The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 19 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Santos: Over-Intervention by Parents Causes Children to Give Up Faster
“What she finds is that when you give kids a very different puzzle later on, kids who've had that taking over condition, where the parents give the answer, give up much more quickly. And if you find ways to survey them about what they believe, like, they probab…”
Santos: Religious Happiness Comes From Behaviors, Not Theological Beliefs
“When you really do that work, what you find is that the effect of the correlation between religion and happiness seems to be pretty fully mediated by those religious behaviors. So going to church, doing nice things for other people, you know, taking part in al…”
Santos: Feeling Time-Famished Damages Well-Being as Much as Unemployment
“In fact, some work by Ashley Willans shows that if you self-report being time famished, that's as big a hit on your wellbeing as if you self-report being unemployed.”
Santos: Genetics Accounts for Only 30% to 40% of Happiness Variance
“You know, even the heritability of happiness is, is lower than you might expect. You know, estimates kind of vary, but it's probably around, you know, 40%, 30%. Like, it's not that all the variants and the happy people that you see out there in the world is li…”
Santos: Wealthy People Share the Exact Same Delusions About Money
“But what's funny is even if you look at incredibly wealthy people, they have the same mistaken intuitions about money.”
Santos: Over 40% of College Students Report Severe Functional Depression
“National statistics report that now, nowadays, over 40% of college students report being too depressed to function most days. Over 60% say that they're overwhelmingly anxious. Another over 60% report feeling lonely, extremely lonely most of the time. Over 80% …”
Santos: Canceling Extracurriculars Reduced College Students' Anxiety and FOMO
“Just not having as much stuff to do wound up making students feel less FOMO, less anxious, less time famished.”
Santos: Every Single Study Shows Happy People Are More Social
“Every available study of happy people suggests that happy people are more social. They prioritize time with their friends and family members, but they're also just, like, around other people more often.”
Santos: Talking to Strangers During Commutes Significantly Improves Mood
“There's some lovely work by Nick Epley and his colleagues showing that if you force somebody to talk to a stranger on the train on their commute to work, for example, they wind up in a happier mood.”
Santos: People Smile 30% Less When a Smartphone Is Merely Nearby
“She finds things like we smile 30% less when we have our phone near us, even if you're not using your phone, right?”
Santos: Writing Gratitude Lists for Two Weeks Significantly Boosts Well-Being
“There's evidence that in as little as two weeks, the simple act of writing three to five things you're grateful for down on a piece of paper can improve your well-being, like significantly improve your well-being.”
Santos: Writing One Gratitude Letter Elevates Well-Being for Over a Month
“There's also evidence that expressing gratitude to other people, like writing a, you know, a detailed thank you note to someone that you've always wanted to thank but never gotten a chance to. The act of doing that, at least in Marty Seligman and others' data,…”
Santos: The Genetic Heritability of Happiness Is Roughly 30% to 40%
“Estimates kind of vary, but it's probably around, you know, 40%, 30%. Like, it's not that all the variants and the happy people that you see out there in the world is like, well, some people are genetically happy and some people aren't. That's just simply not …”
Santos: Toddlers Give Up Faster When Parents Solve Puzzles for Them
“What she finds is that when you give kids a very different puzzle later on, kids who've had that taking over condition, where the parents give the answer, give up much more quickly. And if you find ways to survey them about what they believe, like, they probab…”
Santos: Writing Gratitude Lists Significantly Boosts Well-Being Within Two Weeks
“There's evidence that in as little as two weeks, the simple act of writing three to five things you're grateful for down on a piece of paper can improve your well-being, like significantly improve your well-being.”
Santos: Sending a Thank-You Letter Boosts Well-Being for Over a Month
“There's also evidence that expressing gratitude to other people, like writing a, you know, a detailed thank you note to someone that you've always wanted to thank but never gotten a chance to. The act of doing that, at least in Marty Seligman and others' data,…”
Santos: Over 1,000 Yale Students Enrolled in Inaugural Happiness Course
“We had over a thousand students shopping the class, so they took, like, bump, bump the whole mechanism up by, like, an order of magnitude and in the end, the only room that where we could fit the class on campus was in the concert hall and so over a thousand s…”
Santos: Mind-Wandering Significantly Decreases Human Happiness
“There's so much evidence that when we're mind wandering, when we're not fully present, that that's a time when we're also not very happy.”
Santos: Relationship Success Can Be Predicted by Responses to Attention Bids
“There's some evidence that you can make predictions about how a relationship is going based on just the number of those so-called bids that a partner responds to positively. Like when you're asked for attention, you kind of attend back.”