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IDEAS

Francis Fukuyama Famously Declared The End Of History. Well…

For Fukuyama, the demise of the Soviet Union testified to the “total exhaustion of viable systemic alternatives” to––and thus, the “unabashed victory”––of “economic and political liberalism.” - Hedgehog Review

Why Thinking Rationally Is Such A Challenge

It’s not that we don’t think—we are constantly reading, opining, debating—but that we seem to do it on the run, while squinting at trolls in our phones. - The New Yorker

Why Intellectuals Have Such Lowly Public Status

The general public in the United States sees intellectuals as disconnected from their everyday struggles and concerns. From this perspective, intellectuals don’t actually work like the laborers amongst us, but are engaged in a kind of elitist moralizing. - 3 Quarks Daily

The Hottest, Weirdest Thing In The Game World Right Now

It's a board game. About birds. - Slate

The Damage The ‘Nation Of Immigrants’ Rhetoric Does To The United States

"Multiculturalism was the response to civil rights demands, which required a revised narrative of U.S. history. For this scheme to work—and affirm U.S. historical progress—Indigenous nations and communities had to be left out of the picture or somehow woven into the story." - Boston Review

Why/How We Die Badly

Death catches too many of us unawares and unprepared these days, because we prefer to look away, to deny the approach of the one most undeniable event. - The Point

You Believe In Privacy? Turns Out We Believe In Convenience More

Despite this surge in support for privacy, we’re looking at a situation where routine surveillance of citizens will continue to become normalized—not through coercion, but through convenience. - Fast Company

Would Extinction Be Such A Bad Thing?

Since we are considering whether extinction might be better than continuing to exist, the question arises whether some pains could be so great that they outweigh any number of pleasures and other goods. - New Statesman

How Will The Humanities Record The COVID Plague?

 The account by the Greek historian and general, Thucydides (460-400BC), of how the Athenians responded to their virulent plague in the fifth century, directly or indirectly influenced how many later historians in antiquity described plagues. - The Conversation

We’re Being Cajoled To Be Positive. It’s Not Helpful

The pressure to try to adopt positivity as a constant state of being has begun to feel exhausting. Some have gone as far as to call it “toxic positivity,” which may seem contradictory. - The Walrus

Why Are Very Smart People Sometimes Very Stupid?

What exactly is stupidity? How does it relate to morality: can you be morally good and stupid, for example? - Psyche

Wanna Be Creative When You’re Old?

Dare to dawdle; to create without purpose; to be mediocre, even outright bad, at whatever it is you want to try. In short, let yourself waste time, as if you were young again and too immortal to know any better. Yes, this can and will be terrifying. - The New York Times

Offloading Our Brains

The framing of the brain–body complex as a borderless thinking apparatus is interesting, bringing together a wide range of research, from education and business practice to psychology and cognitive neuroscience. - Nature

The Art Of Distraction

It hardly matters how committed you are to making the best use of your limited time if, day after day, your attention gets wrenched away by things you never wanted to focus on. - The Guardian

Artists Aren’t Just Born, They’re Made

If you want to make digital art, you need to learn to code. A training in film will help with moving-image art. So much is obvious. But today we’re in thrall to a vacuous Romanticism that insists artists are born not made. - The Guardian

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