If you are told to picture someone who is lonely, depressed, unable to keep up with technology, dependent, forgetful, physically weak – you may imagine an older person. But many of these perceptions are false. Our impressions of the elderly are cystalized at a young age. In Snow White, one of the seven dwarves, “Grumpy”, … Read more
The idea of the midlife crisis is so prevalent that there are internet sites and businesses that are built for the purpose of mitigating it. The Midlife Club and LifeLaunch through the Hudson institute are examples. We all know what a midlife crisis is through popular culture. In American Beauty (1999), Kevin Spacey quits his … Read more
Background Freud is the author of several influential books including Civilization and its Discontents and Totem &Taboo. But he was a medical doctor, not a psychologist. This explains the controversy around his ideas. But he was the first to systematically study the unconscious. His ideas led to the Neo-Freudians (Jung, Horney, Adler, Erikson). id, ego, … Read more
The Trade-off of the 21st Century “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” Brave New World, Aldous Huxley In his book, Homo Deus, Harari discusses the trade-off between power and meaning, essentially saying that in the 21st century, … Read more
Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo is a book that explores the origins of human morality and religion. Freud argues that the primitive societies of the past were organized around a totem, or a sacred object, which was the focus of religious rituals and taboos. He suggests that these taboos were created to protect the totem … Read more
Summary In Homo Deus, Harari brings up many of the same ideas that he discussed in Sapiens – including crediting our success as a species to our ability to communicate and believe stories efficiently. But after transcending our primordial roots, our ambitions have grown. Today, the conversation about attaining immortality is not speculation, but a … Read more
Dataism says that everything consists of data flows and the value of any phenomenon or entity is determined by its contribution to data processing. This is not a new idea. Since Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, scientists have seen organisms as biochemical algorithms. And since the Turing Machine, computer scientists have learned to assemble … Read more
The most interesting place in the world from a religious perspective is Silicon Valley, that’s where the promises of salvation through algorithms and genes are. There are two main techno religions, techno-humanism and data religion. Data religion argues that humans have finished their cosmic task and should now make way for new kinds of entities. … Read more
Liberals promote free markets and democratic elections because they believe that individuals are unique and valuable, who’s free choices are the source of authority. In this century, we will see three practical developments that will nullify this belief. 1. Humans will lose military and economic usefulness. The economic and political system will not value them … Read more
Liberalism is like any other religion; in that it is based on factual statements that aren’t scientifically sound. One belief is that voters and buyers do not make their decisions randomly, liberalism acknowledges the existence of external influences but thinks that people ultimately make up their own minds freely. Free Will is an Illusion But … Read more