EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY Is The Concept Of “Overpopulation” Flawed? The gross misconception that too many of us have, with regard to population and resources, is that we will run out. What we fail to realize is that this assumes a future population will do things the same way that we do today. We are projecting—without a second thought—that human beings will continueto conduct “business as usual” without the […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY & WELLNESS STRATEGY The Secret Psychology Of Shops You might think that you only buy what you need, when you need it. But whether you are shopping for food, clothes or gadgets, the retailers are using the power of psychological persuasion to influence your decisions – and help you part with your cash. If you think back, I’ll bet there’s a good chance […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY Can Gluttony Set You Free? On the question of excess—of too much food, drink, or anything else—poet William Blake wrote, “You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.” This bit of wisdom from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell gets at how tricky it can be to measure how much is too much, to know […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY The Death Of Farming As we did just yesterday, every winter weekend that I’m not in NYC, my family and I drive North from Toronto, through Ontario’s so-called “Greenbelt”—a protected swath of agricultural farmland—to ski. Every time we do, it seems that yet one more farm is abandoned, its infrastructure boarded up or falling apart—in ruin. As a photographer […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY How Cup Noodles Became One of The Biggest Business Success Stories Of All Time See a container of Cup Noodles at a convenience store and you might think of dorm rooms and cheap calories. But there was a time when eating from the product’s iconic packaging exuded cosmopolitanism, when the on-the-go meal symbolized possibility – a Japanese industrial food with an American flair. Cup Noodles – first marketed in […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY SOCIOLOGY Consumerism vs. Cultivation Over the past three years, I have become increasingly disappointed in capitalism. It’s not that I’ve landed on the wrong side of the equation. I am squarely on the “winning” side. So, my misgivings aren’t fueled by personal feelings of exclusion or hardship. They are fed by an increasing awareness about the extent of destruction […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY & WELLNESS SOCIOLOGY How Nurture Shapes Nature Most of us knew that our genetic inheritance shapes much about who we are. Less known is the emerging field of epigenetics, and the surprising discoveries that in fact the quality of our thoughts can have a profound impact on our physiological health, as well as our emotional lives. This morning, I read an Instagram […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ENTREPRENEURSHIP SCIENCE SOCIOLOGY STARTUPS TECHNOLOGY The Future Of Meat: Why Its Important & Where We’re Headed The food industry, and in particular livestock, remains unsustainable in many categories across climate, supply, nutrition, and accessibility. This has become more evident during the pandemic as meat producers grappled with food and worker safety issues. In May, Tyson Foods was linked to almost 5,000 cases of coronavirus in its meat-processing plants across 15 states, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
POLITICS The Nth Degree Animals used to roam the planet. Now, they sit yoked and broken, until they’re ready to harvest for parts. We used to catch seasonal rainfall. Now, we empty the world’s aquifers to eat strawberries in February. We used to pray for ten fingers and toes. We increasingly purchase engineered outcomes. We used to dress for […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Hidden Structure Of Community Dynamics The world is a networked place, literally and figuratively. The field of network science is used today to understand phenomena as diverse as the spread of misinformation, West African tradeand protein-protein interactions in cells. Network science has uncovered several universal properties of complex social networks, which in turn has made it possible to learn details of particular networks. For example, the […] Written by Mayank Kejriwal August 3, 2022August 3, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Risk Of Space Junk? The chance of someone being killed by space junk falling from the sky may seem ridiculously tiny. After all, nobody has yet died from such an accident, though there have been instances of injury and damage to property. But given that we are launching an increasing number of satellites, rockets and probes into space, do […] Written by Monica Grady August 1, 2022August 1, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Hidden Structure Of Community Dynamics The world is a networked place, literally and figuratively. The field of network science is used today to understand phenomena as diverse as the spread of misinformation, West African tradeand protein-protein interactions in cells. Network science has uncovered several universal properties of complex social networks, which in turn has made it possible to learn details of particular networks. For example, the […] Written by Mayank Kejriwal August 3, 2022August 3, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Risk Of Space Junk? The chance of someone being killed by space junk falling from the sky may seem ridiculously tiny. After all, nobody has yet died from such an accident, though there have been instances of injury and damage to property. But given that we are launching an increasing number of satellites, rockets and probes into space, do […] Written by Monica Grady August 1, 2022August 1, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What Makes People Willing To Risk Their Lives To Save Others? After an 18-year-old shooter murdered 19 elementary school students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, distraught parents directed their rage at the multiple police officers who failed to enter the classroom where children were being shot. A teacher who survived his wounds derided the officers as “cowards.” It’s possible that a broken chain of command was more consequential than […] Written by Franck McAndrew July 29, 2022July 29, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. Its prime accomplishment was the expansion of our ability to abstract the world. Until then, pragmatism reigned, limiting most people’s thoughts and interactions primarily because we lacked the tools to extrapolate information, to wield it for things that lay beyond obvious […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022March 2, 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