Category: ideas

Nope. “That analogy needs to die. It needs to be drowned in the world’s largest bathtub. It needs a George R.R. Martin–esque bloodbath of a demise.”

When I said: “could you relate cultural evolution to biological evolution”, that’s where I think there’s a fudge or a missing rung. I don’t understand what you mean, because your starting point is that there is no you and me outside our brains.”

Immanuel Kant defined the Enlightenment as the “progress of mankind toward improvement” through the “freedom to make public use of one’s reason on every point,” and Vincenzo Ferrone claims it is this critical process that has driven public opinion and politics, giving us the language of human rights, tolerance, and individual liberty.

“Refining earlier research, a newly published study finds innovative people are indeed more likely than most to cross ethical boundaries—but only after they have been engaged in creative work. According to a research team led by Ke Michael Mai, a creative frame of mind enables one to come up with compelling justifications for bad behavior.”

“Reminding participants of a time when they experienced awe … increased their tendencies to endorse ethical decisions across a variety of scenarios.”

“We are once again living in a go-go time for tech, but there are few signs that the most consequential fruits of the boom have reached the masses. Instead, the boom is characterized by a rise in so-called on-demand services aimed at the wealthy and the young.”

Those skeptical of basic income might ask: If you give people enough to live on, won’t they stop working? Won’t they get lazy? Evidence from pilot studies by Guy Standing, a professor of development studies at the University of London and a co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network, points the other way.“When people stop working out of fear, they become more productive,” Standing says.

For a start, almost of us tell little lies, but few tell major whoppers. We lie to ourselves a lot, too. Even animals lie. But there’s a good way – an embarrassingly obvious one – to get people to lie less.

“There is a very simple reason why it’s so easy for the names of new acquaintances to slip right out of your head within moments of being introduced: Names are kind of meaningless.”

“Spoiler Shield comes as a Chrome extension and an app for iOS and Android. It creates a special version of your Facebook and Twitter feeds with all of the annoying spoilers removed.”