Agalia Tan
@agaaalia
Senior Strategist at We Are Social
RADAR Chapter Lead for Singapore
Agalia Tan
bio.site
when we say “meaning”—or “meaning orientation”—what we’re really talking about is a reading of the world that makes sense. Like: I know who I am. I know what’s going on here. I understand the rules people are playing by. I have a sense of what’s likely to happen if I do X. That’s the foundation. So, my first take at defining “meaning” would be... See more
Zach Lamb on Meaning & Crisis
If a person seems to have a good grasp of a book or other artistic or aesthetic object, by all means be willing to let the conversation flow in that direction, because you will end up staring right into that person’s soul.
Tyler Cowen • Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World
We’ve created an acceleration and an explosion of choice, which will permanently leave us feeling fundamentally unsatisfied or under-optimized.
Adam Grant • Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent?
our national sickness: an unyielding belief in technology’s ability to allay our suffering.
It becomes something of a Faustian bargain, because our online habits and behaviors are carrion for tech vultures. As we scroll, they feast
The New Pornographers — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER
It comes down to the difference between post-rationalising and pre-rationalising. Right now, we live in a moment of pre-rationalising: we won’t commit to anything unless we can justify it in advance. “Do I have the dashboard? The metric? The deck? The support?” If the data doesn’t say yes, nothing happens. Post-rationalising is the opposite: you... See more
Culture Isn't Coded
A primary reinforcer is something we’re born to desire. A conditioned reinforcer is something we learn to desire, due to its association with a primary reinforcer.
Why Everything is Becoming a Game
we are shaped by our tools, systems, and environment
the world has been gamified
My generic career advice for young people is that if at all possible, you should aim to work on something that no one has a word for. Spend your energies where we don’t have a name for what you are doing, where it takes a while to explain to your mother what it is you do. When you are ahead of language, that means you are in a spot where it is more
... See moreThis ordinary-day ache is a first world problem. That’s not a way to blithely demean it; it is the point. Most of us, in the West, are not mentally ill. We’re not going to go the doctor complaining of our dull, yearning ache. It’s not going to show up in official health statistics. But it’s there. From a distance it looks as if we, the people of... See more
A Crisis of Mattering
what’s behind it: the routine and mundane is safe, but we want excitement, a lil risk