Category: ideas

“Some scientists are beginning to think that imagining an alternative reality might have ironic and tonic effects. Indeed, it might be a practical tool for strengthening commitment to country, workplace and relationships.”

“American scientists claim to have developed a cure for tinnitus, a condition that causes incessant ringing in the ears. Researchers have found that by stimulating the part of the brain that causes the disorder they were able to make the ringing go away – at least for, er, rats.”

“‘It used to be thought that the immune system and the nervous system were worlds apart,’ says [one researcher]. Now it seems the immune system, and infections that stimulate it, can influence our moods, memory and ability to learn.”

“There were big, economically vibrant cities filled with smart people all around the globe – so why did the Industrial Revolution hit Europe and America first? According to [Deirdre] McCloskey, it was only there that what she calls the ‘bourgeois revaluation’ persuaded ordinary people not only that they could be entrepreneurs, but also that their neighbors would respect them for it.”

“Unfortunately, this kind of technological romanticism relies on false historical analogies and sloppy thinking. Modern communications technologies are already being deployed as new forms of repression.”

“The attraction of Nietzsche to socially maladjusted young men” – such as the would-be assassin of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords – “is obvious, but it isn’t exactly simple. … If your social world fails to appreciate your singularity and tells you that you’re a loser, reading Nietzsche can steel you in your secret conviction that, no, I’m a genius, or at least very special, and everyone else is the loser.”

“There are no instincts, if by instinct we mean behaviors that we perform without needing to learn to perform them. Can you think of anything we do without learning to do it? … No, the question we should ask is not whether there is an instinct to kill, but rather, whether killing is something that we value. … We value much more than we judge to be worth valuing … [and] we, as a people, do value killing.”

“At least theoretically, open source could also resolve the main dilemma that bedevils innovation policy. On the one hand, most inventors need incentives to keep inventing. On the other, the social value of an invention is maximised if anyone–not just those willing to pay for it–can use it. Open source seems to satisfy both conditions.”

“Fruit flies have solved a computing problem that has vexed computer scientists for decades.”

“To play Angry Birds, you must use a catapult to lob little birds at structures in the hope of knocking them down on pigs. … Predicting parabolas is something humans just seem to find intriguing. How else do you explain golf?” Yet, with one piscine exception, “no other animal uses parabolic trajectories.”