English Conversation Course

The Trolley Problem Did you heard about The Trolley Problem ? It is a thought experiment in ethics. The general form of the problem is this: You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up people lying on the tracks. You are standing next to a lever that controls a switch. If you pull the lever, the trolley will be redirected onto a side track, and the five people on the main track will be saved. However, there is a single person lying on the side track. You have two options:  Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.  Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. So which is the more ethical option? And there is another variation of this problem called: The Fat Man Problem As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by putting something very heavy in front of it. As it happens, there is...

The act of positive thinking is a creative act that trumps the brain's negativity bias. Poet Danielle Jacobson drops some rhymes in support of her life-changing idea. Please, watch the video and answer the questions below: 1.    What do you think about her speech? 2.    How do you turn negativity into positivity? 3.    What type of activities brings your peace? Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRiScDpGGCE

A lot of people complain about having not enough time. Life is very basic, we make it unbelievably complicated. People lack the ability to put their life in perspective, they don't want to organize their time, make a plan and move towards dreams. I strongly believe in words: “An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan” and I want to share with you 5 tips that helped me to become more productive. 🔥 Do the hardest thing first As we know, harder things take more effort. According to statistics So why we need to keep  them for the end of the day? Important things are usually the hardest, so do them first before you have become unproductive and tired. It would help to avoid negative impact on  your work, heath and relationships. 📝  Make a list with goals a day before                                     How can it help? The difference between successful and un...

Every day we meet a lot of people. Some of them we know, some of them we don’t. In the past few years, there has been a new world for connecting with people and making a lot of friends. This world is networking. So what is networking? How can efficiently grow our network of friends and how to use it properly? This is nothing new , people with a wide network were always known, but nowadays it is especially important. I suggest watching this short video about networking and how to use it. Questions: Is it hard for you to make new connections? How often do you talk to your old friends/colleagues? Do you think, having a big network of friends help s to deal with a problem in everyday life? Or now it is not so important as it used to be before?

I am a huge fan of computer games. Even though I have my job, my friend and some other stuff to do I am trying to play a little bit every day. But there are some people who decided to make their passion for computer games their job and that way they have become professional esport players. A few years ago such a phrase like “professional esport player” would rose only a lot of laughs, but not now. Why? Esport is getting bigger and bigger every year. Let’s have a look at Twitch. Every day a lot (I mean really) a lot of people are playing games and stream s their play to the platform and even more people are watching them , how they play games and what t he do. Streamers are becoming more and more popular and where is popularity ,  there is money. Nowadays being a successful streamer with a thousand or even millions of subscribers means that you could live ou r lives as you wish. There is also another group of people. The professionals. People who signed contracts with e...

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There is an unspoken rule that every city dweller knows, it's the split. Every escalator is divided into two sides. One side is for the standers and the other side is for the walkers. This escalator etiquette has been established in cities all over the world, Warsaw, Tokyo, Moscow, Washington DC. It's a delicate balance that's been struck, forced out of a battle between the walkers and the standers, that's been going on as long as escalators have been around. Escalator walkers and standers have learned to accommodate or at least tolerate each other. But this split isn't the best solution because it's inefficient and unsafe. A better way has been proven through research and recommended by escalator manufacturers and public transit officials. But changing people's escalator behavior isn't easy. Officials know because they've tried and failed. Because these two groups insist on using the escalator as they see fit. So what's the ...

Eating meat is in the Eastern Europe's DNA.  For the whole my life, I was eating meat, and didn't think that I'm doing something wrong. But for the last decade eating meat became  associated with cancer,  strokes, ecological problems and climate changes. So I raised a question, is eating the meat actually bad thing to do, or it is just a new trend that don't have foundation?  In this video Kurzgesagt, the most famous contributor of this blog, is trying to show pros and cons of meat production and consumption. Questions to answer: 1. What are you thinking about meat consumption? 2. Did this video influenced your opinion about eating meat? 3. Have you ever tried vegan diet? If yes, how was it? If no, do you plan to try?

Chernobyl myths Already acclaimed as the highest-rated series in TV history, Chernobyl has gained higher rates than The Sopranos and Breaking Bad as all of its five episodes rose to the top of IMDb's top 10 for the database’s “Top Rated TV Shows” list. And so, here I present a few common and popular myths about Chernobyl. 1. There was a nuclear explosion in Chernobyl In Chernobyl there were two explosions - caused by steam which exposed the core and damaged it, and hydrogen, which destroyed the building of the reactor hall and caused further damage to the core. And the biggest contamination was caused by the fire of graphite moderator blocks lasting several days. 2. Strongly irradiated people were "shining", firefighters were "fried alive by radiation", etc. They died of radiation sickness after a few weeks. Only doses above 2500-5000 REM can cause death in a few hours-days. Such incidents happened in the history of nuclear research, b...