IDEAS

The Art Of Attention

“You can’t talk about aesthetics,” he wrote, “without talking about the principle of hope and the existence of evil.” Attention, for him, was a matter of life and death, or at least of their cultural equivalents, remembering and forgetting. - The New York Times

Why Friction Is Necessary For Making Progress

The reality is that friction, despite seeming so antagonistic, is necessary and even productive. The force that resists motion has, since humans first struck a spark from a stone, been the very thing that propels us forward. - Aeon

The Creative Mindset

Actively shaping this perception, rather than only letting it shape you, is a big part of what makes you creative. You need to actively create an attitude that enables you to do work amidst your circumstances, or even transcending it.  - 3 Quarks Daily

Research: Why AI Won’t Replace Humans At Creativity

While AI can bypass years of artistic training, it cannot replace the transformative experiences that give creativity its deeper meaning. The research suggests that the future of art may lie less in producing impressive works and more in using technology to inspire exploration, meaningful experiences and new ways of seeing the world. - TechExplore

Arundhati Roy On The AI End Game

Remember how, in Thailand and Indonesia, the ocean drew back from the coastline? People ran out to marvel at the miles of pristine new beach that suddenly emerged, not realising that, far out at sea, a wall of water was building up and would come crashing over them. - Equator

How Intuition Works

The key is to see that intuition works in much the same way as perception, in that both can directly present something to us as actual. Once we understand what gives perception this feature, we can see why intuitions might involve exercising the same basic kind of cognitive capacity. - Aeon

Brewster Kahle: Why The Internet Needs A Memory

Many people assume that once something is published online, it will remain forever retrievable. The saying that “the internet never forgets” has produced a dangerously false sense of permanence. In reality, the internet forgets continuously. Websites are constantly revised, deleted, and abandoned altogether. - The Atlantic

The Harms Of Zombie Copyright

Fifty years ago today, copyright law in America changed fundamentally. That change was an accidental disaster for both creators and the culture they create. - Lawrence Lessig

Does AI Collapse The Need To Get Bigger?

AI is making enterprise-grade capabilities available to companies that are a fraction of the size and without all of the bureaucratic weight that historically came along with it. If Goldberg is right, the rules of competition are changing for good, and companies no longer need to be big to compete. - Wired

Creating Art In A Time Of International And Creative Crisis

Elif Shafak's latest book "arose out of our own historical moment, which Shafak has dubbed 'The age of three As: Angst, Anger and AI.'" - The Guardian (UK)

Bernie Sanders: Let’s Not Let Big Tech Dictate The Future Of Humanity

If these were the fantasies of teenage boys obsessed with science fiction, we could laugh them off. They are not. These are the foundational beliefs of the most powerful people in the world, who are mobilizing trillions of dollars to turn them into reality. - The Atlantic

Is Their A Limit To Human Knowledge? Or Do We Keep Moving The Goalposts?

Are certain questions closed to the human mind? Are there truths about the world that we can never know? - Aeon

Yes, Reading Has Changed. Adapt.

“We have everything we need to be happy,” the hero of Fahrenheit 451 observes, “but we aren’t happy.” Maybe that’s the ultimate lever to pull: the growing awareness that our devices are exhausting and eroding us. - The American Scholar

We’re Losing Our Skills As We Lean Into Technology

We have fallen into habits that are steadily deskilling the human body, eroding capacities honed by evolution to support our wellbeing as we move through the world. Some of these capacities are weakening through disuse: we have come to rely on our phones, for example, and now, increasingly, on AI. - Aeon

Complicating The Morality Of Colonialism?

"My pessimism is reinforced by the zero-sum view of economics that typically accompanies the zero-sum view of moral agency around colonialism. A major piece of evidence for the ‘colonisation explains everything’ thesis is economic." - 3 Quarks Daily

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