Nadia Asparouhova on antimemetics, nuclear mysticism, and scrolling

What risk are we radically underestimating as a species? What are we overestimating?

I think we’ve still underestimated the harms of scrolling. I am careful to say “scrolling” because I don’t think social media is itself a bad thing, nor do I think screens are uniformly bad. I think it’s specifically the act of scrolling, which forces us to ingest,... See more

What tradition or practice from another culture or era do you think we should widely adopt?

I wish patronage were widely adopted as an explicit social norm. So-called “gentleman scientists” and patron-funded scientists, such as Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, were behind some of the biggest scientific advancements in the 17th through 19th centurie... See more

I’m a fan of the humble email inbox, which is often dismissed as a clearinghouse for scheduling meetings and unsubscribing from marketing emails. But amidst all that clutter, it’s also an intimate space to trade thoughts with friends and strangers. Technology moves fast, but I find something reassuring in the idea that these older channels of commu... See more

I wish patronage were widely adopted as an explicit social norm. So-called “gentleman scientists” and patron-funded scientists, such as Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, were behind some of the biggest scientific advancements in the 17th through 19th centuries. I think we got a little confused with the introduction of crowdfunding in the early socia... See more