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“An artist friend of mine got me an AI-generated painting as a gift. I can see she tried to personalize the concept, and it’s nicely framed, but part of me still feels a little cheated. Is that fair?”—No ReturnsDear No Returns,There’s something implicitly paradoxical about feeling “cheated” by a present. A gift is, by definition, something that comes into your possession at no cost or effort, an object that exists outside the economic concepts of debt and fair exchange. But the fact that these offerings do often leave us…

“Everyone's so gung ho about therapy these days. I've been curious myself, but I'm not ready to commit to paying for it. A mental health app seems like it could be a decent stepping stone. But are they actually helpful?”—Mindful SkepticDear Mindful,The first time you open Headspace, one of the most popular mental wellness apps, you are greeted with the image of a blue sky—a metaphor for the unperturbed mind—and encouraged to take several deep breaths. The instructions that appear across the firmament tell you precisely…

“I'm a white person, and despite there being a range of skin tones available for emoji these days, I still just choose the original Simpsons-esque yellow. Is this insensitive to people of color?”—True ColorsDear True,I don't think it's possible to determine what any group of people, categorically, might find insensitive—and I won't venture to speak, as a white person myself, on behalf of people of color. But your trepidation about which emoji skin tone to use has evidently weighed on many white people's minds since 2015,…