda sitting next to the king • r/nottheonion

What am I ACTUALLY supposed to do with my teenage years? • r/SeriousConversation

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance [2011] • r/lostgeneration

Guys who didn't enter their first serious relationships until later in life (Mid-Late 20s & beyond)...what were some of the pitfalls to being a "late bloomer", and how did you overcome them? • r/AskMen

Sensitive, somewhat weepy male characters abound in late 18th c. Gothic novels and are not presented as unmanly or unattractive. Is there any truth in the claim I've occasionally seen that men's crying was more socially acceptable before the Industrial Revolution than it has been ever since? • r/AskHistorians

The sixth mass extinction of global wildlife already under way is seriously threatening the world’s food supplies...“Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply are just as endangered [as wildlife] and are getting almost no attention." • r/worldnews

YSK: What your options for responding to Equifax are because if you're an American adult you have almost definitely been compromised. • r/YouShouldKnow
YSK = "You Should Know"

Kids these days like to pretend sticks are guns by repeatedly going "pew, pew, pew" like modern day automatic firearms. But did kids in the 1700's do the same thing except they would pretend to do the loading procedure for a musket every time they "shoot?" • r/AskHistorians

Children develop higher self-esteem when their parents treat them warmly. But they develop lower self-esteem when their parents lavish them with inflated praise, finds new research on the origins of the self-concept in children published in Child Development. • r/psychology

The state of Arkansas was apparently originally known as the Territory of Arkansaw [sic]. Why would they have changed the spelling from Arkansaw to Arkansas despite the latter not resembling the name's pronunciation? • r/AskHistorians
A fun romp through historical linguistics! o:

Why did the Nazi's exterminate its victims in concentration camps over time, rather than all at once? • r/AskHistorians
So not only is this question in and of itself interesting (this is one of those questions that you didn't know you should ask until it is asked, I think), but the explanation and the further subtext about how we ascribe motivations to people after-the-fact is too.

The key to being the most interesting person in the room is to stop talking • r/psychology
Hrrrrm, and now we know why the "strong silent type" is so attractive?? (wiggles eyebrows)

'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia. Silicon Valley refuseniks who worry the race for human attention has created a world of perpetual distraction that could ultimately end in disaster • r/TrueReddit