Basement Whatever
Escape the algorithm
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Category: Post
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History tells us that the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer threw a woman down the stairs in a fit of anger that his thinking was interrupted when she insisted on talking in the hallway outside his door. The story is used repeatedly to help us understand Schopenhauer’s character. The problem is, it’s not true. So how did…
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Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking Fast and Slow, a foundational text about the various ways humans make decisions. This post summarizes a few of his strategies for improving thinking. One stood out, because I think it would apply to better hiring decisions: Delay Your Intuition: At 22, Kahneman redesigned the Israeli army’s interview system. The old…
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If you’re unaware, there’s a new conspiracy theory moving around the Internet that Roy Jay, an eccentric 1980s comedian, never existed. According to the theory, our memories have been manipulated by AI, so that we believe his existence, making it a deliberate Mandela effect. This is not true, but the longer, more interesting answer is…
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Lots of reasons, but the biggest one is that being around people and dealing with their various hang ups is part of being human, and we forget that at our own peril. But also because when you smile at the world, the world smiles back. The author chose to become kind after a lifetime of…
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The author thinks we could eventually move away from screens completely, which would be welcome relief to parents, internet addicts and office workers alike. The shift will be due to advances in computing which remove the screen entirely. Increasingly, I envision a world without phones or tablets or computers. A world defined by a more…
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What if the kids are alright? considering all the content i consume about society’s rapid decline, it’s consistently disorienting to put the phone down, step outside, and look at how little has changed since my childhood. And more: we have spent roughly equal amounts of time letting strangers on the internet tell us what the…
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“the most important lessons from history are things that are so fundamental to the behaviors of so many people that they’re likely to apply to you and situations you’ll face in your own lifetime.”
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“It is not a surprise that changes occurred – using your brain for new things helps it grow, but the specifics are interesting at least to me.”
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“what i stumbled upon wasn’t just a collection of silly memes; it was a masterclass on the language of the ultra-wealthy.”
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“In my experience, high-level enjoyment, like a sport, is composed of many interlocking micro-skills that must be trained individually, but which reinforce each other.”
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“The whole process, including detection, deployment, tracking and capturing the hostile drone is fully automated removing the need for a human pilot.”
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“This new frame could help us sidestep some potential alignment problems…”
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One writer’s wish list for the future
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“When you think, ‘Social media is terrible,’ which are you thinking of most?”
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“I don’t define myself by my hobbies, let alone feel the need to broadcast my interests in them through textiles.”
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The US, compared to the rest of the world, is optimistic because it is still the land of possibilities. You can remake yourself here, because we are generally forgiving, and provide everyone many chances to reclaim who they are.
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“There may be a light at the end of the tunnel for anyone that seeks an escape. I believe we are going to see the opposite of the context collapse of the internet today.”
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“Some lean towards the soft and hyper-feminine, others erupt with anime iconography, but all are united by a sense of unapologetic presence.”
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Are we done organizing the world’s information?
Basement Whatever 