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Saturday, September 30, 2023
Arts

Arts

a flaming heart

Death Before Life

The flame of inspiration doesn't burn eternal. As humans need water, fire needs oxygen; deprived of the light, your goals, wishes, hopes — they die. And...

A Personal Dilemma Of Multiversal Import (and some thoughts on Spider-Verse)

A recent third trip (of now a total of four trips) to see the new Spiderman, or Spider-Verse, gave rise to an...

Podcasts For Curious Minds

Familiar with podcasts? Then you'll probably have heard the mistaken opinion that 'there are too many people doing podcasts', or worse, that...

Transparent Flies In The Ointment: Our Unhealthy Obsession With Tidiness

Does better organisation increase creativity? Should your messy desk stay messy? Why do friendly teams perform worse than unfriendly teams? Are all appearances of...

Is There Such Thing As ‘Originality’?

When does something — a piece of art, song, an idea, a joke — become original? Where exactly is the line between originality and...
Feynman teaching

Votes For Most Interesting People

Who's lived the most interesting life? Following on from Tyler Cowen's recent post I thought I'd share a few names of my own. These are...

The Disgraceful Discrimination In Our Favourite Movies

The political correctness octopus is tightening is grip on hollywood: on discriminatory movies, schmocial justice warriors, and the end of the 100m final.

3 Standout Books From The Past Year

Never one to do things in conventional style, I didn't 2017 with an article about the books that stood out to me over the...

The Beginning of Infinity: David Deutsch on the Potential of Human Knowledge, Planetary Colonisation,...

I try to read only books that either stretch or confuse me, or that fiercely challenge both my intellectual capacity and sentiments. What this...

Thomas Paine On The Problem Of Religion And Knowledge, The Nature Of Thought, and...

The names most commonly associated with the enlightenment -- the beginning of the age of reason, secularism, enlightened values, the recognition of the power...

Speaking Common Sense With Thomas Paine

Being one of the most common terms, one easily gets the impression that common sense is indeed common -- especially in oneself! But is...

There Is No Friend As Friendly As A Book

Munger on making friends with dead people, Roosevelt's rules for reading, and witty words of wisdom from a less known Marx 'Make friends with the...

Why Books Written In Gibberish Are The Most Important Books

Kafka called books "the axe for the frozen sea within us"; Maria Popova, in a piece about Margaret Mead and James Baldwin, refers to...

Nassim Taleb On What It Means To Be A Philosopher, The Importance Of Antimodels,...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb tells you not to read anything from the past hundred years. The degree to which one should follow this advice, however,...

The Practical Wisdom Of Jordan Peterson: 11 Ways To Get Your Shit Together (and...

Sort yourself out, says Peterson. But how does one do that, exactly? What does sorting yourself out look like in practice? What can you...

8 More Mungerisms: Optimism, Ideologies, Discipline, Incentives and Intellectual Honesty

This is the second and final part of our mini-series about Charlie Munger and his worldly wisdom. If you haven't read part one be...

7 Lessons From Charlie Munger: On The Value Of Learning, Ethics, Self-Pity, Hardship, And...

Charlie Munger is a man who vehemently dislikes the spotlight, and hence has spent his life trying to avoid it. He is known as...

Aspirations to Write Poetry? Here’s a Few Pointers

How does one approach the potentially daunting task of writing a poem? Where does the inspiration come from? Well, poetry is more about seeing...