We can embrace marriage, hoping to transcend its contradictions, or reject it, hoping to find something better. Either way, we are likely to be disappointed.
Author: Ellen Willis | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Life & Society, Love, Relationships
The teeming hordes of living things on Earth, not only in space but in time, are actually all one massive, single organism just as certainly as each one of us (in our own minds) seems to be a distinct human being throughout our limited lifetime… Each of us is, equally, an independent living human and also just one utterly minute, utterly brief unit of a … [ Read more ]
Author: Neil Theise | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subject: Life & Society
The source of problems is blindspots. There is something hidden from us that, if we knew, would change how we thought and acted. One of the best ways to reveal blindspots is simply to lengthen your time horizon. A lot of good advice simply boils down to thinking longer term.
Author: Shane Parrish | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry
Not judging is another way of letting go of fear and experiencing love. When we learn not to judge others – and totally accept them, and not want to change them – we can simultaneously learn to accept ourselves.
Author: Gerald G. Jampolsky | Subjects: Life & Society, Love, Personal Improvement, Relationships
The law stands at the intersection of what makes man work as an individual and as a social being. And neither society nor our understanding of it, nor our understanding of what understanding means, stands still.
Author: Robert W. Bennett | Subjects: Law | Legal, Life & Society
Conspiracy theories have always been useful to extremist movements [because they] work on a very us-versus-them logic. They posit an in-group of people who is among a small, privileged set to know this information, and an out group which is either willfully blind or actively plotting against them. And that structure has been very useful over time to weaponize against marginalized groups that people want … [ Read more ]
Author: Kelly Weill | Source: The Messenger | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry
Conspiracy movements… all rely on discarding a certain trust in institutions and establishing new voices as credible.
Author: Kelly Weill | Source: The Messenger | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry
If we want free speech then we want less concentration of market power and business models that allow for that. Advertising does not. Token-based business models do.
Author: Fred Wilson | Subjects: Journalism, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
Your life is a result of your thoughts, choices, actions and beliefs. If you don’t like your life, try changing one or more of these.
Author: Unknown | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement
Linear games are won by working harder than others. And the harder other people work, the higher the bar. You need to work harder and harder, just to stay in the same relative position.
Asymmetry is different. Even people who understand asymmetry consistently underestimate its power.
Positive asymmetry happens when you have a lot of upside and little downside. Negative asymmetry is when you have little upside … [ Read more ]
Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Success / Failure, Trust
One of the surest roads to disappointment is expecting people to act rationally or consistently.
Author: Jeff Blum | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement
A healthy democracy requires a strong conservative party and a strong liberal party arguing for their views publicly and vigorously.
Author: Jeffrey Goldberg | Source: The Atlantic | Subject: Politics & Public Policy
Here’s the thing, however, about radical change. It is, as our more numerate readers might say, a “high-variance strategy,” meaning that the range of possible outcomes is far wider than what we might expect from more incremental, within-the-system change.
Perhaps we nail the jackpot and manage to hit upon the political choices that really can create something meaningfully better out of a broken system. But … [ Read more ]
Author: Bryan Walsh | Sources: MSN, Vox | Subjects: Change, Concepts, History, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
Being president is impossible. […] To “succeed” in the job, a person needs a broader range of skills than any real human being has ever possessed. Public eloquence. Private persuasive power. IQ. EQ. Stamina. Luck. A generous imagination, but also cold-bloodedness. A thousand traits more. The question is not whether any president will “fail.” It is in which particular way, and how the world will … [ Read more ]
Author: James Fallows | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: America, International, Politics & Public Policy
Our peculiar history of racism has meant that every time it seems we are approaching equality before the law, those determined to prevent that equality have turned people against it by insisting that government protection of equality will cost tax dollars, thus amounting to a redistribution of wealth from those with property to those without. That is, if Black and Brown Americans, and poor people, … [ Read more ]
Author: Heather Cox Richardson | Subjects: America, History, International, Politics & Public Policy, Race Relations
Throughout our history, America has swung between the defense of equality outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the defense of private property outlined in the Constitution.
Author: Heather Cox Richardson | Subjects: America, History, International, Politics & Public Policy
The default setting in world history is authoritarianism. Freedom is a rare appearance on the historical map of the world, and requires extraordinary, extraordinary vigilance and effort to preserve it. And when I see leaders here or elsewhere moving toward authoritarianism, it sets off alarm bells. Because I do read history. The history of the world is strongmen lying to people, gaining power over them … [ Read more ]
Author: Mitt Romney | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: History, Politics & Public Policy
Maybe we’re as much what we hate as what we love. In the end, we all pick a team, or a team picks you.
Author: Russell Lewis | Source: Endeavour (TV Series) | Subjects: Life & Society, Love, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
Statistics often tell us more about collection procedures than they do about the phenomenon they are supposed to reflect.
Author: Andrew Hopkins | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Facts | Bias, Math & Science
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Author: Simone Weil | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships