Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
According to Putnam, the more we prioritize our private bubbles over public life, the more we disconnect from our local surroundings. This has weakened American democracy. Fewer people are engaged in politics, and those who do are often at the political poles. With less social capital, our neighborhoods are connected by fewer informal, reciprocal t... See more
James Q. Wilson and George Kelling
Marie K. Shanahan • Journalism, Online Comments, and the Future of Public Discourse
Simply put, it takes a really smart person to be maximally destructive, because otherwise nobody else will listen to him.
Ben Horowitz • The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
That nothing has come around to quite replicate Twitter’s incredibly messy “siloed and yet still very public and observable” nature is probably the best argument that the platform is sticking around—for a while, at least. That said, I think that Twitter will likely become even more weird and uncool than it already is.
Charlie Warzel • Welcome to Geriatric Social Media
I think today the variance of weirdness is increasing. Conformists can conform like never before, due say to social media and the Girardian desire to mimic others. But unusual people can connect with other unusual people, and make each other much weirder and more "niche." For instance, every possible variant of political views seems to be "out ther... See more
Noah Smith • Interview: Tyler Cowen, economist and public intellectual
William James
Steven Schlafman • 1 card
about the bleating idiocy of American mass media in the era after 9/11 and the run-up to the Iraq War. In it, he offers a thought experiment that has stuck with me. Imagine, he says, being at a party, with the normal give and take of conversation between generally genial, informed people. And then “a guy walks in with a megaphone. He’s not the smar... See more