That's Interesting
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Intertemporal Empathy Decline: Feeling Less Distress for Future Others’ Suffering
26th August, 2024The present actions of individuals and society at large can cause outsized consequences on future generations’ quality of life. This article demonstrates evidence of an intertemporal empathy decline such that people feel less empathy toward another person’s suffering in the future compared to the present despite predicting that the same amount of pain would be felt.
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David Lynch Explains Why Depression Is the Enemy of Creativity–and Why Meditation Is the Solution
23rd May, 2024As David Lynch sees it, “the more you suffer, the less you want to create. If you’re truly depressed, they say, you can’t even get out of bed, let alone create.” This relationship between mental state and creativity is a subject he’s addressed over and over again.
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Why loneliness is bad for your health
14th April, 2024A lack of social interaction is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and more. Researchers are unpicking how the brain mediates these effects.
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The Real Magic of Rituals
08th December, 2022We might call them superstitions or spells, but they genuinely drum anxiety away.
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The Midlife Crisis
14th September, 2022This paper documents a longitudinal crisis of midlife among the inhabitants of rich nations. Yet middle-aged citizens in our data sets are close to their peak earnings, have typically experienced little or no illness, reside in some of the safest countries in the world, and live in the most prosperous era in human history. This is paradoxical and troubling.
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Peanuts and Cracker Jack
24th July, 2017NPR Planet Money #700: Beer. Water. Pretzels. It takes effort, strategy, and some serious lungs to sell expensive junk food at a baseball game. Meet the hot dog vending legend of Fenway P
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The CIA’s Style Manual & Writer’s Guide: 185 Pages of Tips for Writing Like a Spook
24th July, 2017Along with toppling democratically elected governments, funneling money illegally to dubious political groups and producing pornographic movies about heads of state, the Central Intelligence Agency has also been fiendishly good at manipulating language. After all, this is the organization that made “waterboarding” seem much more acceptable, at least to the Washington elite, by rebranding it as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Another CIA turn of phrase, “extraordinary rendition,” sounds so much better to the ear than “illegal kidnapping and torture.” Not too long ago, the CIA’s style guide, called the Style Manual and Writers Guide for Intelligence Publications, was posted online. “Good intelligence depends in large measure on clear, concise writing,” writes Fran Moore, Director of Intelligence in the foreword. And considering the agency’s deftness with the written word, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s remarkably good.
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