WRITING AND CONTROL
Peter Godfrey-Smith:
The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, in his wry, moody memoir Tristes Tropiques …, discussed this aspect of writing: ‘Writing is a strange invention.
ON LEAVING FACEBOOK
I stopped posting on Facebook in November 2016. I’ve long thought that I should delete my account, but I’ve kept it open, primarily because I appreciated what I learned there about the lives of people in my life — people I didn’t encounter much anymore, both because of my introverted approach to the world and also because I’ve moved around so much in my life.
Read moreCONSCIOUSNESS, CONSPIRACIES, AND THE VANISHING RESEARCHER
I’m just not willing to go down this rabbit hole, but I can’t resist describing it, however briefly.
Read moreTHREE HUNDRED ELEPHANTS IN A GAS TANK
Ferris Jabr:
We’ve known for more than a century that fossil fules are combustible crypts containing the power of countless deceased life forms that collectively absorbed hundreds of millions of years of sunlight.
NEW BEGINNINGS
To state the obvious, I’m not the only one who has spent more than a few minutes over the last couple of weeks attempting to state clearly the New Year’s Resolutions™ I’m thinking now that I’ll fail to live up to this year.
Read moreTHE IMPOSITIONAL POWER OF THE CANON: SAFE SPACES
Ta-Nehisi Coates:
Great canons angle toward great power, and the great privilege of great power is an incuriosity about those who lack it.