Alex Dobrenko

The problem is, as achievement-subjects, not only do we burn ourselves out, but the meaning and value of our lives is always deferred. Once we have our dream job, the perfect home, a perfectly optimised life – once we are productive enough, efficient enough, successful enough – only then will we arrive at meaning. But just like the fruit that... See more

We get older, we find life is riven with weirdness. We should be weird too.

WeChat limits ads in its social feed to just 2 per day. In contrast, westerners tend to see 10,000 ads/day.

In this view, dopamine does not signify how pleasant an experience will be but how much value it has to the organism at that particular moment. Schultz notes that dopamine neurons do not distinguish among different types of reward. “They're only interested in the value,” he says. “They don't care whether it's food reward or liquid reward or money.... See more

Quality over quantity. I often worry that I write too much on this blog. After all, the world has a lot of text. Does it need more? Shouldn’t I pick some small number of essays and really perfect them?

Arguably, no. You’ve perhaps heard of the pottery class where students graded on quantity produced more quality than those graded on quality. (It

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