Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Once you have a set of symbols and a linear order agreed upon by a culture, you have a language.
Daniel Everett • Early hominins who sailed across oceans left indirect evidence that they might have been the first to use language
The Interpreter
newyorker.com
The Portuguese were a network, held together by religion and language, and with better sources of market information in long-distance trades than their purely Asian counterparts.11 Portuguese became the lingua franca of maritime Asia. The very marginality of the Portuguese as an alien maritime subculture helped to make them acceptable to government
... See moreJohn Darwin • After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000
Stop talking about AI ethics. It’s time to talk about power.
Kaluli
The Kaluli people’s general belief about babies is that they do not have much understanding of what’s going on around them. In social contexts, they position their babies as observers, not as active participants.
Unlike American adults, who will chat up a storm with babies in “proto-conversation,” Kaluli adults rarely address their children. T
... See moreRebecca Ericson-Hua • From the Crib to the Community
