Sarah Owen

"The society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise was founded by a physician named Julia Barnett Rice in 1906. Rice believed noise was unhealthy, and enlisted New York City’s gentry (including Mark Twain) to lobby for things like rules governing steamboat whistles, and silence pledges from children who played near hospitals."

The Hidden Cost of To-Do Lists: And yet, despite its theoretical rationality, even the most carefully captured, prioritized, and well-reviewed to-do list can’t always escape the scourge of unintended consequences. As soon as you put stuff on your to-do list, even a purely mental to-do list, you run the risk of awakening that inner coercion... See more

The longer view is coming into human consciousness in part because of the radical danger of the immediate moment – which is that humanity might create a mass extinction event and wreck Earth’s biosphere for all the generations of humans to come, plus of course the many species that would be driven to extinction. 

Social psychologists have known for decades that people are motivated to work harder when others are watching. When they are observed, people run faster, are more creative, and think harder about problems.