The historian and biographer extends this backwards in time. Now youth find models of honor not only among the living but among dead. To study the great men of a community’s past is to study what greatness means in that community. That I think is half the purpose of these biographies of Roosevelt and Rockefeller, Feynman and Oppenheimer, Licklider ... See more

Here is how Plutarch, classical biographer par excellence, described his attraction to the stories of great men:

We may say, then, that achievements of this kind, which do not arouse the spirit of emulation or create any passionate desire to imitate them, are of no great benefit to the spectator. On the other hand virtue in action immediately takes

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This silicon union of intellect and action creates a culture fond of big ideas. The expectation that anyone sufficiently intelligent can grasp, and perhaps master, any conceivable subject incentivizes technologists to become conversant in as many subjects as possible. The technologist is thus attracted to general, sweeping ideas with application ac... See more

Besides, we’ve all been cornered by the guy at the bar with a well-worn paperback in his pocket who locks eyes with you and whispers, “But how are you, really?” as if it’s a profound question. I would hate to subject anyone to such an encounter.

Rather than jump to sincerity, I’d like to start with basic honesty . It would be great if we started ju... See more

“It is a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.”

It is a disaster not to be found, a total disaster to not be able to connect with others because we were too preoccupied with ourselves. The whole reason for ironic detachment is to build a protective wall between oneself and the world. We think we’re building a wall, but we’re really holl... See more

Rest in Peace David Foster Wallace, you would have loved Barbie. We swim in a wretched sea of meaningless mush, and when you have to trudge through nothing but slop all day, every day, it gets harder and harder to not numb out. I really cannot emphasize it enough: there’s so much and it just keeps coming. There’s lots to do. There’s lots to buy. Th... See more

I often draw a distinction between the political elites of Washington DC and the industrial elites of Silicon Valley with a joke: in San Francisco reading books, and talking about what you have read, is a matter of high prestige. Not so in Washington DC. In Washington people never read books—they just write them.

Second, one must assume that paıdeía , which is to say, education and moral formation in the broadest and most comprehensive sense, is more important than anything else in deciding the character of a particular polıteía .

The one thing I thought was funny about Anu’s piece is that it claims “no one owns taste” but then sort of poo-poo’s the anticipated reaction of people that views the subject of taste as their “special territory”.

You can’t have both of these things. And it’s what tech people broadly get wrong about many other intersectional dialogues. Either no on... See more