What are the values you most look for when forming relationships? Great question! Any answer I give here will be incomplete, but I have come to notice some patterns in my most valuable relationships. Certain values and traits also help me quickly pick out people I want in my “tribe.”
Tag: reading
Who’s Afraid of Russian Propaganda?
If we believe the people who claim to be so concerned about Russian Facebook activity, we really ought to be concerned about something much deeper: the apparent fragility of American society. For if the Russians can strike a propaganda blow comparable, as some have ludicrously said, to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, isn’t that also true for any number of domestic websites across the political spectrum?
When Academics Describe the World
In economics, theorists will tell you “public goods” like lighthouses can’t ever be supplied by private, profit-seeking ventures. Meanwhile, right outside their window there are private lighthouses, provided in ways too varied and ingenious for the academic mind to comprehend, and too skin-in-the-game trial-and-error intuitive for the entrepreneur to even know how to explicitly describe.
Building Walls
We can’t keep up with our infrastructure needs, yet we are committed to building thousand of miles of walls on highways and along borders. Your tax dollars at work.
Educated: A Must-Read
From the first page, I was captivated and, cliché as it is, I truly couldn’t put it down. I read the book swiftly, entranced by Westover’s vivid depiction of growing up in rural Idaho in a religious fundamentalist, survivalist family. School was where the devil hides, often clothed as socialists, or so her father said. In piercing prose, Westover offers an eloquent illustration of conviction blurring into paranoia, ideology into lunacy. She describes how fragile those lines can be.
We Rule: A Socratic Dialogue
Socrates: Instead of spreading allegedly noble lies about Athenians or barbarians, my dear Glaucon, let us spread the noble truth that civilization is the product of human knowledge and human effort – and celebrate both wherever they may be found.
“Zombies” and the Uncanny Valley
Standing up or sitting down, holding something close to our faces, head slightly bowed, and not moving much for extended periods of time is a seemingly unnatural position for human beings to take. There’s something not quite right about it. From their perspective, they are actively and purposefully engaged in reading or watching or playing, but from a third party’s perspective, it’s inhuman.
Unschooling and Writing
The reality is that sentence-diagramming and copying someone else’s writing template don’t create better writers. They create students who may meet contrived curriculum benchmarks and pass standardized tests. They create students who can play the game. With unschooling, there is no game to play. There is no manufactured curriculum or assessment. There is simply life.
Forget the Data, College is a Religion
The psychological benefit of going along with the dominant belief, gaining the prestige it entails, and not risking being seen as a non-believer motivate all kinds of actions detrimental to a person’s individual goals and aspirations. Attending college is the most pervasive religious act today.
Four Antidotes to Procrastination
In this article, I want to offer a few antidotes to procrastination, so that we can all find a path to doing the meaningful work we want to do, a path to offering our gift fully to the world.