Sure, yes, so is the language part. But: “The game is filling a hole for this type of instruction; there aren’t many programs that teach basic chess.” - Wired
The machinery of ordinalisation attends carefully to individuals rather than coarse classes or groups. By doing so, it appears to liberate people from the constraints of social affiliations and to judge them for their distinctive qualities and contributions. - Aeon
“Philosophy majors rank higher than all other majors on verbal and logical reasoning, according to our new study published in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. They also tend to display more intellectual virtues such as curiosity and open-mindedness.” - The Conversation
Democracies thrive on open debate, but when the threat is not strong enough to unite and not weak enough to ignore, debate can spiral into paralysis and political conflict. - 3 Quarks Daily
It’s important to recognise from the outset the uncontroversial point that, like dolphins or chimpanzees, human beings are by nature social animals. The claim that we have become too individualistic can’t mean that we have somehow changed our basic nature. - 3 Quarks Daily
What if we only think of happiness as a goal because we have lost sight of other alternatives? What if the heart of the problem is a lack of imagination? Aztec philosophers would urge us to reconsider our “Western” position. They would implore us to question the conventional wisdom of our culture. - LitHub
This is the AI era in a nutshell. Squint one way, and you can portray it as the saving grace of the world economy. Look at it more closely, and it’s a ticking time bomb lodged in the global financial system. The conversation is always polarized. Keep the faith. - The Atlantic
Major changes of all kinds are undoubtedly coming in our future, but they won’t arrive with a firework display or a Hans Zimmer score. They’re much more likely to creep in over time and pile up against all the stuff that currently fills our lives. - The New York Times
“Slocum first threw this party on April Fools’ Day in 1978; just 10 people gathered in the living room of his Beverly Hills home.” Now, with more than 500 people, “The destination moves on a three-year cycle among the United States, Europe and Asia.” - The New York Times
And on confronting the ways that media that appeal to anyone over 35 (OK, sure, that’s “older”) don’t deal in any serious way with something that occupies many, many people’s time. - The Verge (Internet Archive)
The fact that social reading goes beyond the individual requires an astute consideration of digital community, because “interactions and bonds between individuals meeting via digital media can occur in different ways.” - PublicBooks
You might think of Google as a search company, but 80 percent of its quarter-trillion-dollar annual revenue comes from ads—both hosting them and placing them throughout the internet. And a big part of what makes Google the most profitable advertising company in the world is that it knows a lot about you. - LitHub
Early modern skeptics understood something we’re still grappling with today: Certain people are more vulnerable to believing extraordinary claims. They identified “melancholics,” people predisposed to anxiety and fantastical thinking, as particularly susceptible. - The Conversation
“The most striking result is the disparity between how important creativity is for science versus how much opportunity and value is given to it within the research environment.” - Nature
