Category: ideas

There’s a difference between a harassment campaign and suffering the consequences of hateful behaviour. Clearly, we all understand that there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed, a point in which a person should no longer be in a position of power and influence. The problem is that we disagree on where, exactly, that line is. – Forbes

As the heart, lungs, gut and other organs transmit information to the brain, they affect how we perceive and interact with our environment in surprisingly profound ways. Recent studies of the heart in particular have given scientists new insights into the role that the body’s most basic processes play in defining our experience of the world. – Quanta

“As a general insurrection erupts against America’s foundational inequities, and a British national identity propped up by fantasies of empire finally splinters, it isn’t enough to lament the ‘authoritarian populism’ of Trump and Johnson, to blame ‘identity politics’ and the ‘intolerant left’, or to claim moral superiority over China, Russia and Iran. The early winners of modern history now seem to be its biggest losers, with their delegitimised political systems, grotesquely distorted economies and shattered social contracts.” – London Review of Books

The Romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote of ‘the sensation of sublimity’ as ‘a comprehensive awe’. Psychologists refer to the sublime as an awe-like aesthetic emotion. Without the positive affect, there is no experience of the sublime. But even if the sublime has to be felt, it is still a response to something about the object, such as its rare vastness or daunting power. It’s a bit like how colour is both response-dependent and objective at the same time. – Psyche

It is strange that “cancel culture” has become a project of the left, which spent the 20th century fighting against capricious firings of “troublesome” employees. A lack of due process does not become a moral good just because you sometimes agree with its targets. We all, I hope, want to see sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination decrease. But we should be aware of the economic incentives here, particularly given the speed of social media, which can send a video viral, and see onlookers demand a response, before the basic facts have been established. – The Atlantic

To hold public officials accountable, in other words, “intelligent men”—all people, in fact—need reliable reporting about the activities of government and politicians. But these days, local news is withering in many places across America. – The Atlantic

Well sure, when you’re working at the office, you think you might prefer working from home. And then a global pandemic hits. “We adjusted to being, in Laurence Scott’s phrase, ‘four-dimensional humans.’ We learned that this fourth dimension, online, bears only a deceptive resemblance to the three-dimensional world. They do things differently there. In this world of seemingly limitless connectivity, life feels both too sociable and too solitary. Online, we are constantly available to others but they remain tantalisingly unreachable to us.” – The Guardian (UK)

All clear cases of awe have the following two components: an experience of vastness, and a need for cognitive accommodation of this vastness. You might feel awe for things that are physically large, but also for ideas that are conceptually vast. – Aeon

“You can criticize what people say, you can argue about platforms. But it seems like some of the excesses of the moment are leading people to be silenced in a new way.” – The New York Times

The Brooklyn Bridge, for example, was originally built for trains, bicycles and pedestrians. More than 400,000 people a day on average once crossed it. Then it was “modernized” for cars. Now it handles less than half that number of people. As recently as the 1950s, overnight street parking was still illegal in New York. Some 11,000 miles of New York City streets are now given over to parked cars, 10 times the space devoted to bike lanes. – The New York Times