Once again about interesting articles. The best stuff is – thick.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/opinion/sunday/the-next-genocide.html
They write about how some developed countries are now dangerously close to the limit of twisting the worldview of their citizens in such a way, as if there won't be enough resources for everyone without a war, or simply not giving a damn about the consequences of exploiting the planet. China doesn't have enough food, the US emits too many greenhouse gases, and Russia gleefully watches the impending collapse of the EU over the refugees. This is very similar to how Hitler acted when he was stoking hatred and pro-war sentiments.
Overall – quite convincing, although in reality the topic is eternal: pulling the emotional strings of the population, sowing panic and terror, laying it on thicker with made-up external enemies, threats of famine, and other disasters. Hitler or no Hitler, all states have always done this, do it now, and will keep doing it. Take Europe, for instance: some countries are trying to help refugees, and yet people immediately look for some hidden agenda and a cunning plan in their actions. Maybe it's actually true, but what if Europe still just wants to let the refugees in out of humanism? That would be badass, something to be proud of, seeing how far humanity has come.
2.https://99u.com/articles/51908/nobody-cares-how-hard-you-work
About a curious cognitive bias: people think that hard work and exhaustion=a job well done. Which in reality might be completely not the case: a pro can, with a single decision based on knowledge or experience, save weeks, if not months of work.
They give the advice to do the important stuff first, and not to assume that it's important to resolve every little thing and reply to every single email.
In America and northern Europe, the roots of the Effort Trap may well lie in the “Protestant work ethic,” the old Calvinist idea that being a hard worker was evidence that you’d been pre-selected for Heaven. To reach creativity heaven, though, you’ll need a different approach—one that prioritizes doing the right things, not just lots of things.
It's hard to live with the Protestant ethic, and it's no fun.
A long read in Russian about why and what for Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Curious, but more speculative than practical.
4.https://cosmos.dirty.ru/elementarnye-chastitsy-na-paltsakh-tm-859814/
About elementary particles in layman's terms. A bit hard to grasp in places, but if you want to know at least something about the foundations of our world, the depth of depths and the basis of bases, it's worth reading.
5.https://birdinflight.com/ru/mir/kuda-uplyli-somalijskie-piraty.html
An incredibly interesting article on why they don't talk on TV anymore about the high-profile ship hijackings by Somali pirates. Better read it yourselves, to retell it - is to miss the beauty and the numbers.
A story in Russian about how the brakes failed on the new Party Volgas in the USSR, on four of them at once, and what the cause was. And we programmers live like this our whole lives, by the way.
7. https://leprosorium.dirty.ru/ikh-nravy-846344/
The story (in Russian) of the idiom sale hard unexpectedly originating from the name of a Russian city.
8. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/zig-zag-zen_55c3c6f6e4b0d9b743db81d5
How Buddhism and psychedelics are connected (substances like psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and mescaline from the peyote cactus). "Psychedelic" in Greek means “soul-manifesting”, and I've long suspected something exactly like this:
For a lot of people, psychedelics are sort of a “gateway drug” that leads them to Buddhism. How do people describe these initial experiences that lead them to a Dharma practice?
What a lot of people will say is that they took a psychedelic journey, and they reached a place that was extremely beautiful and special and had a non-dual character; that the whole world made sense to them and was integrated; that they were integrated with the world; that everything was alive. People describe these almost oceanic feelings of joy and connection. They don’t want to have a practice that involves a chemical dependency so they look for ways to kindle that feeling again in a more sustainable way.
Meaning, people eat such substances, experience a mystical or spiritual trip of incredible power, and then think: “And how could we get this in everyday life?”
The answer is known – an hour of meditation in the morning and an hour in the evening (c)
A long and interesting article about how people have stopped valuing music, because it's too accessible and is no longer considered a value, but just a cheap thrill. It resonates with my favorite topic about the slow life movement, even though it smacks of another angle that I find suspicious – material fetishism. Vinyl is cool because you stare at it and share it with friends! You can share Spotify too, and stare at the musician's page online, on Wikipedia, read interviews. The internet doesn't hinder this, but only helps you to stare better and more thoughtfully. So the issue isn't in virtuality, but in the people, who are currently tuned by technology not toward what's good for the soul.
Here, for example, about my favorite festival Skaņu Mežs you could apply this quote
Why so many are satisfied to engage with music at only the level of feeling is a vast, impoverishing mystery.
By the way, there's an article about this in Russian too, resonates quite a bit. https://web.archive.org/web/20250705161249/https://paperpaper.ru/semelyak/
And what's even more surprising, there is a similar article about books, no less big and interesting. About how digital means of providing content are more convenient, but less deep, since manufacturers like Amazon aren't working on perfecting them, while physical books are now more beautiful and intricate than ever.
As our hardware has grown more powerful and our screens more capable, our book-reading software has largely stagnated
Stay tuned!