Would you like a placebo for your headache?

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Do you trust doctors?   Is it sometimes necessary to lie to a patient in order to help them more effectively?  Or for researchers to lie to gain important information about human health and psychology?  This is not the only article I have read which indicates that placebos are somewhat effective even if the patient is aware that they are taking a placebo.   Why do you think this is the case?

Wedding Woes

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Do you like going to weddings? Are traditional weddings a good thing, or have these traditions become too restrictive?  Can you understand why brides (and grooms) are reluctant to spend a lot of time and money on a wedding, or maybe would like to avoid any ceremony at all?  Could the anti-bride trend help solve these problems or is it just a scam?

Emissions for me and negative impacts for thee

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Does it outrage you that the countries who are most to blame for global warming are (for the most part) not those who have to deal with its consequences?  What are some of the reasons for why money which was pledged  to fight the causes and effects of climate change is not used for this?  What can be done about this problem?  Would raising awareness help?

Focusing on the fashion and family of female politicians

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Reading about the woes of the former Finnish PM made me think about the situation of Čaputová here in Slovakia.  Do you agree with this article's claim that citizens do not have an overall bias against female politicians?  Their evidence for this is cross-national.  Might Slovakia be an exception?   What has your experience of the media coverage of women in politics been?  Should the media change how they cover female candidates and politicians?  How?

(Half) Gay Marriage

 This is the last entry you can comment on for mid-January to mid-February.

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This is an article about how two films (one Indian and one American) depict marriages between a gay man and a straight woman.  I am aware that this sort of thing often happens in Slovakia as well, seemingly because it allows gay men to hide their homosexuality from a hostile society and also to raise a family.  There are obvious problems with such arrangements of course.  Could making homosexual marriage legal help?   Looking at it from a different angle, can a marriage be happy without a sexual component?   (You can also comment on one or both of the films and how they depict this situation if you have seen them.)