Standing on a precarious ridge I have the misfortune to be an optimist. It has led to some terrible investments and a few excellent life choices. In the present state of the world I cannot tell you whether the optimists or the pessimists are ahead on points. Here is how
Why efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better | Psyche Ideas
The urge to do everything faster and better is risky. Far wiser to do what’s good enough for the range of possible futures
The Case for Lowering Your Expectations
It may be the key to happiness and sustainable performance
The Joy of Becoming Worthless…except to each other — Douglas Rushkoff
My last piece, The Intentional Collapse, seems to have agitated a few people. I know it came off a bit dark. I talked about how the Uber wealthy believe the world as we know it is ending and that there won’t be enough essential resources to go around, so they need to take control of as much money and stuff and land as possible in order to position themselves for the end of days.
Optimistic Computing
I recently made two new friends: Abhinav Omprakash and Dawn Walker. Abhinav said I’m an optimist and I should write about it. Dawn said I shouldn’t try to coin any new terms. I should know better, but this essay follows Abhinav’s recommendation — and credits Dawn, in the very likely event I should have followed her advice instead. I have been alive for approximately four decades. Each of those decades was witness to its own fun brand of computering.
A psychologically rich life: Beyond happiness and meaning.
Disclaimer
Lifehacker is the ultimate authority on optimizing every aspect of your life. Do everything better.
Wisdom in a World in Crisis: The Counterintuitive Need to Slow Down and Find Spaciousness - The Great Simplification
In this episode, Nate is rejoined by philosopher and neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist for discussion on how our left-brain dominance obscures our sense of value, especially for abstract qualities such as truth, goodness, and beauty.
Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren- John Maynard Keynes
We are suffering just now from a bad attack of economic pessimism. It is common to hear people say that the epoch of enormous economic progress which characterised the nineteenth century is over; that the rapid improvement in the standard of life is now going to slow down—at any rate in Great Britain; that a decline in prosperity is more likely than an improvement in the decade which lies ahead of us.
Wisdom in a World in Crisis: The Counterintuitive Need to Slow Down and Find Spaciousness with Iain McGilchrist
Chasing life goals is a recipe for disaster – so try these tiny experiments instead
Whether its our careers, health or relationships, we often set the bar too high and end up feeling disappointed when it doesn’t work out. Try this new way of thinking … and you may just see some real results
Museletter #353: Deadly Optimism, Useful Pessimism
What's really needed is a realistic sense of what's possible, and a dogged determination to heal division, protect nature and culture, and build sustainable alternatives.
Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World
In a series of mock lesson plans and a "program of study" Galeano provides an eloquent, passionate, funny and shocking exposé of First World privileges and assumptions. From a master class in "The Impunity of Power" to a seminar on "The Sacred Car"—with tips along the way on "How to Resist Useless Vices" and a declaration of the "The Right to Rave"—he surveys a world unevenly divided between abundance and deprivation, carnival and torture, power and helplessness. We have accepted a "reality" we should reject, he writes, one where poverty kills, people are hungry, machines are more precious than humans, and children work from dark to dark. In the North, we are fed on a diet of artificial need and all made the same by things we own; the South is the galley slave enabling our greed.
On technological optimism and technological pragmatism
"There are no guarantees that things are going to turn out very well for anyone.”
On technological optimism and technological pragmatism
"There are no guarantees that things are going to turn out very well for anyone.”
On technological optimism and technological pragmatism
"There are no guarantees that things are going to turn out very well for anyone.”