The power to see the future was previously limited to psychics and shamans. Now researchers (and, increasingly, anyone with a computer) use pattern recognition to precognitive ends, feeding their programs artifacts of the past to generate data on the future. – Hyperallergic
Category: ideas
Why Wealthy Art Collectors Are Turning Away From Abstract Art
The art that is doing well in the market provides a place of escape from society. Right now, that’s an escape to rules and boundaries and to easily digestible culture. But the inverse is also true: when there is greater social stability, even ennui, as there was in mid-century America, the preferred art becomes that which allows for a flight into messiness and multiple interpretations. Crucially, however, this current turn toward the figurative and its stabilities seems to be particular to the rich, to those who are actually buying the art. It has not always been so. – The Baffler
Why Are We Suddenly So Crazy For Cute?
“The craze for all things cute is motivated, most obviously, by the urge to escape from precisely such a threatening world into a garden of innocence in which childlike qualities arouse deliciously protective feelings, and bestow contentment and solace.” – Aeon
Why What You See Is Enormously Dependent On What You Believe
“Psychologists and neuroscientists have long wondered what strategies our brains might use to overcome the problems of ambiguity and pace. There is a growing appreciation that both challenges could be overcome using prediction. The key idea here is that observers do not simply rely on the current input coming in to their sensory systems, but combine it with ‘top-down’ expectations about what the world contains.” – Aeon
A Plea For Reality: Should Bots Have To Declare Their “Fake” Identities?
On July 1st, California became the first state in the nation to try to reduce the power of bots by requiring that they reveal their “artificial identity” when they are used to sell a product or influence a voter. – The New Yorker
The “Pursuit Of Happiness” In The Collective Sense (Rather Than Personal)
The topic of what Hannah Arendt called “public happiness” is largely ignored by those who think and write about contemporary culture. Apparently, politics and happiness don’t go together any more. Collective happiness — as Socrates intended it, as a shared political experience — is largely out of the picture. – The New York Times
Philanthropy Seems Good. But Is It Also Part Of The Problem?
“Philanthropy is an exercise in power, by definition by the wealthy. It’s an attempt to have some public influence. And in that respect, it’s a plutocratic element in the democratic setting.” – The Atlantic
The Pursuit Of Happiness: An Ultimately Futile Exercise In The Era Of Self-Gratification
“We trick ourselves into thinking we know what is needed to be happy: a promotion, a new car, a vacation, a good-looking partner. We believe this even though we know there are plenty of people with good jobs, new cars, vacations, and attractive partners, and many of them are miserable. But they, too, imagine their misery can be fixed by a bottle of Pétrus or a yacht or public adulation.” – Lapham’s Quarterly
How Medieval History Is Being Used To Fuel Conspiracy Theories
“Simple stereotypes about the Middle Ages aren’t just wrong; they have become weapons for white supremacy. As the great spire of Notre Dame fell, I knew the disaster, whatever the cause turned out to be, would fuel incendiary anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories based on white supremacist reconstructions of Western European history.” – Pacific Standard
My But We’ve Become So Literal (When Sometimes A Metaphor Would be Better)
We want to quantify, data-fy and measure everything. And if not, then see literal images that we can quickly grasp. Are we losing the ability to imagine (and to dream)? – Aeon