The reading collection
Psychology, geopolitics, philosophy—and everything in between.
373 readings · 361–372
Chapter 5: The Age of Show Business The supra-ideology for all television conversation is entertainment. No matter what is depicted, the main presumption is that it is there for our amusement and pleasure.
In Individuation and Narcissism, Mario Jacoby starts by recalling Ovid’s tale of Narcissus, he then explains the differences between the great psychoanalytic thinkers of our time, including Freud, Jung, Neumann,…
Henry Ford wanted to build a V6 engine. His engineers told him it was impossible, but he was relentless. He told them to get to work anyway, and so they did. A year later, there was no progress, the engineers again…
Rhonda Patrick has worked alongside Bruce Ames, the 23rd most cited scientist across all fields between 1973 and 1984. She conducts antiaging research and published papers on a mechanism by which vitamin D regulates…
An intolerant minority will set the rules for everyone else. People in the U.S eat Kosher food not because most of the U.S is Jewish, but because non-Jews tolerate Kosher while Jews don’t tolerate non-Kosher. This…
Amelia Boone has been called “the Michael Jordan of obstacle course racing” (OCR) and is considered the world’s most decorated obstacle racer.
In Language and Mind*, Chomsky argues that all human languages share a core set of grammatical rules. He also posits that language acquisition is largely determined by innate factors. The book had a major impact on…
In The Triumph of the Therapeutic* (1966), Rieff describes modern society as completely different from the past. Previously, society was marked by “religious man” – and then, many centuries later, by “economic man”,…
We live in a time when easy answers are given to complex questions about man’s purpose in life. Embedded in every society is a hero system.
Connectome* To what extent can experiments in a laboratory inform us about the human mind? The replication crisis in the social sciences suggest the answer is “to some extent” but not much more.
In The Psychology of Revolution*, Gustave Le Bon says that belief is unconscious and uninfluenced by reason. The revolution is the work of believers. It is hated by some and praised by others, and is a dogma that is…
If you’re looking for a house to buy, or you want to hire an employee, when should you stop searching? The rational answer would be to consider all options available, and then, by going through all the data, to…