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What does it mean that OpenAI bought a media company? That doesn’t feel like a random acquisition. It feels like a sign that trusted voices, archives,

Skill nostalgia is worth cultivating, provided we redirect it. The longing to live as some imagined stonemason, peasant farmer or carpenter can be tur

In a market saturated with options, texture offers something that can be instantly understood, visually shared and physically felt. It turns eating in

to be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.

In times of uncertainty, another way of thinking, working, and living together is possible — and necessary. There may be a tendency to default to fami

Yes, the gardens have fallen into decay and the flowers are gone. We can mourn that loss. Or we can ask: what kind of work will let us grow them again

To Wang, this is a crisis of meaning. “A lot of people don’t have … hobbies, let alone a personal value system. … When the system stops promising guar

The two countries’ technological elites are converging much more closely than the geopolitical divide might suggest. That very similarity makes for us

Hobbies that reproduce obsolete jobs have, or can be imagined to have, features that many contemporary jobs lack: clear and sustained attention to a s

Skill nostalgia is worth cultivating, provided we redirect it. The longing to live as some imagined stonemason, peasant farmer or carpenter can be tur

This process, Morris says, defines ‘the growth of art: like all growth, it was good and fruitful for awhile; like all fruitful growth, it grew into de

I’ve come to believe the greater danger is sometimes tolerable and lukewarm mediocrity. This is because catastrophe forces a change, but mediocrity ca

In both myth and theory, Eros is the same force: the spark that brings aliveness out of inertia. To live erotically is to stay attuned to that rhythm,

In The Doctrine of Virtue (1797), Immanuel Kant describes the failure to develop our capacities (such as physical skills) as a failure of self-directe

nostalgia is a peculiar combination of a desire for something associated with the past and a belief that it is impossible for that desire to be satisf

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2025 profile of homebuyers and sellers, single women now make up 25% of US first-time homebuye

One core feature of masculinities that can lead to problems “is a fear or avoidance of femininity”, he said. Some research has found that men feel an

As the cultural theorist Svetlana Boym argues in The Future of Nostalgia (2001), unreflective nostalgia ‘breeds monsters’: nationalism, racial suprema

Nervous system capacity is the constraint, not logic. You can explain something to someone a thousand times and it probably will not address the funda

I'm a very proud thief and deployer of Stewart Brand's pace layers. Stewart originally used the pace layer model to describe how civilizations hold to

So much of our work moves quickly from event to output, from conversation to summary; the Glossary instead gives these ideas time to settle, in the ho

So while AI is viewed as a threat to job security, a possible coping mechanism is to rapidly accept and embrace it, because history has taught the Chi

There wasn’t consensus among those I met on whether China is a good place to live. But everyone described the same deal: you’ll have limited freedom o

Xi Jinping has been known to loudly reject “welfarism,” which he claims encourages “laziness” in rich societies. From criticizing “lying flat” to relu

The two countries’ technological elites are converging much more closely than the geopolitical divide might suggest. That very similarity makes for us

The post-luxury status symbols I’ve outlined across this series - connected privacy, wasteful time, having children, niche expertise, creating communi

One realization I’ve come to in my money relationship journey is that financial security isn’t a set number. It’s really your relationship with “enoug

To Wang, this is a crisis of meaning. “A lot of people don’t have … hobbies, let alone a personal value system. … When the system stops promising guar

It did not seem like a good idea to me that some of the richest people in the world were no longer rewarding people for having any particular skills,

https://t.co/rlFVGyXeCo

We tend to assign different meanings and values to certain relationships, which then flattens the connections we might have. But the truth is that the

It’s important to remember that the people we love are not necessarily the same people with whom we can make a life. Life stories are not the same as

Releasing someone with love is its own kind of confrontation. Maybe the most honest one. There have been relationships I wanted to get released by bec

But our history reveals that love stories are shaped by the world in which we live, and they’ve always come with tradeoffs. We once married people for

But joy does not just belong to the young, and if we’re lucky, joy finds us across life’s various stages as we age and change. And even under the most

Zhang Jiansheng, a 36-year-old entrepreneur, created an AI-powered tablet that can speak to people with Alzheimer’s disease. He told me about observin

One core feature of masculinities that can lead to problems “is a fear or avoidance of femininity”, he said. Some research has found that men feel an

A growing body of data shows that men engage in higher rates of infidelity and emotional and physical abuse when outpaced by female partners in tradit

One recent study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that while men in the workplace may view women’s status gains positively, t

It reveals that as a woman in the world, if you don’t decide your needs, they will be decided for you. That without a value system, you can be convinc

If men are this incapable of self-restraint in bed, which, thanks to #MeToo, may now carry consequences, how difficult could it be to defeat them in o

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2025 profile of homebuyers and sellers, single women now make up 25% of US first-time homebuye

the only thing sadder than not being a rich kid is being a Disney adult

There’s this old Yiddish proverb that says, “Der mentsh trakht un Got lakh.” In English, it translates to: Man plans, God laughs.

he thought about it and said he didn’t think we should be afraid to embrace whimsy. I asked him what he meant by whimsy, and he struggled to define it

Most supplement brands lead with clinical claims. Grüns deliberately chose a different approach. The company conducted studies and invested in formula

Consumers are paying more attention to macronutrients than ever before. Tracking apps, the GLP-1 drug trend (which pushes users toward higher protein

Chocolate is hardly the only treat to be reborn as a wellness product. Supermarket shelves now boast chips with added protein, gut-friendly sodas and

Functional foods have been around for decades, but are taking off anew. Consumers have become more health-conscious, weight-loss drugs are changing pe

I once spent an unpleasant year studying torture in various countries where it is endemic and I was quickly shocked to learn that torture is not about

The decline of deviance is mainly a good thing. Our lives have gotten longer, safer, healthier, and richer. But the rise of mass prosperity and disapp

It’s almost impossible to have an easy life and be interesting. Suffering is what gives people texture.

Just because you feel something deeply doesn’t make it a deep well of wisdom. Vulnerability is not redeemable on its own. It’s kind of painful to watc