“The information economy in which we are now living allows us to break the link between improving living standards and unsustainable growth. In the process, we have the chance to realise some of the most appealing aspects of the ‘degrowth’ idea proposed by the Club of Rome.”
Category: ideas
How People Learn To Become Resilient
“One of the central elements of resilience … is perception: Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as an opportunity to learn and grow? ‘Events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic.’ … The experience [of trauma] isn’t inherent in the event; it resides in the event’s psychological construal.”
‘Image Overload’ – It’s A Thing, And With Real Consequences
“As we snap, store and communicate with thousands of images on our phones and computers, a number of researchers and theorists are already beginning to point to some of the unintended consequences of this ‘image overload,’ which range from heightened anxiety to memory impairment.”
The Bitter Fight Over The Benefits Of Bilingualism
It’s been the general scientific consensus for several decades that bilingual people have stronger cognitive abilities, especially in executive function. But lately there have been attempts to replicate some of the classic studies in the field – with entirely different results. And the argument (like so many in academia) is getting ugly.
Zebel: How The Arts Could Have Greater Impact On Our Culture
“We have an opportunity right now, to really change how our culture values art, creativity and artists themselves. I believe we can do it by being an integral part of building new, more equitable and sustainable structures and systems that work for not only artists, but for lots of other people as well. To capture this opportunity, we need to look beyond small artist-specific solutions to systems level problems, and instead engage in the bigger, most urgent questions of our time.”
High Five! On The Nature Of Awesomeness And Suckiness
In an essay that makes actual sense of phrases like “the ethics of awesomeness” and “[the] existential disposition to suck,” philosopher Nick Riggle explains why being awesome doesn’t simply mean excellence and someone or something isn’t merely bad when it sucks.
In Defence Of Pretentiousness
“Pretentiousness is always someone else’s crime. It’s never a felony in the first person. … The pretentious flaws of others affirm your own intellectual or aesthetic expertise. Simultaneously, their fakery highlights the contours of your down-to-earth character and virtuous ordinariness. … It is axiomatic that pretentiousness makes no one look good. But pretension is measured using prejudiced metrics.”
What Is The Self? It Depends
“We have different conceptions of the self the world over not because selves differ, but because at different times and places people have more or less concern with different aspects of selfhood. They provide different answers to the question ‘What is the self?’ because that apparently singular question in fact contains any number of different ones.”
Mindlessly Engaged? What Happens To Culture When We’re Addicted To Our Devices
“What does it mean to shift overnight from a society in which people walk down the street looking around to one in which people walk down the street looking at machines? We wouldn’t be always clutching smartphones if we didn’t believe they made us safer, more productive, less bored, and were useful in all of the ways that a computer in your pocket can be useful.”
Studies: Creative Brains Work Differently
“The common traits that people across all creative fields seemed to have in common were an openness to one’s inner life; a preference for complexity and ambiguity; an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray; the ability to extract order from chaos; independence; unconventionality; and a willingness to take risks.”