Category: ideas

How is it that a mere apology can turn long-held assumptions upside down in a way that practical solutions, such as more social support or even financial assistance, simply can’t do alone? Those one-dimensional symbols, such as statues and flags, can give way to richer, more complete stories that embrace empathy and respect. A sincere apology on a national scale can turn once-revered heroes, such as Confederate leaders, into villains, and once-despised outsiders, such as an enslaved people and their descendants, into human beings who have endured unimaginable injustices. – JSTOR

We tend to treat cities like the weather, using past patterns to predict outcomes over which we have no control. But the last few months have reminded us that cities are not givens, the status quo isn’t immovable, and citizens can force their elected officials to crash through bureaucracy and inertia. – New York Magazine

In a capitalist society, viewed from the point of view of consumers, cheap food looks like an unequivocal democratic good, because it enables people to feed themselves, even on relatively low incomes… The missing part of the picture, however, is that cheap food is also one of the factors pushing large swathes of the workforce into exploitation and poverty. – Times Literary Supplement

I work with civic data and teach about the power of data collection, so I want to believe that data (in the form of video footage depicting police brutality against Black people) can effect social change. But it is precisely because of my attachment to the power of data collection that I’m unconvinced video footage can solely, or even primarily, lead to meaningful change. – FiveThirtyEight

While it is certainly not inevitable that children lose their sense of wonder as they grow up, and while adults are in principle as capable of experiencing wonder as children, it is to be expected that, as the world becomes more and more familiar to children as they age, they will experience wonder less readily. – Psyche

Shifts in consumer behavior have been gnawing away at the classic enclosed suburban mall format for many years; then the pandemic completely upended in-person shopping. Converting commercial real estate to housing may be the best use of land in such an over-retailed country. Big shopping centers tend to be centrally located and connected to transit. – Bloomberg

For most people most of the time, our perception certainly feels real. But the notion that our senses capture an objective external reality can be dispelled by considering something as fundamental as colour, which can be culturally influenced and, even within a single culture, leave the population split between seeing the same picture of a dress as black-and-blue or white-and-gold. – Aeon

Driverless cars are catnip for the Silicon Valley monopolists. The average commute is dead space because their target is too busy driving to take in advertising or interact with any information-gathering devices. But what if the car becomes one of those devices? – New Statesman

Generally speaking, an innovation is more than an idea and more than an invention. Yet beyond that, things get confusing. We live in a moment when we’re barraged by new stuff every day — new phones, new foods, new surgical techniques. In the pandemic, we’re confronted, too, with new medical tests and pharmaceutical treatments. But which of these are true innovations and which are novel variations on old products? – Washington Post

Public funding was the way. However: “Back then there was even less agreement on a public role for creatives. The Writers’ Project assigned them a public role in producing travel guidebooks, histories, and life stories of everyday Americans, including thousands of narratives of formerly enslaved people. New Deal artists created landscapes, murals, street scenes, portraits, sculptures, and abstracts inspired by American life.” – LitHub