Too much scrolling (of papyrus) in ancient Rome had the philosopher Seneca in search of an answer. His advice, “which he outlined in his Letters From a Stoic: Devote your attention to one idea a day.” - The New York Times
“The Odyssey – the story of a warrior’s homecoming, his long and tortuous journey to reintegrate himself within his own household – has passed into the bloodstream of many storytelling traditions,” from Finding Nemo to Game of Thrones. - The Guardian (UK)
"Growing up in Puerto Rico in the late 19th century, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was told by his teacher that Black people had no significant history or accomplishments.” Just how wrong was that teacher? Very. - The Guardian (UK)
“The literate era will prove to be a brief interlude between the oral and digital ages. Reading shaped the modern mind. Its disappearance will reshape it. Cognitive scientists are starting to understand what these changes might look like.” - The Atlantic
“When researchers have actually tried to document the size of cultural differences over time, the picture is far more complicated – and more interesting.” - Psyche
“The brain initiates voluntary action unconsciously: our conscious sense that we have decided to act is actually the result of this brain activity.” It’s possible that our only choice is in deciding not to do something. - 3 Quarks
“Since the (Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX) scandal, the movement’s organizations have shied away from the limelight and become extremely concerned with PR. For several years, their growth has been severely curtailed. But they survived. And the new AI money has given EA a chance to come back larger than ever before.” - New York Magazine
Why should a name matter so much? Psychologists have a term that might help explain what’s happening here: prestige bias. Developed by the cultural evolution theorists Joseph Henrich and Francisco J Gil-White, the concept describes the human tendency to preferentially attend to, learn from, and value the outputs of high-status individuals. - Psyche
At the time, Americans did not understand that they were living through the largest energy transition in human history. Instead, they perceived a series of disconnected events. Unable to discern or conceptualize an underlying cause, they often declared the transformations around them were “kaleidoscopic.” - MIT Press
Using social media applications to digest bite-sized educational content actually reduces a person’s ability to remember the information, according to new research. - Psypost
A.I. labs, and the related nonprofits around them, have been recruiting workers as versed in Consequentialism and John Stuart Mill as in neural networks and reinforcement learning. - The New York Times
Some called for defunding the national public broadcaster and others bemoaned the failures of successive federal governments to properly invest in the CBC. Many other Canadians, however, mourned the loss while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief. - The Conversation
“What is the sense that something escapes the conditions of knowledge? It is, I think, the sense, or fact, that our primary relation to the world is not one of knowing it.” - The Point
Art forms that once expressed creators’ personal visions are reduced to fulfilling the audience’s cravings. In theory, I understand why some people say AI is just another creative tool, like the camera or the keyboard. In practice, that tool is filling our world with the ugly, frictionless, disposable content we’ve quickly come to call “slop.” - The Atlantic
