"Similar to the related terms of bureaucracy and meritocracy, hierarchy is a concept rife with negative connotations. Common sense might suggest that it is the elimination of hierarchies, from race and gender to those found in our political systems, that should be our common goal. Bell and Wang argue that hierarchies exist everywhere and rather than trying to stamp...
"When I saw QAnon, I knew exactly what it was and what it was doing. I had seen it before. I had almost built it before. It was gaming’s evil twin. A game that plays people. (cue ominous music)" - Medium
"We all forget things, of course – who your 6th-grade social studies teacher was or what you had for lunch a month ago are washed away by the river of time. Looking at memory alone (as some of Locke’s early critics did) is much too narrow a way to think about what it is to be psychologically connected to...
"In the extraordinary drama of America, fiction is paramount to preserving systemic structures of imbalance. That’s how it has been for centuries, and that's how Trump supporters would like it to remain. But that kind of fiction has no place in a healthy, stable democracy. It’s a contaminant and a cancer, a barrier to the remaking our country requires...
We have, in fact, become nicer and less violent as individuals. We may have domesticated ourselves by our choice of mates and by breeding out those who are most violent, or killing those who are most violent among us, like the way wolves have been domesticated into friendly dogs who sit on your lap. We may have become nicer...
The singularity of the now might appear to be a deep and profound insight. It’s the springboard for various more practical strategies for achieving enlightenment and self-enhancement. But the claim that it is always now is so trivial that it can’t support any interesting inference, and there are other ways of justifying these same strategies and practices. - Aeon
The entire population of the earth could live in a giant sustainable city occupying a fraction of the earth's surface, freeing the rest of the world for rewilding and the return of stolen lands, according to a new movie by architect Liam Young. - Dezeen
The overproduction of Ph.D.s has been an issue for years in the U.S., which has a higher rate of doctorate holders than almost any other rich country. - Bloomberg
Technology might have moved on, but the role of boredom in motivating change is no different for us in the 21st century. Yet not all change is equal. - Psyche
A cow sporting VR goggles is comedic as much as it is tragic. There’s horror, too, in that it may foretell our own alienated futures. After all, how different is our experience? We submit to emotion trackers. We log into biofeedback machines. We sign up for tracking and tracing. We let advertisers’ eyes watch us constantly and mappers store...
"There’s a difference between everyday selfishness and real narcissism – and there’s a distinction between a normal personality trait and the harmful, rare personality disorder. As the research around narcissism has evolved in recent years, psychologists and psychiatrists have learned more about these differences." - Psyche
Diego Salazar, former chair of the World's 50 Best Restaurants, has had a longer quarantine than many people. Sure, he and his wife order takeout - and it tastes great, but "I’d realize I was still missing everything about what once made me love food: the people who create it and the 'sobremesa' — the limitless chat after desserts, the...
A parent, working with what she's got - a kid eager to watch, an endless supply of streaming, critical faculties - explains by invoking Ben Brantley: "When we find ourselves isolated, and craving connection, we can find it (for a moment at least) though critical engagement with something wonderful someone has made for us. And thank god for WiFi."...
TV execs might say the reason is that audiences don't like to see death (which seems a little odd after the successes of Six Feet Under, but ... sure, network TV). A closer look reveals the driving force: "The real reason there was so little exploration of death in prime-time programming was that advertisers did not want their products...
