wisdom, understanding, and knowledge........

 

Do not be envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them.

2.  For their minds devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble.

3.  By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established.

4.  And by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

-The Holy Bible, Proverbs 24:1-4

conquer the need..................

 

     The next time you face a political dispute or a personal disagreement, ask yourself: Is there any reason to fight about this?  Is arguing going to help solve anything?  Would an educated or wise person really be as quarrelsome as you might initially be inclined to be?  Or would they take a breath, relax, and resist the temptation for conflict?  Just think of what you could accomplish—and how much better you would feel—if you could conquer the need to fight and win every tiny little thing.

-Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

enmeshed...........................

 

We do ourselves a disservice when we think of human beings as exclusively logic—or knowledge—driven,  and fail to pay attention to the role of emotions.  The two systems are enmeshed because that is the way our brain and our organism have been put together by evolution. . . .

Emotions and feelings are not a luxury; they are a means of communicating our states of mind to others.  But they are also a way of guiding our own judgments and decisions.  Emotions bring the body into the loop of reason.

-Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

surveillance capitalism..............

 

Technology was an exciting tool we could use to make our lives better.  But instead of humans using technology as a tool, it now wants to use us as a tool to harvest and sell the data it reaps from us to the highest bidder, which has enormous market value.

     The partnership between technology and Wall Street sees humans as a profit-making venture for investors to "make a killing" and become unicorn billionaires.  Many of us, however, are now having second thoughts about all the "surveillance capitalism" operating in our lives.  We're not comfortable with Google tracking our every move, Facebook's outsized role in influencing politics, X's propensity to divide us into extreme camps, Instagram's effect on mental health and body-conscious concerns, and TikTok's ability to monetize our attention and shape our opinions . . .

-Kevin Ervin Kelley, Irreplaceable:  How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

I never seem to be reading..............................

..................................what Tyler Cowen reads.

Facts can be elusive, but......................

 

...........if you are interested in the goings on at the various hot spots around the world, do yourself a favor and visit the Institute for the Study of War.