Brian Christian, from The Most Human Human: “Nothing is more dispiriting than ‘And they all lived happily ever after,’ which means, in information entropy terms, ‘And then nothing interesting or noteworthy ever happened to them again for the rest of their lives.’” There’s a pull in all of us towards ‘happily ever after’. The idea […]
How to Chip Away at Your List of Necessities
I’ve just completed my first full week without electricity. And the experience has made me think about all the things in life we supposedly need. We each have a list of necessities, things in life no decent human should be without. Some of these are imposed by society, others we impose on ourselves. However, the […]
Work, Retire… Then You Die.
“The years go by faster as you get older.” This is a piece of experience I’ve often heard from people who have more years than myself. The idea being that, as you get older, your lifestyle becomes more fixed. Going from 17 to 21 is a much bigger change than 40 to 44. Does it […]