EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY What Modern People Get Wrong About Stoicism Key Takeaway: Stoicism, a philosophical school popular in ancient Rome, is often associated with happiness and productivity. However, Stoic TikTok, a popular social media platform, often misinterprets its ideas. Stoicism was traditionally divided into three branches: ethics, physics, and logic. Stoic TikTok focuses on knowledge through reading quotations or practicing mental exercises, but it doesn’t […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CULTURE EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY Understanding Cancel Culture Key Takeaway: The rise of user-created content on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok has challenged traditional notions of authorship. YouTube cancellation videos, a unique sub-genre of YouTube apology videos, show how creators take responsibility for accusations, question the validity of others, and address the dynamics of social media cancellation more broadly in relation to […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY The Rise Of Deinfluencers Key Takeaways: Deinfluencing is a social media trend that discourages influencers from promoting overpriced or ineffective products. With nearly 730 million views on TikTok, it aims to address the desire for authenticity, social media burnout, and a shift in values. Deinfluencers prioritize genuine content and engagement over curated content and commercial partnerships, addressing the emotional […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY SCIENCE Are UFOs Actually Aliens? Key Takeaway: UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, have gained popularity in recent years, with 25%-50% of surveyed Americans believing at least some UFOs are alien spacecraft. The popularity of UFOs has been driven by market-driven stories, such as the Roswell Incident and the U.S. Navy’s 2017 Gimbal video. However, multiple investigations have found no evidence […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY Is Twitter’s Blue Tick A Status Symbol? What Will Happen If Everyone Can Buy One? Key Takeaways: Elon Musk proposed a range of controversial changes to the Twitter platform. One of the ideas was to charge US$8 a month to obtain a verified status. The paid verification change has already been rolled out in several countries, including Australia, under the Twitter Blue subscription service. Musk’s proposal is not only misguided […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY Influencers: Who’s Influencing Who? There’s an article in The New York Times worth reading about the relationship between influencer statistics and book sales, entitled “Millions of followers? For book sales, ‘it’s unreliable”, which has gotten the publishing industry talking about how best to market new titles. The limits of influencers are becoming increasingly clear: the first question revolves around […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY The Retail Revolution In China China’s dominance in manufacturing has made it the factory of the world. The subsequent economic growth enriched an ever-expanding middle class, and the country’s retail industry has quickly adapted to supply a growing appetite for consumption. Some of these developments in the way people spend their money, powered by the latest technology, will soon be appearing on […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY 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 […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Democratising Finance Through Artificial Intelligence Key Takeaway: Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing investment by making professional financial insight and portfolio management accessible to everyone. AI-powered robo-advisers, such as Betterment and Vanguard, are democratizing investment and providing tailored advice to a new generation of investors. With 31% of gen Zs and 20% of millennials using robo-advisers, the financial industry is adapting […] Written by Heather He March 19, 2024March 19, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Final Frontier Of Forensic Science Key Takeaway: Nasa’s Artemis program is set to return astronauts to the Moon and establish a permanent orbiting laboratory by the end of the decade. As humanity’s footprint expands, a new field emerges: astroforensics. Space presents a unique and harsh environment for forensic investigations, with altered gravity, cosmic radiation, extreme temperatures, and oxygen-providing climate systems. […] Written by Zack Kowalske March 18, 2024March 18, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Future Of Spacesuits Key Takeaway: The Polaris Dawn mission, which includes the first spacewalk organized by a private company, has been delayed due to complications with the design and development of a suitable spacesuit. Moon suits are a key element of Nasa’s Artemis lunar programme that have yet to be delivered. Spacesuits are no longer expected to be […] Written by Yang Gao March 11, 2024March 11, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why We Will Never Master The Financial Markets Key Takeaways: Stock market enthusiasts often claim to predict financial market trends with great accuracy, but this is not possible due to the uncertainty and unpredictable nature of the environments in which we make daily decisions. Human cognition tends to favor a reductionist approach to information processing, sometimes called “tunneling,” which can lead to biased […] Written by Benoît Béchard March 8, 2024March 8, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Is There Life On Europa? Key Takeaway: The Juno mission has sampled Jupiter’s atmosphere for the first time, revealing that Europa’s icy surface produces less oxygen than previously thought. Europa has an ocean below its icy surface with twice the amount of water as Earth’s oceans and an ocean floor in contact with rock, enabling chemical water-rock interactions that produce […] Written by Andrew Coates March 7, 2024March 7, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Halo Effect Key Takeaway: A recent study suggests that the “halo effect” is more complicated than previously thought, as attractive people may receive more help from strangers, higher wages, and more job opportunities. This can lead to more favorable treatment in life, such as lighter prison sentences. However, in court, jurors show biases, and more attractive defendants […] Written by Robin Kramer March 6, 2024March 6, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Secrets Of The Queen Bee Key Takeaway: Bees, including honey bees, are important pollinators of many crops and plants. However, most bees do not have queens, and most live without them. Instead, a single female lays eggs in a simple nest, providing pollen and nectar. Bees have a social structure with thousands of workers who support the queen. Bee queens […] Written by Phil Starks March 5, 2024March 5, 2024 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