[on Wilczek's current project]: weaving together threads from across the frontiers of knowledge, optimistically pushing ever deeper, never satisfied with an incomplete understanding of the universe and all the potential it holds for us. And having a great time doing it.
modern societies are filled with institutional rules which function as myths depicting various formal structures as rational means to the attainment of desirable ends.
Throughout history, people have risked death for the ability to share their ideas. Now almost everyone has unfettered access to the internet and most people are sitting there and thinking “eh, I’m good.” People will look back at us and wonder what the hell was wrong with us.
Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of love and the heat of passion. We want it all, and we want it with one person. Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing your partner... See more
Psychological-mindedness (the propensity to take responsibility for one’s problems and to look within oneself for the solutions) is considered by many to be an important criterion for analyzability. Historically, these criteria have operated to exclude many who might otherwise have seemed to be potential beneficiaries of psychoanalytic treatment.... See more
The colonists followed the same trails to expand governance, and on the other hand, they required fine colonial engineering that eventually including land surveys, anthropological and topographic investigation, and cartography. In this land of hardship, the implementation of governance techniques needed to create a fictional collective... See more
And so the have-nots obediently bought soap with the money provided for that purpose by the progressive authorities. As paupers, they had shocked the official mind with repulsive, but for that very reason palpable, images; now, as a reclaimed and cleansed “poorer class”, their life became so unimaginably abstract that they could be forgotten.... See more