Category: ideas

“In the 1990s, David Gelernter predicted that the internet would be a perfect environment for thinking, both serene and lively. “My idea in Mirror Worlds was that the computer screen should be like the still surface of a moving pond,” he explained. That didn’t happen. The internet gives us the news and assists our research, but it is mostly used for low purposes, a glorified fidget spinner, trolling device, and masturbation aid.”

“According to an apocryphal exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, the only difference between the rich and the rest of us is that they have more money. But is that the only difference? We didn’t used to think so. We used to think that having vast sums of money was bad and in particular bad for you — that it harmed your character, warping your behavior and corrupting your soul. We thought the rich were different, and different for the worse. Today, however, we seem less confident of this.”

“Scientific evidence does link the creative process to certain patterns of brain activity – and it is possible to ‘train’ some of these these patterns the way you would build a muscle. So yes, you can learn to be more creative in certain ways. But that’s just one side of the neurological coin.”

Lila MacLellan takes a terrifying recent near-miss at SFO as a departure point for a discussion of what’s called “just culture” or “psychological safety” in the workplace. “It turns out that no one wakes up in the morning and jumps out of bed because they can’t wait to get to work today to look ignorant, intrusive, incompetent or negative.”

“Take a moment to think about the mythologies informing your purpose. I’ll reflect on mine, too. The universe, however, won’t. And that might be the most meaningful distinction of all.”

“In a cultural age that’s decidedly pro-positivity, the pressure to suppress or camouflage negative feelings is real. However, psychological studies have shown that acceptance of those negative emotions is the more reliable route to regaining and maintaining peace of mind. … Acceptance of one’s dark emotions is now backed by a body of evidence connecting the habit to better emotional resilience, and fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.”

Mark Reiff: “[The wedding-cake case] brings this supposed conflict between marriage equality and religious liberty to the fore. In my view, however, characterizing what is going on here as presenting a conflict between marriage equality and religious liberty is incorrect. To see why, it will be helpful to get familiar with some of the terms that political philosophers like myself use when we talk about liberties and rights.”

In 1937, at the age of 21, Claude Shannon showed how binary circuits could do logic, could even appear to “think”—the discovery behind all of our digital computers today. In 1948, at the age of 32, he published “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” a paper that has been called “the Magna Carta of the Information Age”—in other words, a founding document that inaugurated an era.

“The problem isn’t just using the word populist as a euphemism for racism and ethnic chauvinism. The term also helps to reproduce the very ideology that has trapped white working-class people by reinforcing the idea that they are not supposed to experience the same social and economic problems as everyone else.”

“Lives of artificial bliss handed to us on a platter of biochemical and neuroelectronic manipulation may well turn out to be stifling, unchallenging lives, and the human imagination, if it is not stunted and stupefied by virtual reality and other illusions, is likely to find unpredictable ways to subvert them. We will have found out that gods are never happy.”