Great comment -- thanks for stopping by!

1) You ask the following: "What’s really the value in challenging beliefs that are very probably erroneous? Assuming that, miraculously, your challenge is not met by the resistance
of the rather stubborn human brain, which categorically does not like
to be told what to believe (and especially what not to believe), then
what really have you accomplished?"

One's erroneous beliefs may not cause direct harm to other humans, but they certainly can cause indirect harm. And this is a philosophical problem, right? What I am getting at, essentially, is that religion has a funny way of leaking into politics. Delusional religious beliefs often impose externalities on others through the political process. Accordingly, someone's erroneous beliefs have the potential to cause bad public policy decisions, which then can affect every member of a society.

What does the removal of erroneous beliefs accomplish? The benefit, of course, is that the removal of erroneous beliefs ought to theoretically allow us to discuss political problems more frankly and get at better solutions.

2) You ask: "It comes down, as it usually does, to the question of What Do We Care About? Is it Truth? Is it Progress? Or is it Vagina?

As a vaporous transient consciousness in an incidental universe, I'm inclined to believe that perhaps it's some combination of the three. Personally, however, I'm interested in Truth because without Truth, we can't even know if Progress is possible.

As entirely fallible human beings, I realize that our sexual drives probably distract us from both Truth and Progress. In the evolutionary picture, discovering Truth is just not that important, getting laid is. Being able to argue well, even for something that is absurd (e.g., religion), can definitely be explained by an evolutionary framework. Have you ever heard of Argumentative Theory? If not, I suggest reading up on it. It's the most compelling explanation I've found as to why there is such a vast amount of stupidity in the world.

A lesson in writing: if you're not pissing anyone off you're probably not saying anything important or interesting.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a thoughtful comment, Justin!

It's like the moneyball theory for betting on college football!

Your closing remark is about the best and most important of all non-zero sum games, i.e., life (not the board game).

Ironically, self-improvement is subtractive. The key to improvement is removing this garbage you describe from your life. Once you remove the "noise" you'll actually have the time to improve yourself. Strangely, I speculate that many people would rather spend their days reading about self-help rather than actually helping themselves with the simple and free things you suggest.

Great article Andrew! People (especially those in cahoots with politicians) have such a hard time understanding the complexity of the human body.

I'm going to venture a guess that the majority of people who read this blog don't spend lots of time watching TV; however, I think we probably share similar ideas on the value of TV watching.  I don't count watching TV (or reading) as doing nothing; I mean truly just kicking back and freeing your mind from the external stimulation of modern society.  It is this form of "doing nothing" that is underemphasized.  Bertrand Russell wrote an essay that discusses this topic in great detail called "In Praise of Idleness."

Interesting article... Thanks for sharing!

I think "doing nothing" is especially valuable in today's society where there is an emphasis on constantly achieving more. We often ignore the fact that we evolved to spend periods of time doing nothing. I feel much better and more productive when I counter periods of intense focus with periods of "doing nothing". I'll admit that I find it difficult to do at times; it can be hard to pay attention to our natural human rhythms in today's society.

Also, at a certain point, I think there is dis-utiliity that comes with trying to achieve more or bettering yourself more. It sounds paradoxical, but in order to achieve more you sometimes have to do less; hence, I think "doing nothing" is important piece of the equation.

I think "doing nothing" could be added to that list as well. It's a highly underrated activity these days...