What they are being told is this: In order for this economy to thrive, we don’t actually need you. We don’t need your labor, because robots and a few college kids will do ever more of the work. To which the unneeded must reply, “Yeah, but what am I supposed to do?” The answer to that question is becoming...
An efficient memory system involves “a finely orchestrated balancing act between data storage and data disposal.” To retain an encounter, deliberate attention alone will get you most of the way there. - The New Yorker
This sifting and ranking process results in a News Feed that is unique to you, like a fingerprint. But of course, you don’t see the algorithm at work, and you have limited insight into why and how the content that appears was selected and what, if anything, you could do to alter it. And it is in this gap...
One review of the science of loneliness found that people with stronger social relationships have a 50 per cent increased likelihood of survival over a set period of time compared with those with weaker social connections. Other studies have linked loneliness to cardiovascular disease, inflammation, and depression. - Wired
"Around every corner, trauma, like the unwanted prize at the bottom of a cereal box. The trauma of puberty, of difference, of academia, of women’s clothing. When I asked Twitter whether the word’s mainstreaming was productive, I was struck by two replies. First, overapplying the term might dilute its meaning, robbing “people who have experienced legitimate trauma of language...
There was no single Enlightenment message: instead it was a cacophony of voices, speaking and writing in all the languages of Europe. There were great figures, many of whom are still familiar today, whose names were honoured in salons from Portugal to Austria and France to Sweden. Diderot, Voltaire and Kant were household names, but Ritchie Robertson argues for...
A critic wonders, in the wake of two mass shootings after a year of mass death and destruction. "Every day I’m thankful for the work I get to do. I am paid to watch, to think, to write. But this week, like so many others recently, it has felt pointless, even silly, to analyze fictional stories when real people...
Amal El-Mohtar: "While the animal-people of the game speak incomprehensible approximations of their textual dialogue — not unlike hearing language in a dream — and the jaunty soundtrack provides comedy noises when you get stung by wasps or bitten by mosquitoes, the sounds of your character moving physically through the island are astonishingly immersive. ... The visual cues may...
Truly. Well, except for the occasional disappearance, murder, and the like. But in pandemic times, we might feel like we understand them. "All they had was each other and the sea. Rooms piled one on top of the other, a couple of strides across and that’s it, no way out, nowhere else to go." - The Guardian (UK)
To be fair, not that many. But a few found real success while every other vehicle for their work was shut down. For instance, some of those "who pulled out such things as sewing machines and cookie cutters in an effort to make money over the last year were met with unexpected success. Hundreds of budding entrepreneurs started selling homemade...
Sure, audacious goals can be energizing. But a fixation on them can lead to big disappointments. Worse, when your eyes are constantly on the horizon, you can miss what is right in front of you. For happiness, we need a better approach to setting goals—one that sets us up for success in life and lets us enjoy the here...
The implications surrounding a human brain-preservation technique that can keep the entire connectome intact are profound. If indeed, you are your connectome, defined by all the memories and essences of you imprinted in its structure, then it’s essentially you that’s preserved. Your connectomic self. - Aeon
Deborah Cullinan: "When we finally arrive in this future, we, the people, will be brazen about the power of artists and of art and creativity to change everything. We will have, at last, comprehended and put to action the real potential of our own strength as creative souls." - Howlround
"Why should storytelling matter so much? Because it conditions us to respond to society. Artists teach us what to take notice of and what to turn away from, whom to empathize with and whom to tune out. Plato thought this power too consequential to be entrusted to poets, whom he would ban from his ideal republic, leaving the politics...
"On the face of it, many of the familiar characteristics of animals and plants that we see around us would simply disappear if the organisms in an ecosystem were all super artificial intelligences. Oxford professor Nick Bostrom, for instance, suggests that a community of artificial intelligences will be sharing information in such an effective and rigid way that many...
