Thought provoking

in times of social upheaval, people often find themselves desiring something that is actually an obstacle to their flourishing. She calls it a form of “cruel optimism.” In her 2011 book of the same name, she explains how politics can often take the form of cruel optimism. In times of great change, political desires happen at the affective, pre-refl... See more

kubisagari ( uncountable )

( dated ) A chronic endemic disease of Japan, characterized by dimness of vision, diplopia, ptosis, and paralysis of certain muscles.

The psychological profile Bahr laid out captured the mood: the ego was temporary, we are now unable to feel continuously, and our internal lives are utterly disjointed.

Man no longer moves towards objects through an act of will, he no longer chooses or examines objects: the world has dissolved, the objects move incoherently past the incoherent man.

... See more

A surprisingly doable and underrated strategy when blogging is to take an important topic and then just write the best, most comprehensive thing ever written about it.

So few of the most important topics do not have a canonical post, but when a canonical post exist, they get large amounts of traffic for many years.

There is limited competition for do... See more

Thinking is compounding–the more you think, the better your thoughts become.

I believe an Einstein-level breakthrough in Go would involve something more fundamental, like inventing the rules of Go itself—exploring the vast landscape of possible game rules to create something genuinely more compelling than existing games.

Remember Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide? The answer is apparently 42, but nobody knows the right question. That's research in a nutshell.