Thomas

Along with other types of pollution, cognitive pollution is becoming an increasingly acute problem.

If we endlessly scroll through social media, watch reels, and pollute our consciousness with other junk, then the ideas we produce will also be junk. Garbadge in, garbadge out.

Yet, if we take a responsible approach to what we let into our inner... See more

The role of metaphor and narrative, as opposed to new theories or experiments, is too little recognised in discussions of the historian of science Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shifts, supposed (and contested) moments of dramatic change in science. All scientists know how to go about scrutinising a theory: you use it to formulate some testable hypothesis,... See more

But in many new apartments, even a space to put a table and chairs is absent. Eating is relegated to couches and bedrooms, and hosting a meal has become virtually impossible. This isn’t simply a response to consumer preferences. The housing crisis—and the arbitrary regulations that fuel it—is killing off places to eat whether we like it or not,... See more

All original ideas are combinations of other people’s ideas. So the more you curate other people’s ideas, the more you develop your own rare and valuable ideas