There is the giving up that we can admire and aspire to, and the giving up that profoundly unsettles us. What, for example, does real hope or real despair require us to relinquish? What exactly do we imagine we are doing when we give something up? - The Guardian
The more societies we look at, the more it falls to pieces. Confronted with inconvenient evidence, we are being forced to retell our own origin story. In doing so, we are also rethinking what a society can be. - New Scientist
If a four-day workweek were made the federal standard, working less would no longer be a disruptive experiment undertaken by a few startups. Instead, it would be an option that employers would have to justify not offering—a justification that might become harder to sustain as more studies indicate the potential benefits of fewer workdays. - The New Yorker
If you believe that culture is an imaginative human endeavor, then there should be nothing to fear, except that — what do you know? — a lot of humans have not been imagining anything more substantial. - The New York Times
Typically, most personality changes occur in young and older adulthood, with middle age appearing to be the period of the greatest stability. Changes in personality can be driven by the natural ageing process or the influence of external factors, such as major life events and daily interactions with other people. - Psyche
They will remain rich and powerful, and they will continue to have many bright and competent people working within their ambit. And yet their authority will grow more brittle and their appeal more sectarian. - Compact Magazine
It is worth remembering the vast majority of what we call free-speech issues have little basis in the First Amendment, which only forbids the abridgment of speech by the government, not private organizations like magazines, cultural centers, or Hollywood production companies. - New York Magazine
Among all the questions that enable us to orient ourselves in the world and in our common lives – who? what? how many? where? when? – this one, “why?“ seems necessary for a certain meaning to emerge, whatever the sense we give to the word. - 3 Quarks Daily
There is "value of parody and satire in human communication. This is a very old format for making a social critique, often used quite strategically. A really famous case which predates the internet is Jonathan Swift’s (1729) pamphlet, “A Modest Proposal.” - Nautilus
A.I. fans argue that if artists ignore ethical questions and embrace A.I., we could produce more. “A.I. could help you write 100 books in a year!” they say. My question is always: Will A.I. produce 100 times as many readers? - The New Republic
"There was a time in my life when it was trivial to sign up to a new social network and pick up its patterns and mores on the fly. Now, I feel exhausted by the prospect." - The New York Times
The very idea of popularity is up for debate: Is that trend really viral? Did everyone see that post, or is it just my little corner of the internet? More than before, it feels like we’re holding a fun-house mirror up to the internet and struggling to make sense of the distorted picture. - The Atlantic (MSN)
Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it’s systematically reducing student achievement. - The Atlantic
Children start to distinguish fantasy from reality around preschool, but a belief in Santa Claus or Father Christmas usually lasts longer, to around seven or eight years old, according to research conducted in the United States in the 1980s and ’90s. - Psyche
