Ideas

“I wanted to make a piece about a man who saves himself through art. I don’t want people to think he’s just a train wreck. The most important thing an artist has is the will to do something — it’s evidence of life and a spiritual wellness, even if the body is decrepit.” – Washington Post

“It is not composed simply of a single distortion, but rather a slew of mischaracterizations bent on representing one’s opponents in the worst light. … In deploying the burning man fallacy, one not only stuffs an opposing figure with straw, but then proceeds to surround it with more tinder and additional flammable material, with the intention of committing the view at issue to the flames, along with whole traditions, movements, and ways of thinking.” – 3 Quarks Daily

Today, the worries of 2008 look almost endearingly naive: Forget about the web making us dumber; let’s talk about how it has transformed us into tribalized rage monsters.  – Slate

It’s not about self-control. Instead, it’s more like (not very good) emotion management. “Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.” – The New York Times

Yep, videogames, gamers, and their lives online need to be placed into context by … well … folklorists, of course. Says one, a gamer and a writer: “We all want to be part of a community, we want to be accepted and find people who are like us, and Ultima Online was kind of the start of that.” – Wired

What can be done for the non-New Yorks, the non-San Franciscos, the non-Seattles? “Left to their own fate, state and local policymakers often end up shoveling money at companies in the hope of attracting future investment. It isn’t working. For today’s left-behind communities to bounce back, the federal government has to act.” – The Atlantic

The poor and middle-class can’t escape screens, and the data they hoover up both mindlessly and with (scary) intention. But the rich can, and do. – The New York Times

Spoiler alert, perhaps obviously. But really, whom are the Kree meant to represent? It’s unclear, or variable, perhaps, but for sure: “The Kree become a scapegoat, an oppressive empire that oppresses the oppressed.” – Los Angeles Review of Books

Because AI might ‘think’ differently to how humans think, and because of the general tendency to get swept up in its allure, its use could well change how we approach tasks and make decisions. The seductive allure that tends to surround AI in fact represents one of its dangers. Those working in the field despair that almost every article about AI hypes its powers, and even those about banal uses of AI are illustrated with killer robots. – Aeon

As the population surges into young old age and old old age, the number of books wrestling with that question has grown from a trickle to a tsunami. Apart from the science journals and science-fiction novels debating whether is it possible or desirable to prolong the lifespan by fifty or a hundred years, or (might as well go for it) eternally, books designed to help readers navigate the treacheries of ageing fall roughly into three categories: the scientific, the personal and the political. – Times Literary Supplement

Anthropologists say small societies generally worship Gods who only need to be worshipped. Larger societies’ Gods have many more rules for how followers behave… – The Economist [registration]

So what is “affect theory”? “Under its influence, critics attended to affective charge [in society]. They saw our world as shaped not simply by narratives and arguments but also by nonlinguistic effects — by mood, by atmosphere, by feelings.” Writer Hua Hsu looks at the work of one of affect theory’s main proponents today: Lauren Berlant, co-founder of the Feel Tank (as opposed to think tank) Chicago, and her idea of the “cruel optimism” Americans hang on to. – The New Yorker

“So-called ‘virtues of the mind’, such as open-mindedness, thoroughness, and intellectual humility, have been extensively discussed by philosophers. Arrogance, imperviousness to evidence and an inability to deal with mistakes are vices of the mind. They have until very recently attracted much less philosophical attention.” Philosopher Quassim Cassam argues that these vices need more attention, because they can cause so much damage. (Exhibit A: The Iraq War.) – IAI News

“How can the law account for the value of complex, nonhuman entities such as rivers, lakes, forests and ecosystems? … Perhaps we should take the idea of ‘the human’ as a rights-bearer and extend it to the complex, nonhuman systems that we wish to protect, that we know are deserving of care and concern. Tempting as it is, this move must be resisted.” Human rights attorney Anna Grear explains why. – Aeon

Some scientists see generative modeling and other new techniques simply as power tools for doing traditional science. But most agree that AI is having an enormous impact, and that its role in science will only grow. Brian Nord, an astrophysicist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory who uses artificial neural networks to study the cosmos, is among those who fear there’s nothing a human scientist does that will be impossible to automate. “It’s a bit of a chilling thought,” he said. – Quanta

It is one thing to share information about philosophy and another to offer non-philosophers a way of participating in the activity. Public philosophy aspires to liberate the subject from its academic confines: to put philosophy into action. Is that a good thing? I’m not sure it is. – The Point

Compare Amazon’s ability to deliver what you want, how you want it, and when you want it, to that of the average college or university. Or even to the growing number of online universities, hybrid universities… and especially to the “traditional” institutions that offer online learning options. Amazon would crush those folks. – Inc.

In a new movie, a little girl imagines a roller coaster (and an entire amusement park) into existence. The glamor and thrills of amusement parks, and roller coasters in particular, can lead kids’ imaginations in exciting ways – and maybe can lead those kids to leave their towns and families and wind up in new, unknown, sometimes scary (but thrilling) terrain. – The New York Times

Nope. Studies are showing, more and more, that the people who listen to information while they sleep may actually be learning it pretty well. For instance, in a recent study, “68 German students were asked to learn some new Dutch words before 11 p.m. Half the students were allowed to go to sleep while the words were played back to them. The other half stayed awake while listening to the words.” Guess who learned the words? – The Wall Street Journal

No-platforming is when a person is prevented from contributing to a public debate, either through policy or protest, on the grounds that their beliefs are dangerous or unacceptable. Open-speech advocates highlight what we might call first-order evidence: evidence for and against the arguments that the speakers make. But they overlook higher-order evidence. – Aeon

The history of the United States is a history of bias and brutality and hubris, but it is also a history of idealism and hard work and soaring optimism. What emerges is an invitation to regard these tessellated truths and conflicting motive forces with an equanimous understanding that can inform a juster, more beautiful, and less conflicted future. – Brainpickings

According to the theory, if students believe that their ability is fixed, they will not want to do anything to reveal that, so a major focus of the growth mindset in schools is shifting students away from seeing failure as an indication of their ability, to seeing failure as a chance to improve that ability. As Jeff Howard noted almost 30 years ago: ‘Smart is not something that you just are, smart is something that you can get.’ – Aeon

When marketers and technologists think about the applications for artificial intelligence, it’s common to think along the lines of data processing, GPS route-finding, and logistics efficiency. But as artists and creatives embrace the technology, new possibilities are presenting themselves in the forms of creative direction, visual design, and song creation. – CMO

A multi-year project can’t figure out how Europe can reconcile all of the mass graves, no matter how many memorials and museums are built. And things are scary: “After all the truth commissions, all the resolutions of the UN, the international tribunals, we are returning to new forms of fascism, to new, very primal antagonisms.” – El País

Wow. Senator Warren is dropping antitrust ideas as fast as, well, Facebook and Google and Amazon and Apple gobble up our time and privacy. After her Medium post didn’t mention Apple, Warren said she meant Apple as well, and she explained: “What was applied to railroad companies more than a hundred years ago, we need to now look at those tech platforms the same way.” – The Verge

And by that, we don’t mean “worrying about your instrument all of the time,” but rather, if you have the money, “you can simply donate money to your favorite nonprofit — amounts seem to start at around $2,500 — in exchange for the opportunity to tag along on an international tour with the organization.” – The Washington Post

The key to making the most out of small talk, according to Harvard researchers, is to simply ask the other person follow-up questions. In a series of experiments, researchers analyzed more than 300 online conversations and found that those who were asked more meaningful follow-up questions (a.k.a. questions that aren’t “how are you?” or “what do you do?”), found the other person much more likable. – CNBC