Many people seek the comfort of assuming that the world is just — that people all get what they deserve. People who cling to this tend to blame victims.

The just-world assumption feels great when you are privileged, because it gives you a basis to assume it's your own merit at work.

This plays a part in a new right-wing camp, the "redpill right wing". People in that camp close their eyes to the fact that others are held back by bigotry and other forms of social injustice.

Paradoxically, I have come across an exactly opposite form of bias, where people say, "Lots of other things could kill you, so there is no point in avoiding this one." They do this to rationalize dangerous practices such as smoking tobacco.

The world gives us partial control over our futures, but in areas that involve others, we can't expect complete control. Even in things that affect only us, others may control us through unjust power. There is also lots of randomness in the system: unpredictable events that could result in good or bad. This is what makes life so complicated and interesting. Each of the irrationalities mentioned above consists of ignoring one large aspect of life.

Only 9% of students from poor families complete college in the US, compared with 77% from wealthy families.

Those 9% are terribly burdened by debt.

In other words, poor people have very little chance to advance.

If only 44% of the wealthy got college degrees in 1970, surely the other 56% were not hindered by lack of money. Either they were not good enough students, or they saw no need to bother, but I don't know which. I wonder why nowadays 77% of them get college degrees.

A US government memo acknowledged that force-feeding prisoners violates international law. This may exculpate a nurse who refused to do force feeding and is now facing charges of "refusal to be cruel and inhumane".

Donors pledged 3 billion dollars of aid to the countries hit by Ebola virus but have really given only 40% of that.

If they had sent money faster, they could have ended the epidemic sooner.

The UK's "anti-terrorism" bill would extend the UK's crackdown on freedom of expression, which has already gone dangerously far.