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NYTimesThe Blindness of Social Wealth
I summarize all this because loneliness and social isolation are the problem that undergird many of our other problems. More and more Americans are socially poor. And yet it is very hard for the socially wealthy to even see this fact. It is the very nature of loneliness and social isolation to be invisible. We talk as if the lonely don’t exist.
NYTimesWhy Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not
Our well-being is local and relative — if you live in a struggling area and your status is slipping, even if you are relatively comfortable, you are probably at least a bit miserable.
NYTIMESHow Evil Is Tech?
Our devices consume our time and dilute our social interactions. Not long ago, tech was the coolest industry. Everybody wanted to work at Google, Facebook and Apple. But over the past year the mood has shifted.
NYTimesSemicolons: A Love Story
How Kurt Vonnegut taught one writer to hate the semicolon; how William James convinced him to love it.
NYTIMESBuilding A.I. That Can Build A.I.
Google and others, fighting for a small pool of researchers, are looking for automated ways to deal with a shortage of artificial intelligence experts.
NYTimesHow to Stop Eating Sugar
If you’re like most Americans, you eat more sugar than is good for you. But it’s entirely possible to eat less sugar without sacrificing much — if any — of the pleasures of eating. Surprising as it may sound, many people who have cut back on sugar say they find their new eating habits more pleasurable than their old ones. This guide will walk you through why sugar matters, how you can make smart food choices to reduce sugar consumption, and how you can keep your life sweet, even without so many sweets.
nytimesWhy Fiction Trumps Truth
We humans know more truths than any species on earth. Yet we also believe the most falsehoods.
NYTimesWhat Good Is ‘Community’ When Someone Else Makes All the Rules?
You can tell a lot about the cultural status of capitalism by how we refer to people who buy stuff. “Customer,” with its implicit deference — its suggestion that the buyer is always right — is now a relic of a bygone era. “Client” is formal and reserved for professional relationships. “Consumer,” with its air of piggish, Pac-Man voracity, is the slightly dehumanizing moniker most of us grew up with, but that was some time ago, before the rise of the brand as a cultic family. Now everyone who buys or uses or even just cares about a product or service has been collectively upgraded to something more ephemeral, almost spiritual, a loose association of souls brought together in one churchlike congregation: a “community.”
NYTIMES‘Wilde in America,’ by David M. Friedman
A cultural historian argues that Oscar Wilde was among the first to realize that celebrity could come before accomplishment.
NYTimesMaybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem
The conventional wisdom is that morning people are high achievers, go-getters, while late risers are lazy. But what if going to bed in the wee hours is actually an advantage?
NYTIMESCrows May Learn Lessons From Death
A new study suggests the birds pay careful attention to their dead as a way to gather information about threats.
NYTimesThe Climate Crisis? It’s Capitalism, Stupid
A recent Times opinion piece included this quotation from the paleoclimatologist Lee Kump: “The rate at which we’re injecting CO2 into the atmosphere today, according to our best estimates, is 10 times faster than it was during the End-Permian.”
nytimesMindfulness: Getting Its Share of Attention
What is the sound of one hand texting? A term for mental training reaches the height of trendiness, and like yoga before it, may be leaving its mark. What is the sound of one hand texting?
NYTimesThe Superfund Sites of Silicon Valley
Inside these plain vanilla buildings, where C.E.O.s in hoodies and jeans stockpile more money than the G.D.P. of developing countries, newly minted techies complain that “S.V.,” the world’s largest wealth generator, is too expensive and that its exhausting work culture is toxic. So, too, is the land beneath their feet.
NYTIMESWhich Language Uses the Most Sounds?
Taa, spoken by a few thousand people in Botswana and Namibia, is believed to have the largest sound inventory of any language in the world.
NYTIMES‘The Story of Ain’t,’
“A lot had happened to English since the early ’30s, including a world war and most of the New Deal. Also television, the civil rights movement, superhighways, Dr. Spock, rock ’n’ roll, the Bomb, rocket science, the cold war, Superman and the Kinsey reports. New words — and new meanings of old ones— were everywhere, like 'astronaut,' 'beatnik,' 'den mother' and 'satellite.' Into Webster’s Third they went.” Webster’s Third New International was scorned for being less judgmental than its predecessor.
NYTIMESSolving the Riddles of an Early Astronomical Calculator
More than 100 years after it was found, and more than 2,000 years after it was believed to have been built, the Antikythera Mechanism continues to raise questions and provide answers.
NYTIMESHunting for the Origins of Symbolic Thought
Archaeologists are discovering Paleolithic art outside Europe, rewriting the history of human creativity.
NYTIMESThe Libertarian Fantasy
Phosphorus and Freedom. Free markets can’t solve all our problems. Just ask Toledo.
nytimesYes, the Octopus Is Smart as Heck. But Why?
It has eight arms, three hearts — and a plan. Scientists aren’t sure how the cephalopods got to be so intelligent.
NYTIMESRoman Ruins Found in France Are Called ‘Exceptional’
The ruins were uncovered near the southeastern city of Vienne and have been called “probably the most exceptional find from the Roman era in years.”
NYTIMESWriting Rules! Advice From The Times on Writing Well
Recent Times features, including a new series on the art of writing, inspire us to create this list of 10 rules for writing well. In it you'll find links to advice on everything from using punctuation to reading the…
NYTIMESTo Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now
To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and NowFocusing on core competence and outsourcing the rest has made U.S.…
NYTimesArchaeologists in China Discover the Oldest Stone Tools Outside Africa
Chipped rocks found in western China indicate that human ancestors ventured from Africa earlier than previously believed.
NYTimesCan Crows Make Mental Pictures of Tools?
New Caledonian crows were trained to seek rewards by tearing paper of a certain size, demonstrating what researchers say is quite advanced toolmaking.
NYTIMESDalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded
In many ways, there has never been a better time to be alive. Violence plagues some corners of the world, and too many still live under the grip of tyrannical regimes. And although all the world’s major faiths teach love, compassion and tolerance, unthinkable violence is being perpetrated in the name of religion. ... what unites the two of us in friendship and collaboration is not shared politics or the same religion. It is something simpler: a shared belief in compassion, in human dignity, in the intrinsic usefulness of every person to contribute positively for a better and more meaningful world.
nytimesAmericans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not.
U.S. unemployment is down and jobs are going unfilled. But for people without much education, the real question is: Do those jobs pay enough to live on?
NYTIMESThe Lonely Death of George Bell
Each year around 50,000 people die in New York, some alone and unseen. Yet death even in such forlorn form can cause a surprising amount of activity. Sometimes, along the way, a life’s secrets are revealed. // This might not always be a good way to live (that is, in solitude), but according to Buddhist teachings, it can be a good way to die. We die alone anyway, and dying without other people's laying their trips around us might help us stay focused in a moment when most people can't really help, but can possibly annoy.
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