Thomas

We suffer from a kind of mythic deprivation. We don’t just need ‘new stories’ because we are inundated with stories. The point, as Alex Evans has recently argued, is that we need to bring mythos back into our lives

Sense-making emerges out of nonsense, to be blunt. We need to accept stages of confusion as potentially enjoyable, playful, resources.

But Alfani’s observation that the rich as a group have no clear social function is borne out by the fact that, in the Musk era, they have reacted to populist pressures largely by justifying their fortunes as individuals. When they maintain a combative social-media presence, fixate on meritocracy, employ idealistic language to describe for-profit... See more

“Once we’ve spent the carbon costs necessary to put a new building up,” Heatherwick argues, “it’s crucial that it stays there being useful for as long as humanly possible. The worst thing we can do is knock the building down after just a few decades and put something new up. This is why boring buildings are much worse for the environment than... See more