Americanism

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This idea of progress acknowledges that as soon as we have something, however well it meets our original desires, we see its flaws. ‘Form follows failure’, in the words of civil engineering professor Henry Petroski. Dissatisfaction drives progress. ‘Since nothing is perfect’, writes Petroski, ‘and, indeed, since even our ideas of perfection are not... See more

“The growing speed of daily life, of news and work and play was a fetish of artists and industrialists alike,” Blom writes. “Never before had so much social change occurred so quickly.” As daily life sped up, people in the west started to break down.

Around the turn of the century, a nervous disorder first diagnosed in the U.S. gradually made its... See more

Cognitive load is like playing an iterated game of diminishing returns. Every choice—every click, every scroll—saps a little more of your mental energy. By the time you’re 20 decisions deep, your ability to make intentional choices is shot. It’s not that you’ve lost the game; you’ve been worn down by it.

In behavioral economics, this is known as... See more

Risk is expensive, and it does not figure into P&L. When the pressure is to show YoY growth on the quarterly basis, as is the case of the publicly traded companies, or when expectation is to deliver wild returns in case of PE-backed ones, no one wants to make anything remotely surprising or different. Prada is able to put forward fearless... See more