We Have So Many Conspiracy Theories Because They’re Stories, And Stories Are How We Live
This is not great. “We are condemned to navigate the Space Age world with Stone Age minds; because of this inherent biological anachronism, man is the ape that imitates, tells stories, and morally condemns others.” – LitHub
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Gay Penguins Steal Entire Nest From Lesbian Penguins to Become Dads.
The Most Valuable Award In British Poetry Goes To Bhanu Kapil
Poet Lavinia Greenlaw, who chaired the committee for the T.S. Eliot prize, said of Kapil’s How to Wash a Heart, “This is a unique work that exemplifies how poetry can be tested and remade to accommodate uncomfortable and unresolvable truths. … It’s a book that one of the judges said, ‘Every time you start it, you have to finish it.’ There’s nothing like it.” – The Guardian (UK)
A Checklist For Happiness? It Doesn’t Work That Way
“Every cultural message we get is that happiness can be read off a scorecard of money, education, experiences, relationships, and prestige. Want the happiest life? Check the boxes of success and adventure, and do it as early as possible! Then move on to the next set of boxes. She who dies with the most checked boxes wins, right? Wrong. I don’t mean that accomplishment and ambition are bad, but that they are simply not the drivers of our happiness.” – The Atlantic
The Psychology Of Massive Multiplayer Online Games and The QAnon Delusions
“The art of creating the connections and building communities of others who also come to believe and amplify them is a virtuous circle that keeps growing and strengthening increasingly wacky beliefs.” – Post Alley
The Theatre Of Dreams
We are neurochemically predisposed to find our dreams meaningful, which may suggest that they do have a pedagogical function. Even the common advice to make an important decision only after you “sleep on it” might be worth revising, to “dream on it.” The fact that dreams often generate powerful emotions and deploy narrative structures further strengthens the notion that they perhaps represent a kind of theater of the unconscious, one not always intent on providing concrete solutions so much as making sense and meaning out of our experiences. – Washington Post
Why Cities Won’t Be Done In By COVID
Despite the long tradition of anti-urbanism in the U.S.that always seems to see the demise of cities just around the corner, they will survive because they are one of humanity’s greatest inventions. – The Conversation
Season Three Of ‘Serial’ Is Headed To HBO
“The third season of the award-winning podcast, which arguably set in motion the current boom for non-fiction audio series, was set in the Cleveland justice system. Unlike the first two seasons, which featured one case, it looked at the system overall.” HBO’s adaptation, a limited series, will focus on one Cleveland police officer and the young man he’s accused of beating. (Among the executive producers is basketball superstar Lebron James.) – Deadline
A quick way to learn more about your search results
Google Blog: “When you search for information on Google, you probably often come across results from sources that you’re familiar with: major retailer websites, national news sites and more. But there’s also a ton of great information on and services available from sites that you may not have come across before. And while you can always use Google to do some additional research about those sites, we’re working on a new way for you to find helpful info without having to do another search. Starting today, next to most results on Google, you’ll begin to see a menu icon that you can tap to learn more about the result or feature and where the information is coming from. With this additional context, you can make a more informed decision about the sites you may want to visit and what results will be most useful for you…”
Looking For Movies About Wall Street For, Well, Reasons?
You won’t find them on the usual streaming suspects. – The Verge