Search Results for: Derek Thompson

Nones, and Genre

Why did the rise of the “nones” begin in the 1990s? Thoughts about how science fiction is, or is not, a “genre”. Here’s an article I stumbled upon today, from 2019 in The Atlantic, by a writer I’ve see a … Continue reading

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Friday 10 May 2024

A round of assorted items collected on the web the past few days. Here’s that item about what universities are for, that I couldn’t find the other day. The Atlantic, Derek Thompson, 8 May 2024: No One Knows What Universities … Continue reading

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Monoculture and Tribalist Thinking

Travel perspectives; Is everything a cult now? If so, the word has lost all meaning; Is religion just a tribal marker? Then why do so many Christian zealots want to impose their beliefs on others, to the point of executions? … Continue reading

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Agents of Chaos

A piece in The Atlantic about people who embrace chaos and nihilism — and spread conspiracy theories just to alleviate boredom, or burn it all down; And an example of this: Washington Post on Libs of Tik Tok; And recalling … Continue reading

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Progress in 2023

For this last post of the year, I’ll link several year-end pieces about progress in the world, where most people see only continued doom. (I’ll do a separate post, about progress against my goals in my own life, soon.) NY … Continue reading

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The Continued Deadly Consequences of the Obsolete Second Amendment

The latest in the endless commentary about gun violence in the US: items about how America fails the civilization test; how gun violence is worse in Red States (despite what the Republicans say about big Blue cities); and how the … Continue reading

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Progress, Its Implementation, and Trust

A long piece today, from the Jan/Feb 2023 issue of The Atlantic. The Atlantic, Derek Thompson, 12 Dec 2022: Why the Age of American Progress Ended, subtitled “Invention alone can’t change the world; what matters is what happens next.”

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Ls&Cs: More About Thinking, or Not

Once again, the general theme is how some people think things through, and how others prefer “stories” or being told what to think. Heroes and villains; conservative media vs. coastal elites; when an enemy is not a speaker of a … Continue reading

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