EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY What Is Effective Altruism? Key Takeaway: Effective altruism is an intellectual and charitable movement that seeks to find the best ways to help others. It was inspired by the philosopher Peter Singer and has gained traction due to its popularity among some extremely wealthy donors, such as Dustin Moskovitz, who co-founded Facebook and the Asana digital work management platform. […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY TECHNOLOGY How Will ChatGPT Transform Philosophy Key Takeaway: In 1950 English mathematician Alan Turing proposed an “imitation game” where a judge entered into a typed dialogue with an AI pretending to be human as a way of testing if the AI was intelligent. Lex.page is an AI-enabled writing tool that can generate text or answer questions. In 2018, Google unveiled Duplex, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY SCIENCE Does “Nothing” Actually Exist? Key Takeaway: When you look out at the night sky, you don’t see “nothing”, you see energy. This empty space is filled with energy, even if you cannot hold it in your hand. Even if you were looking into a completely empty room, there would still be things there. Energy never goes away and it […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY POLITICS We Now Live In “Late Capitalism” Key Takeaways: Karl Marx first analysed the last stage of capitalism in his three-volume opus Capital: A Critique of Political Economy(published in 1867, 1885, and 1894) Karl Marx did not use the term “late capitalism” It was coined by Werner Sombart, a controversial German historical economist, almost a century ago. The term ‘late capitalism’ was […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY The Buddhist Philosophy That Inspired Star Wars? Key Takeaways: George Lucas’s space saga about a fledgling rebellion of Jedi knights fighting the evil Galactic Empire hit cinemas in 1977. But what many miss are the influences of eastern religions and philosophy such as Buddhism and Taoism, an ancient Chinese religion and philosophy focused on acting in harmony with the universe. Some see […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY How To Test If We’re Really Living In A Simulation Key Takeaways: Physicists have long struggled to explain why the universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. But another is that our universe is a computer simulation, with someone (perhaps an advanced alien species) fine-tuning the conditions. This leads to the extraordinary possibility that our entire universe might in fact be computer […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY Exploring Kintsugi: The Japanese Philosophy Of Imperfection Key Takeaways: The art of kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. If a bowl is broken, the fragments are put back together with a glue-like tree sap and the cracks are adorned with gold. There are no attempts to hide the damage, instead, it is highlighted. The practice has come to represent […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CULTURE EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY The Philosophy Of Ghosts Key Takeaways: French philosopher Jacques Derrida invented the term ‘hauntology’ for his 1993 lecture Spectres of Marx. It is that eerie zone where time collapses and our past memories and associations haunt our minds, like a ghost. Hauntology also describes a post-traumatic-like disquiet of those born in the 1960s and ‘70s. English theorist Mark Fisher […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CULTURE EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY Are The Ancient Truths Of Buddhism A Modern Invention? Key Takeaways: For many people, Buddhism appears to be uniquely compatible with modern lifestyles and world views. Buddhist mindfulness has influenced many schools of contemporary psychology. Buddhist philosophy embraces constant change and the inherent impermanence of all things. The 19th century Burmese monk Ledi Sayadawtravelled the nation teaching meditation and founding study groups. The forms […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY Philosophy As A Way Of Life? Key Takeaways: French philosopher Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) began his intellectual career as a trainee priest and philologist. His best known work is his 1995 book Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, based on a 1981 French collection. He argues that the way we mostly think about philosophy today, as […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What Makes Basquiat Special? Key Takeaway: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work highlights racial inequalities and the lack of representation of racialized people in the media, but also the violence suffered by African Americans. Jean-Michel Basquiat denounced the violence of cartoons, which he saw as a reflection of 20th-century American society. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting “Toxic” is an attempt to denounce a stereotypical […] Written by John Harbour March 15, 2023March 15, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why Did Signature Bank Fail? Key Takeaway: The failures of SVB and Signature Bank were caused by two major risks: interest rate risk and liquidity risk. Interest rate risk caused the market value of previously issued debt to plunge, especially for longer-dated debt. Liquidity risk is the risk that a bank won’t be able to meet its obligations without incurring […] Written by Vidhura Tennekoon March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Art Of Balding Balding is really common, affecting more than 50% of men. It’s also physically inconsequential (bald men live just as long as haired men). So why, in his memoir Spare, does Prince Harry refer to his brother’s baldness as “alarming”? As a social psychologist with a special interest in balding (and author of an upcoming book entitled Branding Baldness), […] Written by Glen Jankowski March 1, 2023March 1, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Evolutionary Origins Of Imagination Key Takeaway: Mammals evolved to hide out while cold-blooded dinosaurs hunted during the day, but had to eat a lot more food than dinosaurs per unit of weight to maintain their high metabolism and constant inner body temperature. Mammals developed a new system to efficiently memorize places where they’d found food, linking sensory aspects of […] Written by Empirics Asia February 28, 2023February 28, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Art Of Receiving Feedback Good feedback, whether you are on the receiving or giving end, requires an attitude of curiosity and openness. Intentionally creating space for feedbackcan help, but even with the right space, receiving feedback can be really scary. Many organizations have formal systems of feedback in the style of mid-year and annual reviews. And it’s not uncommon for informal continuous […] Written by Andrea Mignolo February 27, 2023February 27, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The World After Oil Key Takeaway: The production and consumption of fossil fuels is on the rise, and expected to peak within the next decade. To consider alternatives to oil, we need to be aware of the scale of its integration into our lives. Caleb Wellum, an assistant professor of U.S. history at the University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada, […] Written by Nehal El-Hadi February 24, 2023February 24, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Secret Chemistry Of Chocolates Key Takeaways: Chocolate has been around for at least 4,000 years, and is now a trillion-dollar global industry. It starts out as a dull-tasting bean, packed into a pod that grows on a cacao tree, and requires two key steps: fermentation and roasting. Roasting is an art form, with different temperatures and times producing different […] Written by Sheryl Barringer February 23, 2023February 23, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education Key Takeaways: The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. In his writing, Flynn illustrates study after study, spanning nations and decades, in which modern educational gift of abstraction — a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Raven’s Matrices — has been […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022October 19, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How China Is Transforming Its Economy Through Learning I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […] Written by Enrique Dans February 1, 2021February 1, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why You’re Not Seeing Success With Influencer Marketing With the new year around the corner, now is a good time to re-evaluate your past marketing strategies and gear up for the year ahead. For some businesses, influencer marketing has simply not seemed to live up to its lofty promises of genuine engagement, credibility, and transparency. Some have claimed that it has been failing […] Written by Michael Tan January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A New Philosophy of Business I’m about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and I’ll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what “community” means for business. “Where should community fit in my organization?” and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
