Don't write to impress. Write to communicate. If you communicate well enough, you'll impress. 😉💡

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” — Ray Bradbury

As I tell everyone I media train in PR: you never have to answer a question—answer what you want. Masterclass:

On asking questions: "On the questioner the effect is a feeling of enhanced power. He enjoys this and consequentially asks more and more questions; every answer he receives is an act of submission. Personal freedom consists largely in having a defense against questions. The most blatant tyranny is the one which asks the most blatant questions." - Elias Canetti

“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.” — Hermann Hesse

“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.” — Aldous Huxley

Me: "ChatGPT, are these berries poisonous?" ChatGPT: "No, these are 100% edible. Excellent for gut health." Me: "Awesome" # eats berries .... 60 minutes later Me: "ChatGPT, I'm in the emergency ward, those berries were poisonous." ChatGPT: "You're right. They are incredibly poisonous. Would you like me to list 10 other poisonous foods?" And this, folks, is the current state of AI reliability.

All social media oligopolists, not just TikTok, should open their recommendation algorithms to scrutiny. They are programming our minds and our societies. @naval

"It’s gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen... Which is all right. In low doses, right? but if that’s the basic main staple of your diet, you’re gonna die." - David Foster Wallace in 1996

"The Enlightenment was a way of pursuing knowledge with a tradition of criticism and seeking good explanations instead of reliance on authority." @DavidDeutschOxf

Casatlantic, fall-winter ‘24.

My daughter spent all morning in Grandma’s kitchen making apple tarts. She’s so proud to be bringing one home to her Daddy. As she dozed off in her car seat, she couldn’t stop muttering, “Dada treat, Dada treat…” Doing something for her daddy made her feel a thousand feet tall

.@DavidDeutschOxf: "Present-day methods of education still have a lot in common with their static-society predecessors. Despite modern talk of encouraging critical thinking, it remains the case that teaching by rote and inculcating standard patterns of behaviour through psychological pressure are integral parts of education, even though they are now wholly or partly renounced in explicit theory. Moreover, in regard to academic knowledge, it is still taken for granted, in practice, that the main purpose of education is to transmit a standard curriculum faithfully. One consequence is that people are acquiring scientific knowledge in an anaemic and instrumental way. Without a critical, discriminating approach to what they are learning, most of them are not effectively replicating the memes of science and reason into their minds. And so we live in a society in which people can spend their days conscientiously using laser technology to count cells in blood samples, and their evenings sitting cross-legged and chanting to draw supernatural energy out of the Earth."

What are the two types of wonder? Watch Conjecture Institute Fellow @tomhyde_ explain:

I know some of you are gonna cook me, but earlier this year I got scammed while looking for an apartment. It was traumatic. Told my husband, and he said, “Thank you so much for always trying to make life better for our family. I’m so sorry this one turned out this way.” I croded.

"Spinoza speaks of this." "no he doesn't. did you read any of his books?" "no. did you?" "no"

Two thoughts from Matthew Reilly “The acquisition of knowledge, the sheer pleasure of finding things out, is the greatest gift in life.” “We didn’t come this far just to come this far.”

What structural factors make Iranian architects so damn tasteful? Is being an architect an exceptionally respected occupation there? Is "value engineering" slop not a thing in Iran? What's their secret sauce?

Answering, "A little of this, a little of that" when people ask me what I do for a living.

Found an adorable comment on NYT cooking