Someone Will be Happy You are Dead

There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and wise man, will there not be at last some one to say to himself, Let us at last breathe freely being relieved from this schoolmaster? It is true that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceived that he tacitly condemns us.- This is what is said of a good man. But in our own case how many other things are there for which there are many wh...

 Leisure is an End That Can Only Be Enjoyed Without Burdens

But even when the work ethic reigns supreme, leisure holds a potent moral valence. Although we may not have much say over how we make money, we do have a choice about what we do in our free time. If work represents is, leisure represents ought: How we choose to use it will either embody our understanding of the good life or reveal the depth of our degradation. What is time well spent? Philosophers and social critics have long pondered variations of that question and offered rather consistent ...

 The Culture that Create Abundance has Difficulty Enjoying It

All were expressing a leisure ethic: a worldview in which a preference for free time and intrinsically motivated pursuits is accompanied by an understanding of how time can best be spent. To most people today, the notion of a leisure ethic will sound foreign, paradoxical, and indeed subversive, even though leisure is still commonly associated with the good life. More than any other society in the past, ours certainly has the technology and the wealth to furnish more people with greater freedo...

 Your Productive Life is Only as Long as You Retain Your M...

We ught to consider not only that our life is daily wasting away and a smaller part of it is left, but another thing also must be taken into the account, that if a man should live longer, it is quite uncertain whether the understanding will still continue sufficient for the comprehension of things, and retain the power of contemplation which strives to acquire the knowledge of the divine and the human. For if he shall begin to fall into dotage, perspiration and nutrition and imagination and a...

 Thought Terminating Cliche

Another trick in the cult leader's language toolkit is the thought-terminating cliche. These are sayings that end uncomfortable conversations or trains of thoughts. "It is what it is." "Everything happens for a reason." "Let's agree to disagree." They shut down argument and critical thinking, which is why they're so handy to authoritarians who don't like to be questioned. Charles Manson countered any rational objections to his ravings by saying, "No sense makes sense." Try arguing with that. ...

 Chengyu: Four-Character Chinese Expressions

心神不宁 (xīn shén bù níng): “to feel bad about nothing” 损人利己 (sǔn rén lì jǐ): “to seek benefit at the expense of others” 幸灾乐祸 (xìng zāi lè huò): “to enjoy others’ misfortunes” 力不从心 (Lì bù cóng xīn): “the qualities aren’t at the level of the aspirations” 亦步亦趋 (yì bù yì qū): “to blindly imitate someone” 桃李满天下 (táolǐ mǎn tiān xià): “to have pupils everywhere” 省吃俭用 (shěng chī jiǎn yòng)...

 The Science of Wisdom

A bulk of research has already shown that this kind of third-person thinking can temporarily improve decision making. Now a preprint at PsyArxiv finds that it can also bring long-term benefits to thinking and emotional regulation. The researchers said this was ‘the first evidence that wisdom-related cognitive and affective processes can be trained in daily life, and of how to do so’. [...] Grossmann’s aim is to build a strong experimental footing for the study of wisdom,...

 Identifying AI Online

Before you continue, pause and consider: How would you prove you're not a language model generating predictive text? What special human tricks can you do that a language model can't? 1. Triangulate objective reality [...] This leaves us with some low-hanging fruit for humanness. We can tell richly detailed stories grounded in our specific contexts and cultures: place names, sensual descriptions, local knowledge, and, well the je ne sais quoi of being alive. Language models can decently mim...

 Sex Makes Life and Should Not Be Shunned

If there is a perverse man who could take offense at the praise that I give to the most noble and universal of passions, I would evoke Nature before him, I would make it speak, and Nature would say to him: why do you blush to hear the word pleasure pronounced, when you do not blush to indulge in its temptations under the cover of night? Are you ignorant of its purpose and of what you owe it? Do you believe that your mother would have imperiled her life to give you yours if I had not attached ...

 Know Then Thyself

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much...