Mary Martin

Hyperstition is a positive feedback circuit including culture as a component. It can be defined as the experimental (techno-)science of self-fulfilling prophecies. Superstitions are merely false beliefs, but hyperstitions — by their very existence as ideas — function causally to bring about their own reality.

You can do this practice not only thinking of people you care about, but also visualizing people you don’t like. It’s important to have an unbiased, compassionate attitude toward whatever is arising.

Research has shown a staggering number of health benefits associated with dispositional optimism, from improvements in cardiovascular health, to how quickly wounds heal, to slower disease progression.

Racist attitudes like Galton’s were not uncommon among the British aristocracy at the heights of colonialism, but Galton gave them scientific backing. He had the authority of a world traveler, in the tradition of Victorian naturalists like his half-cousin aboard the Beagle. His assessment of the supposed inferiority of others to white Britons was... See more

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