Language and Thought

Looking at the connections between the language we use and the thoughts we have

Like most social and political theory, the story Hobbes and his successors told was really unacknowledged autobiography.

Bob Black • The Abolition of Work

Perhaps I could lean into my weirdness and curiosity, and earn a living from a small group of similarly curious weirdos. It felt like the permission slip I needed to give it a shot.

All That Remains

Sometimes we still need permission in the permissionless economy

I like the term economism . It describes how economic thinking and practice have become ingrained into all sorts of aspects of our lives, even non-economic ones. In today’s world governed by economism , everything seems to need to be measured by economic logic: am I using my time efficiently?

Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #78

Haven’t heard this term before, but I think it follows from the collapse of things into measurements. We started with measuring money as a collapse of information, and that led to collapses of other aspects of the world as a proxy for money where money isn’t available to measure value.

H]uman beings need all the relatives they can get–as possible donors or receivers not necessarily of love, but of common decency.

. . .

When we were children in Indianapolis, Indiana, it appeared that we would always have an extended family of genuine relatives there. Our parents and grandparents, after all, had grown up there with shoals of siblings

Austin Kleon • KURT VONNEGUT ON THE NEED FOR BUILDING EXTENDED FAMILIES

Extended Family is important. Why not choose the extended family we bring in?

the thing is, as an adult, you get to make your own cool. you get to choose your own friends, live your own life. and let me tell you, in my life, where i make the rules, i am the coolest cat around.

being passionate about your hobbies is cool. asking good questions is cool. reading books is cool. taking notes is cool.

thinking of projects and then... See more

“cool” - Tasshin

An idea kept private is as good as one you never had.

Ideas not shared are lost to time

We often think of language as a means to an end, but rarely take the time to consider whether language in itself is influencing our thoughts, not just enabling the sharing of them.

Steph Smith • Gaining Perspective Through Untranslatable Words

Does language influence our thoughts? How can we minimize (or maximize) that influence?

It’s possible to paint an dishonest picture of reality without telling a single lie.

if i'm honest with myself

The difficulty of valuing information.

There was a time in our own past when the “work ethic” would have been incomprehensible, and perhaps Weber was on to something when he tied its appearance to a religion, Calvinism, which if it emerged today instead of four centuries ago would immediately and appropriately be labeled a cult.