For millennia, religion and culture have tried—mostly unsuccessfully—to change human nature. Is it time for us to go to the root of the problem?
What if our increasing years actually close our minds and make us less wise?
In our quest for greater mindfulness, are we neglecting something just as important?
We can never know if the road we chose was for the best. Maybe that’s a good thing?
Peter Singer changed my life over ten years ago when he convinced me to reject factory farming. He’s changed it again by convincing me (and hopefully you) to embrace effective altruism.
This first bouquet brings together various flowers of thought, tastefully arranged for your consideration.
Many of us are quick to declare the sins of our ancestors without realizing that we, too, will someday be found guilty.
What if the instincts that served us well in the past have become a ticking time-bomb that threatens to destroy our future?
“Yet a day comes when a man…situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it.” —Albert Camus
Maybe we’re not responsible for the sins of the past. But we are certainly responsible for the world we give to the future.
Turns out that we Americans are a bit inconsistent in our attitudes towards violent protests.
We have some very unhealthy ideas about ideological conflict. What if our concept of “victory” is in fact a kind of defeat?
How is our desire to know things, and our attitude towards experts, hurting us in this time of troubles?
Will the current pandemic really reshape our society, or can a dynamic duo of psychological factors halt the change?
Just as Dire Straits (with a cameo from Sting) once wanted their MTV, I am really wanting some nanobots right now.
If the first step towards knowledge involves learning the rules, should the second step be finding ways to break them?
The golden age of cathedral building is gone. But we can rediscover our ability to achieve such multi-generational projects if we embrace important concepts like purpose, mastery, and autonomy.
What happens when our devotion to a cause annihilates our capacity for personal relationships?
Might it be foolish to think that we could ever truly comprehend the mind of an AI or an alien species?
It’s not hard being a white man in 2019 America—please stop pretending it is.
