There is no shortage of theories about what makes an object aesthetically pleasing. Ideas about proportion, harmony, symmetry, order, complexity and balance have all been studied by psychologists in great depth. The theories go as far back as 1876—in the early days of experimental psychology—when German psychologist Gustav Fechner provided evidence that people prefer rectangles with sides in proportion...
Dan-el Padilla Peralta's "vision of classics’ complicity in systemic injustice is uncompromising, even by the standards of some of his allies. He has condemned the field as “equal parts vampire and cannibal” — a dangerous force that has been used to murder, enslave and subjugate. “He’s on record as saying that he’s not sure the discipline deserves a future,”...
"Think of something... mundane: ‘How are you?’ Virtually no one expects to hear anything but: ‘Good, thanks. And you?’ Withholding information has become the norm. Even when there is no direct question to answer, our interactions are replete with curated comments. The truth can be so hard to come by that many of us believe that our workplaces, and...
"The most important promise underlying much of the canon inaugurated by Future Shock is that with the right foresight, readers can not only prepare for what’s coming, but also profit from it. This whiff of insider trading presents the future as a commodity, an exercise in temporal arbitrage in which knowledge of new developments yields a financial edge." -...
Derek Thompson: "Last year, I wrote about how even a modest remote-work revolution—no more than 10 percent of Americans working remotely full time after the pandemic is over—could affect the U.S. labor force (e.g.: fewer hotel workers) and party politics (e.g.: more southern Democrats). But the more I researched remote work and spoke with experts, the more I realized...
Understandably, much of the energy directed toward the problems of pandemic social life has been spent on keeping people tied to their families and closest friends. These other relationships have withered largely unremarked on after the places that hosted them closed. The pandemic has evaporated entire categories of friendship, and by doing so, depleted the joys that make up...
"At a moment of rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement — the longer the better — and all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible. Too many are still asking the question, 'how much...
"The internet contains, for better or worse, a significant amount of humanity’s intellectual and creative outputs. It’s also a cesspool of outrageous falsehoods. Having access to so much information, then, is useful only if you’re able to separate the wheat from the chaff. For instance, the amount of information related to COVID-19 has been called an ‘infodemic’ by the...
A recent study invited college students to talk about their emotions via an online chat with either a person or a “chatbot” (in reality, the chatbot was operated by a person rather than AI). The students felt better after talking about their feelings; it made almost no difference whether they thought they were talking to a real person or...
"If you’re a prodigy with a great gift for something, you can simply do it – yet might not be aware of why and how. And you don’t ask questions. Indeed, the geniuses I met seemed too preoccupied with committing acts of genius to consider the cause of their creative output. Maybe an outsider looking in has a clearer...
Trump failed to purge all the old élites, largely because he was forced to depend on them, and the Proud Boys never came close to matching the ferocity and reach of the Red Guards. Nevertheless, Trump’s most devoted followers, whether assaulting his opponents or bombarding the headquarters in Washington, D.C., took their society to the brink of civil war...
Despite the long tradition of anti-urbanism in the U.S. that always seems to see the demise of cities just around the corner, they will survive because they are one of humanity’s greatest inventions. - The Conversation
