"Behavioral scientists have spent a lot of time studying what makes us happy (and what doesn’t). We know happiness can predict health and longevity, and happiness scales can be used to measure social progress and the success of public policies. But happiness isn’t something that just happens to you. Everyone has the power to make … Continue reading Live Long & Prosper
Category: open questions
L.M. Sacasas’s The Questions Concerning Technology
If you find the list below interesting, you could always subscribe to his newsletter, and as with all Substack newsletters, it can be turned into an RSS feed by adding /feed to the main url, like so: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/feed. Don't know what RSS is? There's a post for that. h/t to Alan Jacobs for the reminder. … Continue reading L.M. Sacasas’s The Questions Concerning Technology
Deflationary Individualism
"My considerations of inflation have been limited to discussions on index components, labor/wage dynamics, and menu pricing. I liked the exercise of placing preferences surrounding good, services, and activities on the inflation/deflation spectrum.What are other examples of inflationary/deflationary preferences? And what happens if you place inflation/deflation towards the center of your personal aesthetics? And if … Continue reading Deflationary Individualism
The Maximum Human Life Span and Conjecture on Step Counts to Get There (15,000 Steps a Day)
"For the study, Timothy Pyrkov, a researcher at a Singapore-based company called Gero, and his colleagues looked at this “pace of aging” in three large cohorts in the U.S., the U.K. and Russia. To evaluate deviations from stable health, they assessed changes in blood cell counts and the daily number of steps taken and analyzed … Continue reading The Maximum Human Life Span and Conjecture on Step Counts to Get There (15,000 Steps a Day)
The RSA Hack on Wired
"In 2011, Chinese spies stole the crown jewels of cybersecurity—stripping protections from firms and government agencies worldwide. Here’s how it happened....The RSA breach, when it became public days later, would redefine the cybersecurity landscape. The company’s nightmare was a wake-up call not only for the information security industry—the worst-ever hack of a cybersecurity firm to … Continue reading The RSA Hack on Wired
Evil Shit on the Internet: The Spinner
"The Spinner* is a service that enables you to subconsciously influence a specific person, by controlling the content on the websites he or she usually visits.The targeted person gets repetitively exposed to hundreds of items which are placed and disguised as editorial content.-https://www.thespinner.net/ What makes this creepy as all get-out is that when we think … Continue reading Evil Shit on the Internet: The Spinner
Meritocracy, Intelligence & Education
"...we need to dismantle meritocracy.DeBoer is skeptical of "equality of opportunity". Even if you solve racism, sexism, poverty, and many other things that DeBoer repeatedly reminds us have not been solved, you'll just get people succeeding or failing based on natural talent......One one level, the titular Cult Of Smart is just the belief that enough … Continue reading Meritocracy, Intelligence & Education
Ordinary Invisibility
"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says 'Morning, boys. How’s the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes 'What … Continue reading Ordinary Invisibility
Why Do We Talk to One Another?
Open Question: Why do we talk to one another? "...To varying degrees, there is an uncrossable chasm between you and everybody you care about.There are two ways you can interpret this. One is the depressing route: to believe that your friends are not really your friends and that you don’t really know them. That you … Continue reading Why Do We Talk to One Another?
A Few Questions [For Self-Reflection]
"What haven’t I experienced firsthand that leaves me naive to how something works? As Jeff Immelt said, 'Every job looks easy when you’re not the one doing it.'"—Morgan Housel, "I Have a Few Questions." Collaborative Fund. October 28, 2019. Interesting questions to ponder.
cafebedouin.org 