Rachel Lowenstein

Intuitively, we understand this distinction well. Labor is breaking rocks with a pick-ax while someone holds a gun to your head. Labor is your tenth hour in the warehouse when your vertebrae are starting to feel crunchy. Work can be challenging, surprising, effortful, emotional, but it isn’t something that requires intense coercion, although may... See more

You can’t call it the “online world” if you never leave your feed. If your entire internet life happens inside TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, or Twitter, you’re simply mall-walking, and malls are fine: predictable, climate-controlled, food courts and chain stores on every corner, but don’t mistake the mall for the city. The city is bigger,... See more

Remember when Trump won and everyone was suddenly talking about podcasts (Trump won because he went on them, apparently) rather than policy? As we focus on how marketing is done, substantive questions of the world itself get sidelined.

Implicit in this focus on marketing is a focus on everyone but oneself. What will politically-moderate strangers... See more

“I am convinced, however that you gather vicarious experience best, not when you are honing up on it for an immediate purpose, but when you are pursuing it as an end in itself.”

― James Webb Young, A technique for producing ideas: A simple five step formula for producing ideas

“But the principle of constantly expanding your experience, both personally and vicariously, does matter tremendously in any idea-producing job. Make no mistake about it.”

― James Webb Young, A technique for producing ideas: A simple five step formula for producing ideas

“We tend to forget that words are, themselves, ideas. They might be called ideas in a state of suspended animation. When the words are mastered the ideas tend to come alive again.”

― James Webb Young, A technique for producing ideas: A simple five step formula for producing ideas

When everything is in flux, we need people who can move across worlds. In times of upheaval, grief, anxiety and rising discomfort, polymaths—those who wear many hats, blend skills, and cross disciplines—are essential.They thrive in the spaces between, finding connections others might miss.When things shift beneath us, it’s these transitional... See more

The AI age rewards synthesists—people who connect unlikely domains, who refuse to be reduced to a function.

Leonardo didn't know he was being a Renaissance man. He was just following his curiosity, letting each interest inform the others, refusing to separate art from science because he understood they were the same investigation.

Five hundred years... See more

Three days after the backlash erupted, Cracker Barrel hired a Washington, D.C.-based company to better understand the online conversation. The consultants found that 32% to 37% of the online activity criticizing Cracker Barrel in the days after its logo announcement was fueled by fake accounts, with at least two groups of bots driving much of the... See more