Thinking for yourself has never been easy, but the question of whether it is still possible at all is of some moment. The key ideals of liberal democracy—moral independence and intellectual autonomy—depend on it. - The Walrus
Free thinkers and sceptics, they imagine themselves as emancipated from imprisoning beliefs. Yet most of what they, and you, know comes not from direct experience or through figuring it out for oneself, but from unknown others. - 3 Quarks Daily
Do you study creativity by analyzing people commonly acknowledged to be creative and figure out what they all have in common? Or could someone who has never actually created anything be creative, in the way that innately intelligent people can end up in unskilled jobs? - The New Yorker
Barely more than a decade later, the internet is not the tool. I am the tool. Somehow, I have been instrumentalized by the internet, which operates me through my phone. It often feels like the internet is reading my mind. - Slate
Who picks up the tab of paying for journalism when the audience won’t, and how does that change the truths that we journalists want to tell? - The Point
How do we weigh an artist’s accomplishment against his personal wickedness? “Do we believe genius gets special dispensation, a behavioral hall pass?” Should we draw clear distinctions between a transgressive work of art and behavioral transgressions? - The Atlantic
"I desperately want everyone to witness the euphoric tactical flourishes and wonderful social interactions that a great board game can foster in the right environment, but I have also come to understand that for some people, a pile of cardboard will always be a pile of cardboard." - Slate
Let's rethink the whole thing. "Seeing a work of art as indissolubly linked with an individual creator’s technical skills is a worn-out myth. The further we develop, the more this link displays its conventionality." - Los Angeles Review of Books
“A lot of us wanted to believe that we had free and open discussions in this country, and that we can talk about anything, and that we can make changes. It sounds great as cocktail-party chitchat, when we are all in the room with the same beliefs.” - Christian Science Monitor
Recall the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. A straw is a very small thing, it weighs almost nothing, but it can bring down a thousand-pound camel. Or consider how small cracks can grow until they eventually destroy the largest structures. That’s how failures occur. - Tablet
To suggest the Classical inheritance is monocultural, or “pale, male and stale”, is to do a disservice to the patchwork of cultures, backgrounds, outlooks and beliefs that fed into what we now receive as the Classics. - The Critic
The real project of humanity – of understanding ourselves as human beings, making a good world to live in, and striving together toward mutual flourishing – depends paradoxically upon the continued pursuit of what Hitz calls ‘splendid uselessness’. - Psyche
One estimate is that 99.9% of internet content will be AI-generated by 2030. The future, in other words, will be by bots and for bots. But isn’t that a lot of what the internet is already? - Tablet
Scientists exploring our ability to recall shapes say people can make mistakes after just a few seconds – a phenomenon the team have called short-term memory illusions. - The Guardian
"If you need to cover your hair for work in a fast-food restaurant, which would work better, a paper sandwich wrapper or a hamburger bun? GPT-3 went for the bun." - Fast Company
