"For me, at least, fandom has started to feel like a phenomenon akin to cryptocurrency or economic populism—a history-shaping force that we’d be foolish to ignore." - The New Yorker
Most metropolises are overrun with ghosts; from New York to London, Mumbai to Shanghai, a simple Google search throws up an encyclopaedia’s worth of results about urban legends based on things that go bump in the dark. - Aeon
"It’s really quite strange that people from so long ago seem to have understood so much. And, if you’re looking at things like sexual relations, it’s amazing: there’s hardly a permutation that has not been covered by a myth. They knew everything." - The New Yorker
There are – allegedly – occasions when we come to understand something about the world via a peculiar kind of experiment that takes place only in the mind. Thought experiments, as they’re known, are an exercise of pure imagination. - Aeon
When we talk about labor-saving devices, whose labor is saved, exactly? It’s women’s labor. But during the industrial era, the household work traditionally performed by men became more completely replaced by technology than the household work traditionally performed by women. - 3 Quarks Daily
The 404 is the Los Angeles Times' new Finsta - slang for "fake instagram," usually an account for a closer group of friends or family - and is staffed not to spread the paper's journalism but "continually inventing new types of experimental content." OK, #cool. - Los Angeles Times
We hear fluent speech, we think "fluent thought." But wait: "The human brain is hardwired to infer intentions behind words" - even where there is none. - Fast Company
"Suppose we are now willing to regard it as a live possibility that we really are living in a simulation. How much would it matter? Should it profoundly shake our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it?" - Slate
Or at least that was Milan's approach, even before the pandemic, when the city started turning 250,000 square feet of parking lots into playgrounds, picnic areas, and other car-free zones that turned out to be a true boon when COVID hit. - Fast Company
Aldous Huxley or George Orwell? Well, we thought it was Orwell. But now? "We are back to the future. Back to the Brave New World narcotic of media content that takes our mind off everything." - LitHub
Magic and mystery are what make jokes funny and creativity so tantalizing. Revealing how a magic trick is done or giving away a punchline will not win you any friends. So, as much as we profess interest in divining the “secret” to creative thinking, we’re also wary. - Washington Post
We shouldn’t be dismissive of people who believe in pseudoscience. In many cases they’re victims who have fallen for disinformation that’s been put forward by someone else, often people who stand to profit in some way. - Nautilus
It seems to me that the one indisputable thing we can say about our current illiberalisms, of the left and the right: All illiberalisms are intrinsically mechanistic. It is always their goal for mechanization to take command—as long as mechanization serves their ends. - Hedgehog Review
Pragmatism emerged in the US in the late 1800s as a response to the Enlightenment push for absolute truth. Pragmatists — like William James and John Dewey — were less interested in certainty and more concerned with immediate experience. They wanted to know what worked for ordinary human beings. - Vox
Where we’ve arrived instead is somewhere more foreign than artificial consciousness. In a strange way, a program like PaLM would be easier to comprehend if it simply were sentient. We at least know what the experience of consciousness entails. - The Atlantic
