Categoria: rifflection

Why Do We Love Who (or What) Doesn’t Exist?

Have you ever found yourself falling in love with a movie, series, or video game character? Have you felt affection for a virtual pet, like the old Tamagotchi? Have you ever covered your walls with posters and daydreamed about people you’ll never meet?
If so, you’re not alone – and this says a lot about all of us.

Long before today’s technologies, humans have created symbolic ways to love, desire, and connect. Cave paintings, fertility statues, gods with human features, and stories of platonic love are just a few examples of how we project our feelings onto idealised figures. Technology has only made this more visible – and perhaps easier.

And this is all connected to what we call affective-erotic substituition…

Continuar a ler “Affective-Erotic Substitution”

You Might Be Living in a Credocracy (And Not Even Know It)

Throughout history, we’ve learned to name different forms of government: democracy, monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, technocracy… and of course, the well-known theocracy – a system where power is supposedly exercised in the name of one or more deities.

But hold on a second: when was the last time a deity showed up in flesh and blood to govern a country?

Never!

Continuar a ler “Credocracy”

Did you know that books like Harry Potter, Capitães da Areia and even To Kill a Mockingbird have been banned in schools to “protect” children? Curiously, the Bible – which contains stories of massacres, rape, cruel punishments and hate speech – is freely distributed in children’s versions, decorated with stickers and cute illustrations.

In my research, I explored this question, and in this post, I invite you to reflect: what if the Bible were evaluated using the same criteria applied to films, series, and ordinary books? Would it receive a 14+, 16+ or even 18+ rating?

The answer, it seems, is yes.

Continuar a ler “Bible 18+”

Have you ever thought about how many children grow up carrying responsibilities that should never be theirs? That’s what the Eternal Interpreter Syndrome is all about – a phenomenon still little known, but one that shapes the lives of thousands of boys and girls around the world.

Continuar a ler “The Eternal Interpreter Syndrome”

A friend of mine, a postdoctoral researcher, was organizing her project on mealworms. Exhausted after hours of reading, she sent me a message asking for help:
— Can you read this passage and see if there’s anything wrong with it?

I read it carefully. The text was clear and coherent. And it sparked an idea in my head. I said:

— Did you notice something curious about this chromosomal structure?

— What detail? She asked.

I explained: in chickens, the system for determining sex is the opposite of humans. Female chickens are ZW, and males are ZZ. In our case, humans, it’s the reverse: females are XX, and males are XY.

Continuar a ler “The Y Chromosome Dilemma: where toxic masculinity begins”

Have you ever tried to have a conversation in complete darkness, with headphones blocking all sound? Now imagine that this is your everyday life. For many people who are deafblind, this is their reality a unique and profound experience that goes far beyond what we usually understand as a “disability.”

For a long time, deafblindness was treated as a single condition, almost like a closed box: either a person is deafblind, or they’re not. But the truth is much more complex, and much more human.

Continuar a ler “2,256 types of deafblindness”

The idea for this article came from a casual conversation in a café back in 2005, with a deaf professor who had a PhD in linguistics.

But the research only truly took shape years later, in 2024, when I shared that story with a colleague who had just completed her doctorate in animal science.

She laughed at the idea and thought it was absurd. After all, she had spent 15 years studying animals and had never come across anything like it. That’s exactly why I decided to begin the research.

Continuar a ler “Is it true that cows have accents?”

I arrived in Poland through Gdańsk. After spending a few days there, I went to Częstochowa, where I met my partner’s family. Those were intense days, full of affection and exchange. From there, we headed to Oświęcim, where I visited the memorial in Oświęcim (Auschwitz), and then continued on to the Wieliczka Salt Mine.

As we left Oświęcim on our way to Prague, already on the bus, I began sketching out this text. My body was still carrying the weight of the images, the words, the silence, and the pain that linger in the air of that place where millions of lives were erased.

Continuar a ler “European Citizenship for Every Catholic”