There’s nothing like getting caught in a giggle loop, where the desire to laugh builds until it bursts out at a disastrous moment. Only then do we often realize that laughter is a rather strange phenomenon. - Sapiens
The idea of there being something fundamentally stable about an artist, independent of outside forces, makes sense. It’s what allows them to experiment with style and genre and persona and still be legible to their audiences. - The New York Times
Instead of functioning as a means of top-down compliance and control, A.I. can help us understand ourselves, act on our preferences and realize our aspirations. In this way, perfect recall isn’t just a tool for remembering the past. It’s also a compass that provides a clearer understanding of our goals and improves our decision-making. - The New York Times
They climbed no mountains, and were aided directly in getting visas by Labor Secretary Frances Perkins. But, to be fair, Maria did arrive from a convent with her guitar. - Slate
“Novels can’t be a one-size-fits-all solution, nor are books the only way to get closer to humanity, or imagine a better world, or to feel empathy for someone you may never meet. A book could fix a man, but it’s not the only way to, and it’s not a sure thing.” - LitHub
We should embrace conscious ignorance—an intellectual humility that helps us recognize our own limitations while remaining receptive to the knowledge of others. This form of ignorance, like the Socratic “I know that I know nothing,” is the foundation of true competence. - CJR
Every single aspect of human life across the broadest categories of human organization is being reoriented around the pursuit of attention. It is now the defining resource of our age. - The Atlantic
The more time you spend having your mind changed online, the more you might sense that there’s something odd about the way in which opinions tend to be formed and held today. To any question you can ask, there’s apparently already an answer; in fact, there seem to be more answers than questions. - The New Yorker
Survey participants placed the value of online reviews above price, free shipping, brand, and recommendations from family and friends. The survey found 94 percent of customers ranked it as the single most important factor, and four out of five said they won’t shop on a website unless it has customer reviews. - The Walrus
What is fiction in the first place? Despite common usage, philosophers agree that we can’t equate ‘fiction’ with ‘false content’. On the one hand, the inclusion of falsity isn’t enough to render a work fiction. - Aeon
Haven’t critics freaked out about the brain-scrambling power of everything from pianofortes to brightly colored posters? Isn’t there, in fact, a long section in Plato’s Phaedrus in which Socrates argues that writing will wreck people’s memories? - The New Yorker
Broadly, Project Liberty is part of the movement toward a decentralized social Internet, where no single network controls users’ data and users can instead move their online identities and communities from one network to another without having to start from scratch. - The New Yorker
